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Every Monday, in “Climate on the Ballot,” we pass along a topic to help you integrate climate into your newsroom’s campaign reporting. Consider sharing this newsletter with your colleagues on the politics beat. Vea la versión en español de “El clima en la boleta.”
This Week: Down Ballot
The positions of the presidential candidates this election season couldn’t be more different. Vice President Kamala Harris has pledged to “unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis, as she builds on” the Inflation Reduction Act, “advances environmental justice, protects public lands and public health,” and “continues to hold polluters accountable to secure clean air and water for all.” Former president Donald Trump says he will “exit the horrendously unfair Paris Climate Accords and oppose all of the radical left’s Green New Deal policies,” and “DRILL, BABY, DRILL.”
But the presidency is not the only climate-critical office on the ballot this year. Congressional and local races, ballot measures, and state commissions also will be decided on Election Day, and many of those will help determine our climate future, as well.
Reporting Ideas
- Ballot Measures: This year, there are 147 statewide ballot measures in 41 states, reports Ballotpedia. Of those, four deal with environmental issues, and two are specifically related to climate change.
- Proposition 4 (California): “The Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond Act of 2024 would have the state borrow $10 billion to pay for climate and environmental projects — including some that were axed from the budget because of an unprecedented deficit,” reports the Los Angeles Times. Among other things, the money will be used to fund a range of adaptation projects to prepare for climate impacts and protect communities from wildfires, flooding, sea-level rise, and extreme heat events. The measure “requires that at least 40% of the money go to projects that aid disadvantaged communities.”
- Initiative 2117 (Washington): Voters in the Evergreen State will decide whether or not to repeal the “Climate Commitment Act, one of the most progressive climate policies ever passed by a state Legislature,” reports the Associated Press. The law, signed by Governor Jay Inslee less than two years ago, “forces companies… to reduce their carbon emissions while raising billions of dollars for climate programs.” The outcome will have national implications as local officials will likely have to consider similar policies in order to meet emissions goals in their cities and states by 2030, 2040, and 2050.
- The “Dirty Dozen”: For nearly 30 years, the League of Conservation Voters has produced an annual list that calls out “candidates — regardless of party affiliation — who consistently side against the environment.” This year’s list includes Trump, Kari Lake (running for Senate, Arizona), Tim Sheehy (running for Senate, Montana), and Bernie Moreno (running for Senate, Ohio), among others. Reporters can investigate the Dirty Dozen and the Dirty Dozen in the States, which “highlights 12 of the worst environmental candidates in the nation at the state and local level.” Access rankings for all current members of Congress in the LCV’s annual National Environmental Scorecard.
- Congress’s Climate Advocates: Over at Hill Heat, blogger Brad Johnson pulled together a list of “key climate candidates” who are running for Congress against climate deniers. These are candidates that have received endorsements from “at least one” environmentally focused political action groups including “the Sunrise Movement, Food & Water Action (FWA), the California-based Climate Hawks Vote (CHV), and the Jane Fonda Climate PAC (Jane PAC).”
- State Commissioners: There’s another group of candidates running for unglamorous but critical seats in this era of climate change: insurance and public utility commissioners. While many insurance commissioners are appointed, in 11 states they are elected, and as Grist’s Jesse Nichols writes, “unaffordable premiums now represent one of the most tangible ways that climate change is affecting everyday Americans.” Likewise, public utility commissions determine rates and regulate electric companies. This year, three seats are up for election at Arizona’s PUC, the Arizona Corporation Commission, “a little-known agency [that] could dictate the future of renewables” in the state, writes Wyatt Myskow at Inside Climate News. Find out if commissioners are elected in your state, and if so, talk to the candidates.
Take Inspiration
This week we share stories and collections from reporters and outlets we’ve turned to over the past six months in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
- Inside Climate News’ politics team has done a remarkable job this year with their coverage of the candidates, ballot measures, and obscure commissioners whose electoral fate in November will determine climate progress. Recent stories addressed California’s ballot initiative, the clean energy divide in the Nevada Senate race, and Maryland’s Senate race, among many others. Check out their political coverage.
- One of our favorite newsletters, The Heat: Climate and the 2024 Elections, from Capital & Main’s Marcus Baram, has produced a steady stream of excellent climate political coverage at the local, state and national levels. One evergreen piece from earlier in the year looks at “The Florida Paradox: Voters Believe in Climate Change. They Also Believe in Trump.”
- Grist’s new newsletter, State of Emergency, examines “how extreme weather, being made more intense and frequent by climate change, is impacting people’s ability to vote and their engagement with politics.” In the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, it’s a must-read as election officials scramble to enable voters to get to the polls this year.
- E&E News’ Climate Wire has shed light on climate angles in the governor’s race in Montana, whether or not voters in Pennsylvania care about fracking, and how Democrats think they have a shot at “defeating one of the biggest climate change science deniers in Congress” this year, among other notable coverage.
- Yale Climate Connections’s Sueellen Campbell also pulled together a great list of articles to “get you up to speed,” including a piece by David Gelles of The New York Times, who writes: “Control of the legislatures of several swing states — including Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania — is up for grabs in November.”
Spotlight Piece
In “How the ‘climate voter’ might matter in a down-to-the-wire US election,” the Guardian’s Oliver Milman writes that despite the fact that climate change has reliably ranked low on voter issue polling throughout the election cycle, “some hope the devastation wrought in quick succession by two major hurricanes will shake up the priorities of American voters.”
Want to share feedback and stories inspired by this newsletter? Shoot us a note at editors@coveringclimatenow.org.