🚀 go-pugleaf

Dwight U. Bartholomew <dwight@infrared.csc.ti.com> wrote:

DB>As a Sierra Club member who doesn't live in California (I'm in Texas)
DB>I second Dan's remarks that the SC endorses candidates based both on
DB>their environmental record and rhetoric.  It is an unforunate shame
DB>that in this part of the country (atleast) environmental issues
DB>are partisan issues which is why the SC endorses mostly Dem. candidates.
DB>Perhaps in Mark's area of the country the same situation occurs.  
DB>You tell me.

I see no reason why a such a strong correlation should exist in 
Virginia between environmentalists and Democrats. First of all, 
environmental issues are not really big here. It's a fairly clean state, 
and I can't recall a single environmental issue that made big news here 
in the nine years I've been a resident. Second, two of Virginia's largest  
demographic groups of Democrats are blacks and hillbillies--neither of 
which are any more interested in the environment than rural white 
Republicans.

I worked up the average 1994 ratings by the League of Conservation Voters 
for the Democratic congressional delegations of some states. 

       CA=82; CO=84; OR=94; TX=45; VA=55;   (out of 100)

The Republicans were too low to bother with, but the VA Rs were higher
than in the other states. If you take into account how many times these
congressmen walk into the chamber and look to the whip or their staff to 
tell them "YES" or "NO" on a bill, without really considering it them-
selves, the environmental voting records of Virginia and Texas Democrats 
gets a little less than stellar. 

You are probably being naive if you think the Texas Sierra Club is doing 
deep, thorough investigations into the candidate's environmental views
before handing out endorsements. Their strategy is probably to simply go 
straight-ticket Dem in the hope the Dems who don't care about environmental 
issues, one way or the other, will simply vote the party line. An 
acceptable strategy for a special interest group, IMO, but let's call it 
what it is--"partisanship." If you care about some high-minded integrity 
in Texas SC endorsements, then you might suggest to them that they withhold 
endorsements next year from these Texas Democrats:

Chapman (LCV score=24), Wilson (38), Hall (22), Edwards (33), Geren (17),
Laughlin (27), Stenholm (17), Ortiz (33), Tejeda (33)

DB>I'm sure they had a reason for opposing Prop. 187.  Rather than
DB>Boldly Speculate about that reason, why don't you find out?

That's why I'm yakking about it on talk.environment.
 
>> See those quotation marks in my post--beginning with "she's the 
>>daughter..?" That means I'm quoting someone or something. In this case, 
>>it's the chapter's newsletter. Of course, I could be making it up, as 
>>you say.

DB>That's an interesting quote.  It sounds to me that someone writing that
DB>newsletter was being stupidly glib.  I only hope that there was more
DB>to the anti-endorsement than who was her father.

That's about all they said, though "glib" is probably the right description. 
Nonetheless, I would be pleased to see more outrage.

Mark Gahler