A mini-imbroglio has broken out in the blogosphere over the Sierra Club's decision to formally endorse Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.). A similar dust-up took place late last year over NARAL's decision to endorse Chafee. Both endorsements were largely deplored by the progressive blogs, with a few dissenters.
I'm going to argue for what might seem a slightly odd position: NARAL made a terrible decision; the Sierra Club made a good one.
Start with this premise: For a variety of structural and historical reasons, party discipline has increased sharply in American politics over the last few decades. We more and more resemble a parliamentary system. So the relevant questions here have less to do with Chafee's own positions or votes than with party dynamics -- specifically, Republican party dynamics.
On both abortion and the environment, Chafee is an exception to the prevailing Republican position. But Republican party dynamics are vastly different on the two issues.
On abortion, battle lines are drawn. It's a fight to the death. No partisan on either side will ever be persuaded to change sides, so at this point it's just a matter of who can muster the political power to enforce their position. Party lines are sharp: The Republican Party will always be home for anti-abortion single-issue voters, and the Democratic Party will always be the inverse (though it's occasionally gone wobbly). There is nothing Chafee could do -- as a Senator or as a symbol -- to change the Republican Party on this question.
In short, endorsing Chafee means endorsing the anti-abortion party, irrespective of his personal views.
But the environmental dynamic is different. During the '80s and '90s, it came close to becoming a strictly partisan issue, but environmental issues do not sit comfortably in that niche. There are more and more signs that concern over the environment -- public lands, the energy crisis, global warming -- is crossing party lines (see Christina's excellent piece on the subject). The corporate forces that govern the Republican Party have tried their best to make environmentalism synonymous with fuzzy-headed socialism, but in the long term they were always destined to fail. It is a time of great ferment and upheaval in the Republican Party on this particular issue. Party discipline is breaking down.
In other words, the iron is hot. The time is ripe. Whatever. This is a time when the Republican Party's resistance to environmental sanity can be changed.
For this reason, environmental champions among the (R) ranks need, now more than ever, to be vocally and publicly supported. Chafee has proven instrumentally effective at blocking some of Bush's environmental madness, but just as much he serves an important symbolic role. Republicans in Congress, and out in the hinterlands, need to be shown that a) it's safe to be a Republican environmentalist, and b) environmental organizations will welcome them. If they'll drop the partisan warfare, the Sierra Club will too.
Environmentalism is not yet a party-transcending issue, not totally, but it could become one. The Sierra Club is trying to help that process along. Time will tell if they succeed, but I don't begrudge them the attempt.
(From the Sierra Club, Carl Pope and Paul Rauber defend the decision; over on MoJo blog, Brad Plumer does too.)
Comments
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bharat Posted 6:49 am
21 Apr 2006
I do not agree for a simple reason:
Chafee has proven instrumentally effective at blocking some of Bush's environmental madness, but just as much he serves an important symbolic role. Republicans in Congress, and out in the hinterlands, need to be shown that a) it's safe to be a Republican environmentalist, and b) environmental organizations will welcome them. If they'll drop the partisan warfare, the Sierra Club will too.
The party in the majority gets the committee chairmanship and the inside track to legislation, the minority party can only play defense. While Chafee has played defense pretty well, he's one more republican standing in the way of a democratic majority which most people will agree will result in saner environmental laws and priorities (playing on offense). So, there is no alternative, every seat must be won.
It's a two-person see-saw, if one party has staked its position at the extreme, you can't sit in the middle, you can't win that way. I wish Americans would study parlimentary politics a little more closely.
Also, the politics of Lincoln Chafee get him wins in Rhode Island and it's a stretch to say that a Chafee style "conservative" has any chance of winning a Republican primary (which is the real election in, say, Oklahoma) however much moral support Mr Chafee can provide.
Chafee would be a good person to have if the democrats already had a working majority, but he's a luxury in all other cases.
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meander Posted 10:46 am
21 Apr 2006
I read Carl Pope's explanation, Brad DeLong's, and many comments in the blogosphere. The strategies seem to rely on the GOP leadership keeping Chafee on critical environmental committees. I wouldn't trust Sen. Frist farther than I could toss an oil rig across the ANWR tundra. Now that Chafee is endorsed by the Sierra Club, I'd expect an order to be coming from Karl Rove to Sen. Frist to "Get Chafee off of the environmental committees."
In years of GOP control of the Congress since 1994, the GOP has steadily whittled away at the traditions of the institution. For example: the House GOP leadership has held votes open for hours to get the result they want (instead of the usual 15 minutes); members of Congress frequently aren't given the time to read the bills they are voting on; the minority party is completely shut out of the and, most relevant to this case, the rules of assigning Committee Chairs are changing. It used to be that the Chair was given to the most senior member of the committee, but these days loyalty to the leadership is also an important factor. Congressional expert Norm Ornstein has described many of these changes in several articles, and sometime later this year he will have a new book about the subject called "The Broken Branch" (co-authored with Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution).
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bookerly Posted 11:19 am
21 Apr 2006
Meander and Bharat have hit the nail right on the head. Chafee votes to put people like Bill Frist in power. And much of the damage is not done only on the environmental committees. All of those special little road and dam projects the Sierra Club hates, they get slipped in by leadership outside of committees.
I am no fan of the Democrats, but the Republican leadership is so bad right now, that anyone who supports keeping them in power is making a mistake.
A vote for Chafee is a vote for Bill Frist as Chair of the Senate, and for all of the other wingnuts who occupy Senate leadership. Do environmentalists really want to vote for them?
Patrick
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caniscandida Posted 4:36 pm
21 Apr 2006
But on the federal level, the points that have been raised count for much more. Our Democratic Congresspeople are far from perfect, but right now they are the only defenders of environmentalist values in DC, and it is obviously necessary that they win a majority in at least one chamber of Congress. Lincoln Chafee is an admirable legislator in many ways, perhaps (not to defend his vote for Frist, but remember, Frist actually at first appeared moderate, intelligent and even enlightened, by GOP standards, before he got really really weird, e.g. with the Terri Schiavo "diagnosis"), but he is certainly in no position to influence his party, as was pointed out; and his re-election in November will only make it tougher for the Democrats to win a majority in the Senate.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:41 pm
21 Apr 2006
http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2005-07-11.asp
33 mpg? I wonder how that all worked out? Has Ford had a big success with the Marinner hybrid?
"In it's second month of recorded sales, Mercury Mariner hybrid turned in 148 units."
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/01/hybrid_sales_in.html
The Sierra Club sells its integrity very cheaply indeed! Why not get in bed with the GOP too?
It is working well for NRDC with their endorsement of "clean" coal and RFK jr's campaign against Cape Wind that is precipitating bribes to get all offshore wind power outlawed with a dead-of-night attachment to unrelated legislation in classic GOP style.
The corporatist party will help out if we only will depoliticize environmentalism and give them a chance, right? Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GreenGOP Posted 11:11 am
23 Apr 2006
Your readers just don't get it. By rejecting a Republican by virtue of his party alone, rather than by his voting record on policy, liberals will only drive a wedge further between republicans and the environment. Only if Republicans see that they can win votes and money by being green, will they begin to be more pro-environment. Dems who demonize ALL republicans do so at the peril of the environment. If Chafee didn't get some environmentalist support, what will motivate him to continue his pro-environment votes? Even if Dems win back Congress, envionrmentalists will still need a few Republicans on their side.
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caniscandida Posted 4:21 pm
23 Apr 2006
Is it not clear, though, that the Democrats need to win a majority in either chamber of Congress -- and the Senate looks a bit more hopeful than the House -- before existing environmental legislation, now much threatened, can be made secure? (For a while at least.) Whether that would be promising for further, more advanced environmental legislation is far from certain; but let us leap one hurdle at a time.
Speaking for myself, I certainly do not "demonize" all Republicans. I have great respect for the intelligence, and usual good balance, of Sens. Lugar, Hagel, and Specter, and often agree with them; I admire the intelligence of Norm Coleman, successor (Brooklyn-born!) to the late, much lamented Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, and also Sununu of NH, though I never agree with them; I adore the Maine delegation, Olympia Snow and Susan Collins. (My strange affair with John McCain is too complicated to go into right now; the less said the better.) So, although I certainly truly sincerely believe your party includes some very very scary monstrous types, please be assured I do not demonize one and all.
I like Lincoln Chafee, and do not like seeing him get caught in the crossfire. And I am most sympathetic with Dave's political transcendentalism. May he and Carl Pope and the others enjoy every success.
But really, your side has been in control of every branch of government for a few years now, to the great harm and dismay not only of this country but of all the world, and enough is enough. Probably you are right, that to pass new legislation, a majority in the Senate of no more than 50 plus Jeffords needs help from a few Republicans. Well fine, I think each Senator understands his/her constituency well enough; the example of Chafee will push no one into a solidly anti-environment stance, not one single one of them; and the increasingly feckless Dr. Frist does not seem likely to erect a very strong shieldwall in opposition.
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bookerly Posted 1:15 pm
27 Apr 2006
Considering how bad they are on the environment, maybe we are too polite to Republicans. I was struck by the idea that "Only if Republicans see that they can win votes and money by being green".
This means only if they face extinction, will they begin to be green? How about we wait until then to endorse them?
Environmentalists will have a hard time out-bribing (err, spending) Exxon-whoever-they-just-swallowed. The Democrats are bad enough, I think sometimes we are too polite to them too!!
Okay, maybe I am not really in favor of bad manners. But really, let's reframe this.
Republicans who want to survive in office will need to learn to be a lot friendlier to the environment. THEY shoudl be courting US.
As long as we continue endorsing people who have not-so-good environmental records, then politicians will think that not-so-good environmental records are okay.
Why doesn't the Sierra Club look at the Green Party candidates?
Patrick (who has been a member of every major party and most of the minor ones at one time or another).
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