Seattle Times Endorses Republican Climate Vandal to Manage Our Forests
Their Values Are Still Not Our Values
Same Song, Different Verse
In yet another reminder that the Seattle Times Editorial Board does not share the values of Seattle’s people–either its mainstream moderate Democrats, or its Progressives–it endorsed Republican Jamie Herrera Buetler over mainstream Democrat Dave Upthegrove for State Lands Commissioner.
This despite the fact that their right-wing candidate received a 14% score from the League of Conservation Voters when she was in congress.
They want to put a climate vandal in charge of our lands.
A Whole Lot Worse
It gets worse, actually. This job puts her in charge of state forests.
But while she was in congress, she voted against a bill that would have provided wildfire relief funds for Washington. And while she defends this by saying she agreed to a different bill a year later, she omits that she currently supports *I-2117, which would repeal significant funding for wildfire resilience investments like thinning, controlled burns, and strategic fuel breaks. These are the very tools she needs to do her job, if she has any good-faith intent in doing so.0
She’s more or less putting FOX as her primary experience at the top of an application to guard a hen-house. Vote for Upthegrove.
This endorsement comes on the heels of the Times’ embrace of Andrea Suarez, another Republican. Suarez campaigned for MAGA candidates, is an invited speaker at Republican events, has been rejected by the state Democratic Party, and says Democrats and MAGA are equally corrupt. It has now emerged that she is paying proud-boys enthusiast and right wing agitator Jonathan Choe to make her campaign videos.
Ditto for their absurd endorsement of I-2066 which is more or less a ban on government efforts at electrification and an assault on asthmatic children.
Granted, none of this should be surprising, given the Editorial Board’s embarrassing and at-times sordid recent and longer-term history.
Vote for Dave Upthegrove (and vote no on I-2117, and I-2099).
*I-2117 seeks to repeal the Climate Commitment Act (CCA). In addition to the money for forest management, the CCA provides billions for transportation, tribes, conservation, electrification, and other climate-related projects. Its carbon emissions auctions are believed by experts to be one of the most likely ways to actually lower greenhouse gas emissions.