Comments Bill Scher has made

When I say "grassroots," I am not referring to the work of enviro groups, I mean literal grassroots, individual citizens. Congresspeople were not feeling the heat from constituents en masse making calls and sending letters demanding a strong global warming bill, during the legislative process. They rarely do. But if you want to counter the influence of special interests during the legislative process, maximizing grassroots pressure is the only way, because that lets congresspeople know they have a significant number of constitutents passionate about the issue who are watching their vote, and may not vote for their re-election based on their position.

I have no complaint with the efforts of any particular enviro group. I only note that their lack of coordination with each other on matters of policy substance makes it harder to maximize grassroots pressure earlier in the process.

1. I'm not criticizng the grassroots. It's just a fact they were not engaged early in the process, which I attributed to the lack of coordination/agreement among environmental orgs (giving the grassroots a clear focus for their energy), and lack of attention paid by the traditional and liberal media (letting the grassroots know when their energy would be most productive).

2. I don't expect anyone to get behind any bill s/he deems to be "crappy." My point there is we in the grassroots need to be engaged BEFORE the deals get done, if we ever want to avoid grappling with tepid compromises, and trying to discern if they constitute incremental progress or woeful crappiness. I don't think that is an easy problem to solve (see #1), but that is the missing piece in my view.

Hysterical headline, bad poll analysis

This is an hysterical headline based on bad poll analysis.

The Pew poll asks what should be a "top priority ... THIS YEAR."

It is not surprising at all that in the midst of a media pounding that the entire economy is in a meltdown, that people across the ideological spectrum will be more inclined to say we should focus on the economy this year. While that speaks to a relative softness in support for environmental issues, that far from abandoning support in droves.

Further, this analysis ignores that some of the strongest messaging in support of the stimulus was the green jobs message (See http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/01/on-stimulus-its-ea ... ). That broad message was a massive success in ending the false choice between environment and economy, critical to garner necessary broad support for a comprehensive climate bill.

Bill Scher blogs for Common Sense at commonsense.ourfuture.org

no vote Wed. night

Domenici just said on the floor that they were not expecting a vote on either Bingaman's or his amendment tonight.

Bill Scher blogs for Common Sense at commonsense.ourfuture.org

Roberts: conservative judicial activist

The Roberts dissent shows the kind of Court he wants to lead, a conservative activist court that seeks to undermine laws passed by a democratically-elected Congress. His convoluted arguments about "standing" were an attempt to prevent citizens from accessing the courts to uphold the law. He was not named by Bush by accident. Any notion that he has "no agenda" and simply wants to "call balls and strikes," as he claimed in his hearing, should be put to rest.

Bill Scher blogs for Common Sense at commonsense.ourfuture.org