politics

Which Senate Candidate will be Best for the Earth?

Will you vote on March 5th 2024 for Nature? How? It is a good time to do some research, ask some questions of candidates, and prepare to be an informed citizen when you cast your vote.

Situation Description – The Upcoming Election

There is a wide field of candidates running to be our Federal Senate representative. Senators are a Big Deal. Once elected, they can stay a long time in the office and there are many fewer of them than House representatives, so they are more powerful as individuals. As I often say in this column: I hope you cast your vote with careful consideration of the environmental platform of the candidates.

Three candidates stand out as particularly interesting in the lineup: Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff. Things are a little odd this election because we are voting twice for this same Senate seat. The first vote is the PRIMARY for the full, 6-year term for senator. The top two vote getters will be the ones we get to choose between in November. The second vote we cast for senator is for someone to serve just until January 3, 2025, when Diane Feinstein’s term would have ended. They say that these types of things cause voter confusion and errors. Seems simple enough…

A Brief History

The seat up for election is the seat that Diane Feinstein had held for 31 years until her death while in office, 1992-2023. After Senator Feinstein died, Governor Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler to the position; Senator Butler is not running this election for that seat. This is the first time that the seat has been opened for an election since 1982, when Pete Wilson won it from Mill Valley’s Samuel Hayakawa. Pete, you’ll recall, went on to become the State’s Governor, setting up a situation that made it possible for Diane Feinstein to win the special election to finish his term. Once ensconced, it is difficult to unseat a Senator. (Some argue for term limits, but I can’t agree, preferring folks who get good at their work to stay put and do that well-practiced job even better for those they represent.)

Vote for the Environment!

Ask yourself if you know one single thing about the environmental voting record of…Diane Feinstein….Adam Schiff….Barbara Lee….or Katie Porter. I highly recommend the VoteSmart website to examine environmental voting records, endorsement ratings (many years back), and records of top funders. In short, Diane Feinstein scores higher than any other candidate trying to take her place on environmental issues, and she had a long record to chart.

When you examine ratings by the various environmental groups, think about who they are. I look to two organizations in particular: the Center for Biological Diversity Fund and the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. These two organizations have not been corrupted by the Outdoor Industry Association and their ilk, as have so many other so-called environmental organizations. Too many ‘environmental’ groups are professing that all of nature’s problems are best solved by e-bikes and unbridled public access to every square inch of conservation land; the passionate people in these movements frequently overlook the central importance of species conservation to life on Earth.

A Common Voter Conundrum

We often look to polls to determine who is the ‘most electable’ before casting our vote. We want to be on the winning side. The problem is that even those who are being polled are influenced by the media portrayal of who is most electable, but where does the media get that information? Inch by inch, voters gravitate towards who they feel others would vote for, not who they prefer. The result is that people get elected who weren’t the heartfelt choice of the majority of voters. How sad!

Environmental Records, Compared

Of the three candidates I’m discussing, Adam Schiff’s environmental voting record is the worst, Barbara Lee’s the best, and Katie Porter in between. Adam Schiff’s environmental voting record is different from the other two candidates with one recent vote in particular: he voted ‘no’ on legislation (Save Oak Flat from Foreign Mining Act) that would have blocked a Trump-era midnight deal that transferred sacred Native American land from the US Forest Service to a foreign-owned mining corporation. Why Representative Schiff thought it was a good idea to vote in favor of one of Trump’s corporate, anti-nature blunders is dumbfounding. Barbara Lee and Katie Porter both knew better.

However, all three candidates refused to co-sponsor the Keep it in the Ground Act of 2021. That legislation would prohibit further oil exploration of the outer continental shelf and would stop our friends at BLM from issuing, renewing, reinstating, or extending any onshore fossil fuel leases that are not now productive. So, you can see that all three candidates are somehow firmly in the court of the Oilogarchy, as are so many politicians….all of whom are driving species to extinction by heating the planet.

The Endorsements That Matter

The Center for Biological Diversity and its associated Action Fund align fairly well with my values, and their website has easy-to-navigate comparisons of the candidates, so that you can see why the Center endorses Barbara Lee and not the other two.

Other endorsements are interesting. For instance, it is very interesting, given the contrasts that I outlined above, that the Sierra Club has failed to endorse one of the candidates for this Senate seat. Another group I follow is the League of Conservation Voters; again, given the contrasting votes outlined above, it is interesting to see that the three candidates are given pretty much identical scorecards.

Ask! Look!

What they say is as important as what they don’t say. Check out Adam Schiff’s website and you’ll see in BIG BOLD LETTERS the heading “PROTECTING WILDERNESS LANDS AND PRESERVING ENDANGERED WILDLIFE” – and then a big fat nothing about endangered species in the words below. You must dig a lot to find something, anywhere with anything he has done to protect endangered wildlife. Good luck finding any legislation that he originated that addresses the many shortfalls of species protection. Barbara Lee’s website contains this statement in favor of keeping the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as it is, which harkens back to the first answer I ever got from a candidate on this subject. When I asked their campaigns about their endangered species platforms, Obama’s staff wrote back to me that he wanted to keep the ESA as it was whereas Hillary Clinton’s staff wrote me and said merely that she opposed drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Barbara Lee’s website mentions the problematic theme that she “is committed to protecting endangered animals and preserving and increasing public access to our national parks and public lands.” Increasing access??!! That’s a coded nod to the Outdoor Industry Association and their lackies who are trying to turn our parks into playgrounds to the detriment of wildlife.

You can view a moving video of Katie Porter speaking eloquently about the need to pass the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act of 2023; Ms. Porter is on the House Natural Resources Committee, which suggests her passion for, and knowledge about, environmental matters.

I hope you’ll spend a little bit of time following this course of questioning and even drop a line to the Senatorial candidates asking them about their positions on the environment, and species conservation specifically. Those things make a difference. And, hopefully, you’ll be casting your vote for the environment in this coming election!

-this column originally appeared as part of Bruce Bratton’s BrattonOnline.com blog – check it out!

Politician’s Community Surveys

Praises to the people and groups who reach out to invite community engagement through surveys. At the same time, I’m begging for the wealth of the Bay Area’s social scientists to help whoever is creating these surveys.

District 28, Gail Pellerin’s, Community Survey

Here is a link to a blank copy of the survey for reference after the live survey disappears. And, here is the link to the live survey. Fill it out only if you reside in California Assembly District 28, Gail Pellerin’s territory. The deadline is December 15^th 2023.

Who is Gail Pellerin?

The following is Assemblymember Pellerin’s biography, from her website:

Assemblymember Gail Pellerin was elected to the California State Assembly in November of 2022 to represent the 28th Assembly District.

Assemblymember Pellerin served as the chief elections official in Santa Cruz County from 1993 until her retirement in December 2020. Gail served as President of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials from 2010 to 2012 and as co-chair of the Secretary of State’s Voting Accessibility Advisory Committee.

Gail has a BS in Journalism from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Before her experience in public service, Gail worked as a campaign assistant to political campaigns, a newspaper reporter and photographer, and a community college instructor.

Proper Survey Methodology

The first thing I instruct anyone who is creating a survey meant to inform their work is: assure that the answers are precise enough to inform your actions. Read the survey carefully with that in mind. Will Assemblymember Pellerin take the issues with the highest votes and focus effort there? Or will Pellerin use the responses to formulate a better election platform? Her next bid for election is November 2024. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

The next thing I tell anyone who is creating a survey is: tell the respondents what you will do with their data.

Neither the survey I posted last week, nor this current survey have anything definitive about how your answers might affect anything. This is a recipe for a low response rate and lowered community confidence in public process, in general. Ostensibly, public engagement surveys are created for just that: to engage the public. Surveys can not only gather information, but they can inform the public about what’s happening.

Another thing I tell survey design folks is to edit their surveys. The mix of words that are capitalized and not is distracting and further leaves intelligent respondents less than hopeful about the outcome of their time filling out the survey.

What to do with “Other?”

Most survey choices don’t reflect my proclivities, but sometimes there’s an ‘other’ choice- where I can fill in my non-conforming response. I get stuck there: if I have a non-conforming response, does that mean that it will be discarded, or will someone take the time to collate all such responses into trends? How to I pose my ‘other’ response such that it will blend with anyone else’s similar answer, so that together we make a bigger impact? Should I take the time to organize a lot of people in my District to fill in the ‘other’ category so that the Assemblymember pays attention?

I hope someone who designs these surveys lets me know, or, better, that future surveys guide respondents better.

First Question: What is Our Community’s Greatest Need?

The first question, “what is the greatest need facing your community,” is an interesting one. The question challenges the respondent to think of themselves as part of a greater community. This is laudable, encouraging civic thought along the lines of ‘what issue can an Assemblymember address that can cause the greatest good for the greatest number of my community?’ It follows that Pellerin chose the list from which the respondent can choose based on a feasibility analysis, but the survey does not clarify. The most important common human need is to reduce greed, as evidenced by income disparity in our community, and all the issues listed have root causes in that arena. Alas, addressing that need must be beyond feasibility.

With this question, I struggled with the previously mentioned “other” box. My base philosophy is that my community’s greatest need is environmental stewardship: we need all species, and we can do a lot locally to help that need. However, the survey offers the choice ‘Additional Park/Open Space,’ which doesn’t quite work. I almost wrote ‘species conservation’ in the ‘other’ box, but chose that ‘conforming’ answer just to be safe.

Question 3: Housing Nonsense

Check it out: the survey says to ‘check all that apply’ as ‘most needed.’ There’s a logical error inherent in that, right? There are undoubtedly statistics about this, and really this is a question for experts…very few civically engaged people would know how to answer this, but again it’s a laudable exercise to engage our community in the question. And, the informational aspect of the question again poses interesting contrasts. For instance, you can vote for “Middle income/moderate-density housing” versus “low income housing” or “senior housing,” suggesting low income housing or senior housing will be anything but moderate density. That is, suck it up low income people and seniors – you’re going to have to live in packed-in spaces. Interestingly, single family housing stands alone among the other choices that reflect income, age status, or density; so, medium or high density housing and housing for low income or seniors apparently also isn’t in the cards for stand-alone homes. Very informative!

Current Legislation

The final question, weighing in on expanding on someone’s list of current legislative priorities, is also enlightening. This question also says ‘check all that apply.’ I would assume any thinking person would check the box ‘combating climate change.’ Beyond that…isn’t it interesting what the Assemblymember has chosen as the menu? This is where the ‘other’ box becomes especially enticing.

Quick! Fill in the survey if you are in District 28!! And, use the survey’s design and information as you cogitate on your vote next November.

-this column originally appeared in Bruce Bratton’s highly enlightening BrattonOnline.com weekly blog- THE PLACE to get the skinny on all that’s worth pondering around California’s Monterey Bay. Sign up for automatic delivery and donate to help keep it going as often as you feel inspired.

Gail Pellerin’s 2023 District 28 Community Survey

district-28-community-survey_pellerin_2023 Download

Grey Hayes

Reindigenation through restoration and conservation