So, Crunchies, Let's Get to Work!

If those Crunchy Cons are ever actually going to earn the respect of the environmental community, they are going to have to do something about the way their party-of-choice, the GOP, votes on environmental issues. I've been poring over my League of ConservationVoters National Environmental Scorecard '05 since it arrived several weeks ago. It doesn't take much poring to see the huge difference in voting records between Democrats and Republicans. The Scorecard provides "objective, factual information about the environmental voting records of all Members of the first session of the 109th Congress." They are graded on their votes on the most important issues of the year: energy, environmental health and safety, resource conservation, environmental justice, endangered species, fuel economy, and spending for environmental programs.

You can access the Scorecard online on the LCV's site, but by making a contribution to one of the most important organizations working for the environment today, the LCV itself, you will get your own hard copy to study. The results of even a brief analysis are almost laughably down-the-party-line. All Congress Members, both Senators and Representatives, scoring really low - I mean 20 (out of 100) or below, and for many of them it's 10 and below - are Republicans, with a few exceptions, mainly House Dems from (sigh) my home state of Texas. It seemed that all Members with a perfect 0 score were going to be R's, until I found Ralph Hall (D-TX) - what's his story? Almost every one of the high scorers are Democrats, with a few fine high-scoring GOP mavericks like Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and Mike Castle (R-DE) who really are Crunchy Cons.

Yes, if those CCs are really going to "save the Republican Party," they would appear to have their work cut out for them.

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