Some Greens are deservedly still stinging from the Sierra Club's endorsement of Vice President Al Gore over Ralph Nader in the 2000 election cycle. Despite the club's official endorsement, the earliest in its history, past Sierra Club director David Brower acidly commented that Gore had let them down badly on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, there are a great many signs that little has changed since then and that Greens are now forced to rethink their relationship with the Sierra Club.

(Cross posted at Chlorophyll)

In the 2004 election cycle, the Sierra Club did not endorse one Green candidate for office in any congressional or senatorial race. Here's how they were repaid for their endorsements of corporate party candidates. In the recently passed Energy Act of 2005, which the club initially described on its site as a disaster, four senators (40% of elected endorsees) and thirty-six congressman (25% of elected endorsees) who were endorsed by the Sierra Club in 2004 voted in favor of this heinous measure. Not only did the club fail to have any influence over the crafting of this legislation, it couldn't even keep a significant block of its own endorsees from siding with the Bush administration on this crucial bread and butter issue for the club. Furthermore, after it became apparent that so many of its endorsees from the corporate parties had voted in favor of the industry-authored act, the site put a friendlier spin on the legislation, which is loaded with pork for the oil, coal and nuclear indusries, by changing the picture on its site from a belching smoke stack to a wind-powered electric generator - They didn't fool any of us.

The Sierra Club has endorsed some Green candidates in local elections. A few notable examples in recent history include Linda Schade and Aimee Allison. Neverthless, despite the fact that Greens are undoubtedly extremely well represented among its three quarter of a million membership, the club continues to short change Green candidates when it's time to hand out endorsements, staff assistance and financial support in elections.

Prior to the club's most recent board election this spring, I e-mailed each prospective candidate and inquired whether any were Green party members: I didn't receive one favorable response. As a matter of fact, one of the nominating committee endorsees, Chuck McGrady, was a Republican. Consequently, it's easy to see the source of our problem. It's also important to note that the election results provide part of the solution. Only fifteen percent of the club's membership returned their ballots. In other words, due to the election format, all it would have taken was 90,000 Greens nationwide to cast ballots for Green board candidates in order to place five Greens on the board of an organization with an annual operating budget in excess of one hundred million dollars.

A second part of the solution involves Greens who are members of the club informing the leadership that their $35 yearly dues could easily wind up in other coffers unless the organization begins endorsing a higher percentage of Green candidates. If the club is made aware that, one way or the other, a portion of that money will be utilized to support Green candidates under any circumstances, it will have additional incentive to increase their support for Green candidates. Greens being the social and environmental activists which we are, my assumption is that there is a sufficient amount of us who are club members to have an impact on both the Sierra Club, its future endorsements as well as club activities themselves.

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