Conservationists Seek to Defeat 12 in Congress
The League of Conservation Voters said Wednesday that it would launch an effort to defeat 12 members of Congress, including two Californians, in districts where their anti-green voting records can tip elections.
League President Deb Callahan told a news conference that the group plans to spend $1.5 million to defeat the “dirty dozen” in what she called “the largest electoral campaign mounted by an environmental organization in the history of the modern environmental movement.”
Callahan named four Republicans and one Democrat, and said the league would identify the remaining seven after receiving call-in and Internet write-in suggestions from the public.
The five House members she named were Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho), Michael Patrick Flanagan (R-Ill.), Frank Riggs (R-Windsor), Steve Stockman (R-Texas) and Gary A. Condit (D-Ceres).
Callahan said the league also was considering targeting some senators. Campaign efforts to be geared to each individual district would include paid radio and television advertisements, direct mailings, grass-roots organizing and “free media education,” she said.
The league regularly issues an environmental “scorecard” for members of Congress and has called this Republican-led Congress the most anti-environment ever.
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