Voting on Climate All the Way Down the Ballot

Welp, it’s election time. At least for my part, the energy is a lot higher than it was, say, back in July. But it’s a slog. It feels like we never really get a break from elections and this one is one of those for the stress-inducing record books. But we must talk about them. I must talk about them.

In this post, though, I am not going to write the obvious: the Democrats are more likely to be the ones who will push for important climate policies. What I am going to do here is highlight how important down ballot races are for climate. During a presidential election year, it’s always the top-of-the-ticket candidates that get the most scrutiny. However, we tend to lose sight of how important local elections are on climate action. 

I was reminded of this when I heard the inimitable Jane Fonda on Lovett or Leave It a couple weeks ago mentioning her Climate PAC which specifically focuses on down ballot races. The Jane Fonda Climate PAC endorsements page is a useful resource, but there’s no way they can cover every single local election. 

So here I’m going to list off local and regional elected positions and why they’re important for climate action. This can be a useful list for you not only for voting purposes, but also to demand that these leaders develop plans to combat climate change through their work on behalf of their constituents. 

But First: Let’s Talk about Climate Justice

Before I launch into the list, I want to be very clear that when you’re holding elected officials and candidates' feet to the fire on climate, we’re talking about not just climate action, but action on climate justice.

Climate action in and of itself is a good thing. But if leaders aren’t taking a justice approach where they’re looking at improving the environment and conditions for the most marginalized and vulnerable people in their communities, they’re missing the mark. 

Climate justice acknowledges the reality that low-income communities and communities of color are the most impacted by climate change. So when solutions are not specifically done in partnership with those communities or focused on those communities, they’re not doing their jobs.

Down Ballot Races

This is non-exhaustive and is coming out of my cold-addled brain, so I’m bound to miss something. So please include examples of other positions that I missed in the comments and I’ll make sure to add them.

Local School Board

I’m starting with the school board because I think people are least likely to think about how school boards can affect climate action. But as more parents and educators are starting to realize–our schools are not equipped for rising temperatures, days of toxic smokey air, and sometimes heavy rain. 

I wrote about this a couple weeks back. Part of the problem is that city leaders don’t think about school districts in their climate planning. “According to a report by This is Planet Ed from the Aspen Institute, cities often overlook school districts in their climate action plans,” I wrote. “This was both in not looking at schools’ output of greenhouse gasses, but also as essential to being a part of climate resilience plans and climate action beyond merely educating students about climate change.”

But if you elect school board members that prioritize climate resilience as a part of their platforms, they can be that liaison between city planning and the school districts to ensure schools aren’t left out. 

City Council

City councils can have an enormous impact by leading efforts on climate action plans. And hundreds around the country have already begun their efforts by creating Climate Action Plans (CAPs), which are essentially roadmaps that show how the city or municipality will decrease greenhouse gas emissions and build resilient communities. But it’s not merely establishing a CAP that is important, it’s actually creating an accountability mechanism and dedicating the appropriate funds to achieve those goals.

I feel pretty proud of what my city of Portland, OR has accomplished already. While the original Climate Action Plan was established in 2015, last year the Portland City Council voted unanimously to approve a 5-year, $750 million Climate Investment Plan. This was a success because there were a number of setbacks that delayed this process, but now there will be funding for resilience projects including subsidizing air conditioner and heat pump installments for low-income residents, infrastructure improvement projects that build resilience and decrease GHG emissions, and even elements that will go directly to student engagement in climate action. 

County and Regional Leaders

Each metropolitan region is structured a bit differently. Here in Portland, we have both county governments and a regional government entity which is, I believe, unique to Portland. The regional government entity (Oregon Metro) oversees regional planning and manages some public spaces (some parks and even the Oregon Zoo) for the three counties in the Portland Metropolitan Area (Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington Counties). 

Whichever regional or county jurisdiction you have, look at what they govern. For example, Metro oversees regional transportation planning in the Portland Metro region. Transportation has important implications for climate justice. Increasing public transit infrastructure and improving walkability and bikeability of communities can make an enormous difference in carbon emissions. However, let’s put a fine point on the climate justice approach to this because transportation and city planning has a pretty racist history. 

Pretty much every major metro region in the U.S. destroyed Black and brown neighborhoods to build our interstate highway system as well as many of the new public infrastructure such as, say Lincoln Center in New York City which was built after the city destroyed the Puerto Rican neighborhood of San Juan. You can find examples of this all over the country. You can find a snapshot of what this displacement looked like here in Portland, check out this article in Fast Company which is an excerpt from a book I wrote with Metro Council President, Lynn Peterson  called Roadways for People: Rethinking Transportation Planning and Engineering. 

Elected officials should know and understand this history and do their work with local communities to ensure not only that they’re not going to cause further harm, but also repair the harm done during those mid-century displacement campaigns. And when they’re implementing infrastructure improvements such as public transit, there need to be efforts to ensure lower-income and communities of color have access to these resources and aren’t pushed out of their neighborhoods (and when they’re elected you can send them a copy of Roadways for People, so they can see how they can go about doing that ;) ).

I could go on about this because I’ve spent the better part of 6 years writing about urban planning and racism with Lynn and another client. So there’s a lot of this floating around in my brain.

City, State, and Regional Comptroller or Auditor

Okay, now we’re getting into the kind of positions where even my wonky brain kind of tunes out even when someone tries to describe what this person actually does. But these are important positions and we need to pay attention. And, there are things comptrollers/auditors can do on climate.

The Comptroller/Auditor oversees the accounting departments within a city, regional, or state government and can do a lot to address climate change. For example, the New York City Comptroller’s office describes that their role can help by reducing the local economy’s reliance on fossil fuels. There are various strategies to go about that include focusing on procurement practices, climate benchmarks contractors must meet, and investment strategies outside of fossil fuels. And New York State comptroller has focused efforts to ensure the state’s retirement fund is investing in climate solutions. The work New York City and New York State are doing from a financial and accounting perspective–they’re creating solutions from all sides.

State Utilities Commissioners

During the 2022 mid-term election, there was a lot of attention on the Texas Railroad Commissioner race. It sounds a bit like an old-timey position that they just forgot to take off the books. However, the position has an incredible amount of power on state utilities, and therefore, climate mitigation. And in Texas, where oil is king, this is a biiiig deal. But it was also a huge deal at the time because this was just after the Texas Power crisis in the winter of 2021 (You know, the winter storm where Ted Cruz bailed on constituents and flew to Cancun. And also the one where some of the power companies charged up to $9,000/MWh to consumers). 

Nonetheless, the Democrat, Luke Warford, looking to make change so this kind of shit doesn’t happen again lost. Because, well, it’s Texas. As a result, the blackouts keep happening. It’s not to say these blackouts wouldn't be happening if Warford had been elected, but he would have started the ball rolling to updating the outdated grid system and to move towards upgrading the system to be less reliant on big oil. But of course, in Texas, that is a very controversial issue.

Nonetheless, every state utilities commissioner has a role to play in moving away from the reliance on fossil fuels as well as investing in more resilient infrastructure so that communities can withstand the disasters that come with a changing climate.

Ballot Initiatives

Last, don’t forget to pay attention to your local ballot initiatives. These initiatives/measures are a big part of how governments fund climate projects. But also there can be a lot of confusion behind a lot of these initiatives. 

One example from 2020 was a campaign put forward by Oregon Metro to fund transportation infrastructure improvements that predominantly served lower-income communities and communities of color called “Get Moving 2020.” It would have increased the corporate tax rate and, thus, the big businesses in the region (Nike, Adidas, etc.) put a lot of money towards the opposition. The campaign itself didn’t have a huge budget and so it did not pass. (Lynn and I wrote about this initiative in Roadways for People by the way and my sister, Abigail, actually ran the campaign so I have a lot of inside knowledge of it). While Metro is finding ways to carry out the projects without that funding specifically, ballot initiatives are important. 

The Election is Over, So Now What?

The work only starts when you work to get your candidate elected. And even if your candidate isn’t elected or your ballot measure fails, there’s a lot you can do to make sure climate justice is top of mind. 

This NRDC article has great recommendations on how and where to speak out about climate change. There are a lot of ways to do it including attending candidate town halls, attending public hearings, giving public comments, and staying informed.

And if you’re an Oregon resident reading this, there’s one great example to take action that you can participate in RIGHT NOW. The State of Oregon is accepting public comment for the Climate Protection Program (CPP) until this Friday, September 27th. Check out here the three ways you can have your voice heard.

Wherever you are, the best way to learn about these types of action alerts such as the Oregon example is to get involved with local organizations that have their fingers on the pulse of the state legislature and local city councils. I know about this particular action because I work with Families for Climate, an Oregon climate justice organization mobilizing families and caregivers. And the board members within the organization are involved with a variety of climate coalitions. These organizations will do the information gathering for you and will let you know how you can get involved. 

What’s Happening in Your Neck of the Woods?

What races are happening in your community? I’m curious where climate change is coming up. Are there any races where you’re surprised that climate did or did not come up? Comment below!