June 3, 2008 California Primary Will Be Very Important for the Environment

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Susan Smartt
Executive Director of the California League of Conservation Voters

Super Tuesday and the political excitement generated by the February presidential primary has passed, and most Californians, particularly those who care about the environment, are looking ahead to the November presidential elections. Indeed, the inertia and environmental backsliding by the Bush Administration over the last seven years give environmentally-minded Californians including the folks at the California League of Conservation (CLCV) good reason to look ahead (see http://ecovote.org/heat/). However, if you care about issues like global warming, sprawl, protecting the coast or the quality of the air that you’re breathing as you read this, you should join CLCV in treating the June 3rd primary with the same urgency as the November election.

Many of the nation’s landmark environmental laws were first written and passed by the California legislature. And, as happens every two years, a third of the legislature will lose their jobs in the fall. California has led the nation in environmental protection for decades. Coastal protection, air quality, and climate change (to name just a few) laws written in the California legislature set the standard for the nation and the world. In stunning contrast to the inaction in Washington, California has acted.

Each groundbreaking measure has meant a struggle with well-organized and better funded special interest opposition. Often, as with the recent landmark climate change bill AB 32, success is measured by a margin of just one vote. Relentlessly, with each new election cycle important bill authors, key committee chairs and legislative members lose their jobs. Each spring, the struggle to find a legislative majority for the environment starts anew. Safe-for-one-party legislative districts mean, in most cases, that the primary election determines who will be the new Assembly Member or Senator. Low voter participation in primaries offers special interest groups with lots of money and bad intentions a real opportunity to elect legislators more beholden to their rather than the public’s interests.

Sandwiched as it is between a highly anticipated presidential primary and the pay-off November election, the 2008 state primary will be the forgotten child. Yet 39 of the 120 seats in the Assembly and Senate are up for grabs. Fabian Nunez, co-author of AB 32 will be gone. Don Perata, who engineered the one vote victory in the Senate for AB 32 will be gone. While most voters are focused on the fall election, just a handful of votes will, for all practical purposes, elect their replacement in the spring.