Environmental Champions Advance to November General Election

 
Jun 4, 2014
By Jenesse Miller

Great news: Champions for California’s environment were successful in yesterday’s primary election!

With the support of our members, CLCV's endorsed candidates had a more than 95% success rate, despite the challenging dynamics of the “top-two” primary and a wall of money and negative campaigning by front groups for polluters and other powerful special interests. Once again, we proved that polluter’s dirty tricks and tactics were no match for our grassroots support of candidates who will lead California forward on clean air and water, renewable energy, protecting our wildlife and open spaces, and solutions to climate change.

In a significant environmental sweep of statewide contests, all of CLCV’s endorsed candidates for statewide office, including governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer, controller, secretary of state, insurance commissioner and superintendent of public instruction, appear to be headed to the November General Election. The race for controller is currently too close to call, but we are hopeful that former Assembly Speaker John Pérez, who is currently leading a tight race for second, will ultimately win a place on the November ballot.

Similarly, it appears that in every single Congressional contest race where CLCV made an endorsement, an environmental champion we supported will move forward and have a shot at winning this November. (Please keep checking our website for updated results).

We were also successful in the vast majority of the critical state Senate and Assembly contests. In Southern California, environmental justice leaders like Senator Kevin de León (our next Senate leader) and Holly Mitchell (who authored the statewide moratorium on fracking) will move forward, and we’re confident they’ll win their Senate races in November. We’re preparing for a tough General Election fight for several of Tuesday’s primary winners, including Assembly candidates Jacqui Irwin, Sharon Quirk-Silva, and Al Muratsuchi. Northern California candidates like Tim Sbranti for Assembly and Roger Dickinson for Senate prevailed and will advance, despite massive independent expenditures by special interests against them and on behalf of their opponents.

We're incredibly grateful to our members and other environmental advocates who made these victories possible. We celebrate today, but we’re also getting right back to work because we can’t spare a moment before what is sure to be a hard-fought general election in November.

Polluter interests will certainly more than double down to help their allies in dozens of close contests, because they have a lot at stake. After all, President Obama’s unveiling of a bold program to curb carbon emissions on Monday is based on California’s success in reducing emissions that contribute to climate change. Big Oil and their cronies would like nothing more than to stop California’s progress, and our nation’s progress, maintain the dirty energy status quo, and protect their bottom lines.

We’ve got to make sure the environment wins in November, in order to protect California’s environmental and climate leadership and our air, land and water for future generations. Stay tuned.

 

 
 
 

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