The Massachusetts Sierra Club has endorsed the following candidates in their State Representative and Senate races:
REPRESENTATIVES (Alphabetical by Last Name)
Atkins, Cory – Middlesex, 14th
Balser, Ruth – Middlesex, 12th
Benson, Jennifer – Middlesex, 37th
Brownsberger, William – Middlesex, 24th
Clark, Katherine – Middlesex, 32nd
Conroy, Thomas – Middlesex, 13th
D’Amico, Steven – Bristol, 4th
Dean Campbell – Linda, Essex, 15th
Dykema, Carolyn – Middlesex, 8th
Ehrlich, Lori – Essex, 8th
Falzone, Mark – Essex, 9th
Grant, Mary – Essex, 6th
Guyer, Denis – Berkshire, 2nd
Hecht, Jonathan – Middlesex, 29th
Honan, Kevin – Suffolk, 17th
Jackson, Kate, -Bristol, 2nd
Kaufman, Jay – Middlesex, 15th
Khan, Kay – Middlesex, 11th
Kocot, Peter – Hampshire, 1st
Kulik, Stephen – Franklin, 1st
Lewis, Jason – Middlesex, 31st
Mae Allen, Willie, Suffolk, 6th
Natale, Patrick – Middlesex, 30th
Naughton, Harold – Worcester, 12th
O’Day, James – Worcester, 14th
Patrick, Matthew – Barnstable, 3rd
Peake, Sarah – Barnstable, 4th
Peisch, Alice – Norfolk, 14th
Provost, Denise – Middlesex, 27th
Richardson, Pam – Middlesex, 6th
Rushing, Byron – Suffolk, 9th
Scibak, John – Hampshire, 2nd
Sciortino, Carl – Middlesex, 34th
Smizik, Frank – Norfolk, 15th
Story, Ellen – Hampshire, 3rd
Sturgis, Ellen – Middlesex, 3rd
Swan, Benjamin – Hampden, 11th
Toomey, Timothy, Middlesex, 26th
Turner, Cleon – Barnstable, 1st
Verga, Anthony – Essex, 5th
Walz, Martha – Suffolk, 8th
Wolf, Alice – Middlesex, 25th
SENATORS (Alphabetical by Last Name)
Chandler, Harriette – First Worcester
Creem, Cynthia – First Middlesex & Norfolk
Downing, Benjamin – Berkshire, Hampshire & Franklin
Eldridge, James – Middlesex & Worcester
Fargo, Susan – Third Middlesex
Flanagan, Jen – Worcester & Middlesex
Jehlen, Patricia – Second Middlesex
Montigny, Mark – Second Bristol & Plymouth
Orozco, Sara – Norfolk, Bristol & Middlesex
Pacheco, Marc – First Plymouth & Bristol
Spilka, Karen – Second Middlesex & Norfolk
I would think the Sierra Club would have many more legislators in agreement with it on most issues. What are the issues and positions that make these reps and senators deserving of your endorsement and not others.
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p>Just curious.
The Sierra Club’s endorsement process is long and involved but is pretty well summed-up on the political page where it says:
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What are the specific policies and legislation that the Sierra Club and the endorsed candidates favor yet not supported by all the members.
Sorry, here are more specifics:
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p>Some of the specific issues the Sierra Club political committee looks at include:
Mass Transit,
transportation in general,
oceans protection,
open space protection,
Article 97 issues,
recycling/expanded bottle bill,
off road vehicles,
funding for environmental programs,
marine mammals (right whale),
energy consumption/conservation,
alternative energy,
environmental justice, etc.
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p>Also just to be clear (getting to your point above), the Sierra Club obviously hopes candidates will agree with us more often than not, but the Sierra Club does endorse candidates we disagree with on some issues.
what are the positions regarding those issues that get some politicians Sierra Club endorsements and not others?
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p>What are the specific details of some proposals that do not yet have the support of the majority of legislators.
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p>for instance what are the specific details of the policies the Sierra Club and the endorsed candidates favor regarding enviornmental justice, mass transit?
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p>Is there a link where one can get this information?
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p>Thank you.
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p>I will hang up and listen to your answer on air.
Ernie likes to send people scurrying from more, ever more information. And it will never be enough. If he were truly interested, he’d contact Sierra Club directly.
What are the details?
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p>Is that asking too much?
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p>What do they want?
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p>Just saying they are for the enviornment says little.
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p>Obviuously everyone does not agree with them.
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p>What specifically do they want?
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p>I guess all you BMgers need is flowery bullshit.
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p>I, on the other hand, believe in critical thinking. isn’t that what we want are children to learn?
What are they afraid of?
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p>I know Sierra club is a member of Masss Alliance along with like minded political groups like the Democratic Socialists of America.
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p>Can’t they explain what specific policy changes they seek?
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p>Very Cult like if you ask me.
A mildly pro-environmental guy in a conservative district might be worth an endorsement whereas someone from Cambridge should drive a car made of bamboo — on the rare occasions she or he drives. The percentage approach (“with us 76% of the time!”) is misleading. The 76% could include votes that were all lop-sided so that the support was never critical. I’ve always thought it was oddly robotic to try to construct a kind of endorsement calculator into which one fed votes and out of which one read endorsements and non-endorsements.
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p>And yes, that may mean that the fussy sorts people that earn EB3’s mockery get undue influence. Actual socialists, too.
Ernie, I’m not sure where you get off saying that the Sierra Club is afraid of something other than lack of action to protect the environment.
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p>If you’re looking for where the Club stands on various environmental issues that is pretty easy – look at the website or read the papers.
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p>If you’re looking for specific stances on some of the items listed above, that should be fairly obvious. As an environmental organization the Sierra Club supports and fights for environmental justice rather than against it. Where does the Sierra Club stand on protecting open space? The Club supports it. Oceans protection? The Club likes that too. Alternative energy is an entirely different ball game. Oh wait, no, we support that too.
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p>Calling the Sierra Club a cult is childish and petty. If you consider things like the clean air act, the clean water act, national parks and similar items (several signed into law by that cultish liberal Richard Nixon) then I can only say that we’ll need to agree to disagree.
On What? You have said little.
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p>Pretend I was the Speaker of the House this past session and you came to see me. What do you want? What bills. And like any good lobbyest you will tell me, when asked, what the oppositions best argument is.
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p>If you can’t do that then I cannot agree or disagree with you.
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p>Then I can I agree or disagreew. But rigfht now you say little other than you are for good.
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p>i
What issues pieces of legislation did the Sierra Club strongly support this past session? What passes what didn’t? but did not
and
giving details
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p>and
constantly reminding members they are morally superior then non-members
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p>and
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p>C’mon Jeremy.
Reflecting on this a bit: Isn’t the moral superiority thing is inescapable? It’s like a hall of mirrors.
We disdain those who feel morally superior. How could they feel morally superior, those hypocritical, power-hungry whiners? Why we feel morally superior to them!
Isn’t this perhaps because almost all politics is a kind of moral battle where to have an opinion is have a moral stance. Social conservatives feel morally superior to those less righteous. Liberals feel morally superior to those unable to bring empathy to their politics. How these moral differences get expressed can be more or less obnoxious. It’s just unavoidable.
Essentially what I’m doing is explaining a joke on another thread.