LCV: The League of Clinton Voters?
Why the League of Conservation Voters was wrong to endorse Hillary Clinton
A condensed and edited version of this story originally appeared on Grist.
On November 9th, the League of Conservation Voters took the unprecedented step of endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, after only one debate between the Democratic candidates and months before the first vote in the Democratic primaries will be cast. It’s far too early in this primary for the nation’s most powerful environmental political organization to endorse.
In 2004, LCV’s endorsement of John Kerry before the New Hampshire primary was unprecedented in its early timing, but at least came after Kerry’s strong victory in the Iowa caucuses.
There is no such defense today.
Furthermore, by LCV’s own metrics, Clinton has the weakest environmental record of the Democratic candidates. Bernie Sanders is the highest rated candidate in both the Climate Hawks Vote scorecard and the League of Conservation Voters scorecard. Martin O’Malley was the first, and so far the only candidate to release a comprehensive presidential climate agenda.
LCV is a very good political organization — one the best in the country working on any issue. The millions of dollars they raise and spend each year, the millions of voters they reach with a pro-climate message are a crucial bulwark against the radical Republican agenda. We know that their board, their staff and their members care deeply about environmental issues and solutions. Nine times out of ten, they do great work, but this time they grossly miscalculated.
THE IMPORTANCE OF A COMPETITIVE PRIMARY
In just a few months, Bernie’s issue-powered candidacy has done more to make Hillary a better candidate than all the rest of us in the climate movement. We are just at the start of a Democratic primary focused not on personalities and insults but on the issues the American people care about. We saw that clearly in the first debate, in which Bernie Sanders unequivocally stated that fossil-fueled global warming is the greatest national security threat we face, Martin O’Malley described his vision of a fossil-free America, and Hillary Clinton spoke passionately about her efforts to secure a deal out of the Copenhagen climate talks.
In the second debate, which came several days after LCV’s endorsement of Clinton, Sanders forcefully answered the only question on climate change, vigorously explaining how the destabilizing effects of climate change fuel international terrorism. Even though his statement is backed by the Pentagon and scientific research, Sanders came under attack not only from Republican climate deniers and right-wing media, but even Democratic operatives like David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Obama’s presidential campaigns. It is crucial that the climate movement ensure that our champions are defended from such attacks — something made more difficult by LCV’s endorsement of the weakest climate candidate.
Once every four years, the presidential election provides the American voter a chance to learn about the national issues we face and what we as a nation can do to address them. In the 2008 election, a hard-fought Democratic primary that included Hillary Clinton brought climate leadership to the fore, leading Barack Obama to move from a coal-friendly, soft-on-climate politician to an ambitious climate hawk. In the 2012 election, Obama and Mitt Romney stayed silent on climate change, leaving us ill-prepared as a nation for the devastation of Sandy. Now, in the 2016 campaign, we have an essential moment to determine whether we rise to the challenge of the climate crisis.
And what do we see?
The Republican clown-car primary is dominating our airtime with attacks on science bought and paid for by Exxon and the Koch brothers, supported by a corporate media that cares more about ratings than calling out the conspiracy theorists that the top Republican candidates are. The Republicans have scheduled twice as many debates as the Democrats, have five times as many candidates, and are bankrolled ten to one by fossil-fuel billionaires.
Now, at the very beginning of the Democratic primary — the nation’s foremost environmental politics organization, with a budget of tens of millions of dollars — is claiming the need for any further discussion of the environment or climate by the Democratic candidates is over. They’re saying that the environmental community is unified behind Hillary Clinton before a single vote has been cast.
We don’t know why LCV endorsed Clinton now. It’s certainly not the case that LCV needed to endorse Clinton in order to get a seat at the table with the Clinton campaign. Their leadership, which includes top Democratic Party donors, Clinton confidantes, and long-time allies, already has a standing invitation.
I’ll leave it to others to speculate what, in fact, motivated the LCV board to endorse Hillary Clinton. No matter the reasons — and the environmental community certainly deserve to learn more — LCV’s decision deprived them of a crucial chance to push her on climate through the primary. Furthermore, their decision made it harder for the rest of the environmental movement — for whom they claim to speak — to do so. They took away our leverage.
DOES CLINTON DESERVE THE CLIMATE ENDORSEMENT NOW?
Let’s be clear: Hillary Clinton, like Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, has the ability to be a powerful climate leader, unlike any of the corrupt and dangerous Republican candidates.
However, the reality of the climate crisis is uncompromising. Our challenge is to elect fierce, uncompromising climate hawks. LCV has declared Hillary Clinton the best, before any vote has been cast.
By LCV’s own metrics, Hillary Clinton has the weakest, most mixed record on climate and the environment of any of the three candidates. LCV’s rating of Sanders’ Senate record is 95; their rating of Clinton’s is 82. Their rating of O’Malley’s record as governor is A-/B+. Our scorecard found Sanders no. 1 on climate leadership in the 113th Congress because he’s been an outspoken voice on climate change.
As U.S. Senator, Sanders has had a consistent and effective record as a leading climate champion. As governor of Maryland, O’Malley fought for and won groundbreaking climate victories for his state.
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton promoted the internationalization of fracking and oversaw the State Department’s support for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In fact, under her watch the entire Keystone XL review process was outsourced to TransCanada contractors. The one major climate accomplishment she touts, the Copenhagen accords, is considered by the climate activists who were there to be a huge failure. Clinton is the only candidate with deep ties to the financiers and lobbyists of the fossil-fuel industry, on Wall Street and beyond.
There continue to be key differences among the candidates — particularly between the strong climate leadership of Sanders and O’Malley and the caution of Hillary Clinton.
Sanders has introduced the Keep It In The Ground Act, legislation that would put an end to fossil-fuel leases on public lands. Hillary Clinton supports the continued exploitation of our nation’s public carbon reserves. Sanders and O’Malley actively support the climate divestment movement, while Clinton — whose campaign and Super PAC accept funding by fracking investors and fossil-fuel industry lobbyists — has not taken a position.
In these opening days of the Democratic primary, we’ve been excited to see Clinton take stronger stands on behalf of the climate, coming closer to where Sanders and O’Malley already are. Her call for a major solar investment, exceeding previous Sanders legislation, is inspiring and greatly needed. The agreement of the candidates on the need for a federal investigation of ExxonMobil’s climate deception — an issue on which O’Malley led — is exciting.
We’re liking this primary.
It is clear that rank-and-file activists want to support a true climate champion, and if our democratic process is given time, the candidate that emerges from the Democratic primary will be one.
HOW LCV’s ENDORSEMENT THREATENS CLIMATE ACTION
The science of climate change is uncompromising. Carbon dioxide levels are passing 400 ppm, a mark not seen for three million years, far longer than the existence of the human race. It is unlikely that anyone now alive will see CO2 levels below 400 ppm ever again, even with aggressive global action. Fossil-fueled global warming is already wreaking billions of dollars of damage and devastation a year to the United States. To meet the climate target established by President Obama and Secretary Clinton at Copenhagen, we need to dismantle the fossil fuel economy starting today, and invest hundreds of billions of dollars in climate resilience.
This country and our planet needs a president who can lead us in a World War II-scale mobilization.
The League of Conservation Voters has done tremendous work to get us closer to that goal, including playing a key role in building the coalition to stop the construction of the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline. We are enthusiastic about working with LCV at the conclusion of the Democratic primary to elect a climate hawk up to this generational challenge as our next president.
At this early date, we don’t have a Democratic candidate who we can be confident will be elected that president. Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have articulated the urgency and a policy vision commensurate with the challenge, but they both have an uphill battle to win the Democratic nomination, a necessary precursor to becoming elected president. Hillary Clinton, while presently in a strong lead for the nomination, supports the continuation of the fossil-fuel industry into an unknown future.
It is the responsibility of organizations like the League of Conservation Voters to help guide the climate movement to electing the leaders we need—and use their power to push candidates into adopting the priorities of the climate movement. Instead, LCV has cut short the mobilizing process of democratic engagement and endorsed a candidate whose climate platform they know full well is insufficient for the scientific stakes.
HOW LCV’s ENDORSEMENT HURTS CLINTON
LCV’s premature endorsement of Hillary Clinton ill-serves the climate movement, but it is bad for the Hillary Clinton campaign?
What candidate wouldn’t want to get LCV’s multi-million-dollar electoral operation on board a year before the election?
But Hillary Clinton hasn’t done the work to earn the passionate support of the nation’s climate activists yet — and LCV’s rash decision makes it much more likely she never will. When November 2016 arrives, the Democratic nominee will be facing a battle-tested Republican who has spent months honing an anti-climate message that can mobilize an electoral army. Deep-pocketed oil, gas, and coal barons are pumping upwards of a billion dollars to ensure their radical agenda dominates the political discourse.
LCV has put out the call for climate hawks — for the entire environmental movement — to stand down until the general election.
Millions of Bernie Sanders and O’Malley supporters who care about climate and the environment—insulted and dismayed by LCV’s dismissal of their voices and votes—are now much more likely shun LCV’s call to action on behalf of Hillary Clinton, if she becomes the nominee. Millions of Hillary Clinton supporters who care about the climate and environment, made complacent by LCV’s endorsement, will fail to use their power to push Hillary to strengthen her climate agenda or cut her ties to the fossil-fuel industry.
Millions of grassroots dollars, millions of votes, millions of face-to-face conversations on the urgency of electing a climate-hawk president could be lost to the Clinton campaign because of LCV’s miscalculation.
WHAT CLIMATE HAWKS VOTE BELIEVES
Here at Climate Hawks Vote, we have differing opinions about our favorite candidate, and we’re constantly discussing and arguing about how to achieve our mission of electing the fierce climate hawks our nation needs. We have friends working for and volunteering for Bernie Sanders, for Hillary Clinton, for Martin O’Malley.
But we are in concert about our pragmatic approach to the Democratic primary as climate hawks who want to win in November 2016:
- Let our members and our metrics on climate leadership lead our decision-making
- Demand strong, specific, scientifically defensible, and just climate platforms from every candidate
- Support a fair and robust debate on climate among all candidates
- Call out the radical anti-science, anti-American fossil-fuel agenda of the Republicans
- Enthusiastically support the candidacy of the Democratic nominee in the general election
We have a practical, ambitious, and detailed plan for endorsing and electing climate hawks at all levels of government in 2016. We support candidates who clearly define themselves against their fossil-fueled opponents, and will work to ensure the best path to electoral victory. We draw a bright line against candidates that support the dominance of fossil-fueled politics, like Keystone XL backers Susan Collins and Kelly Ayotte.
We’re not naive about the power of the fossil-fuel industry.
Instead of attempting to appease the influence of the fossil-fuel industry through the politics of compromise, we work with our partners in the progressive movement to effectively expose the carbon cartel’s corrupting, toxic influence on our democracy, our health, and our planet, motivating voters through the issues they care about.
The unexpected success of the Bernie Sanders campaign — one without insider backing and no Super PAC support — has demonstrated the American public are further ahead of the media, the politicians, and Democratic politics as usual. The American people recognize this nation is under assault from fossil-fuel billionaires and are craving bold, honest, and inspiring leadership with a vision sufficient to today’s challenges.
Our plan depends on the mobilization of climate activists like you, who understand the seriousness of the climate challenge and seek to reward ambition instead of compromise, with your time, your money, and most importantly your vote.
If you want to grow real political power for the climate movement, join Climate Hawks Vote today.
