If you live in Northern Virginia, your vote can have a huge impact on the climate crisis –especially in SD35!
So many of my friends have told me recently that they feel powerless in the face of climate change. But tomorrow, for those who live in Northern VA and especially those in SD35, we have the opportunity to make a difference by voting in the primary elections. If you didn’t know there was a primary, or don’t know who the candidates are, check out this VA 2019 Election Guide. Vote at your normal polling place from 6am to 7pm. Find your polling place and make sure you’re registered here.
First up, let me quickly tell you about the Fairfax Board of Supervisors. The entire Board of Supervisors is up for reelection, and most of the districts have several democratic candidates running in the primary on Tuesday. 350 Fairfax hosted all of the candidates in environment-specific forums recently. Check out videos of the three forums for North County (Providence and Hunter Mill), South County (Lee, Braddock, Mason, Springfield), and Chair candidates. Also on 350Fairfax.org you’ll find Braddock, Hunter Mill, Lee, and Providence candidates’ written responses to important questions about the environment. If you don’t have time to watch the videos, and just want some recommendations and take-aways from the forums, you can go to my facebook post about it.
In the past year, 350 Fairfax met with most of the supervisors asking them to sign on to the Fossil Free Fairfax resolution, and were told by most that they were not prepared to do so. Several wouldn’t even meet with us. Dan Storck of Mt. Vernon District, John Faust of Dranesville District, and Jeff McKay of Lee District were all very helpful and receptive – they’re all awesome, and luckily Storck and Faust are running unopposed so they will continue to be champions for the environment on the Board. McKay is one of four candidates running for Chair; definitely check out the video of the chair forum to learn more about that race.
That being said, three champions in a group of 10 can’t single-handedly make the swift strides we need. With 11 years left to cut our fossil fuel emissions by 45%, as the United Nations IPCC report says is required to limit global warming and save our planet from disaster, we don’t have time for half measures. Fairfax is the second wealthiest county in the country; we should be a leader in environmental policy and we need progressive leaders on the Board of Supervisors to make that happen. Almost the entire board is turning over, so electing those who understand the urgency of the climate crisis is critical.
Now, this leads us to the larger VA state races. One specific race in the VA Senate primary really holds the future of Virginia’s environmental progress in its hands. If you live in Senate District 35, you have the opportunity to change the fate of our state’s climate policy. This race is between Yasmine Taeb, a human rights lawyer and champion for social and environmental justice, and Dick Saslaw, who has held that Senate seat unopposed for forty years.
Saslaw has taken over 350,000 dollars in campaign money from Dominion Energy over the years, and as the Democratic leader of the state Senate, he has a lot of influence over the energy and environmental policy that gets passed or trashed each year. You can trace his dirty dealings with Dominion and his influence in the General Assembly directly to our lack of solar energy opportunities in VA, to Dominion’s rubber-stamped pro-fossil fuel laws, and to the two disastrous fracked gas pipelines being built in southwest Virginia, the ACP and MVP.
Yasmine Taeb has pledged not to take fossil fuel money in her campaign and beyond, and she has pledged to fight Dominion’s chokehold on Virginia’s environmental policy. These races often come down to hundreds, tens or even single-digit vote differences, so it could be your vote that makes all the difference in this state. If we can’t stop being so backwards, not only will other counties who look to us for leadership be uninspired, but we’ll double the state’s greenhouse emissions just with those two pipelines, rather than cut it back at all. This race has critical implications for our state’s future. If you’re in Senate District 35, please don’t sit this one out.
Remember, check out this voter guide here, and then go to your regular polling place on Tuesday between 6am and 7pm. Bring your Driver’s License or other legitimate ID, like a passport. If you don’t know where your polling place is, just go to the VA Voter Registration website and it’ll let you know- you can also make sure your voter registration is up to date at the same time!
