Jolt
Afternoon Jolt: What's Going on at the Sierra Club?
Today's Winner is Gov. Chris Gregoire.
You'd have to recommend a pretty harsh budget cut to make Gov. Chris Gregoire look like a good guy these days. In order to balance the state budget for the remaining six months of the current biennium, Gov. Gregoire is proposing a list of grim cuts: Eliminating the "Disability Lifeline" grant (a monthly stipend for people who are unemployable due to mental illness or disability); eliminating community health care clinic grants; eliminating drug co-pays for seniors; eliminating the Basic Health Plan; eliminating food assistance for the poor; and on and on.
However, one place Gregoire doesn't go is scapegoating immigrants, a current favorite hobby of the GOP. In response to Gregoire's budget, the Republicans say her cuts aren't big enough, and they've added children of undocumented parents to the chopping block by going after Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (an income assistance program designed to help low-income parents care for their children.)
Both the state senate and house GOP have ID'd TANF as a program that needs to be cut back dramatically—specifically tying proposed cuts to illegal immigrants. One recommendation would eliminate all TANF aid to undocumented parents. The GOP is recommending an $80 million cut.
Today's loser is The Sierra Club.
As we reported yesterday, the Transportation Choices Coalition just hired a new state lobbyist---Carrie Dolwick, most recently the legislative director for the local Sierra Club.That's good news for TCC, but Dolwick's departure after just six months was the third high-profile departure from the Club in recent weeks, and the fourth since Craig Engelking, Dolwick's predecessor at the Club, left to join the city's Office of Intergovernmental Relations in January.
The chapter has also recently lost its executive director, Trevor Kaul, who recently left after four years, and its conservation program coordinator, Craig Benjamin, who left to join the Environmental Priorities Coalition in mid-November (after accepting, then declining, a job at Mayor Mike McGinn's budget shop).
What's going on? Sources tell PubliCola the national Sierra Club isn't raising money the way it did during the Bush years, when they had an obviously anti-environmental adversary, and that the shortfall has trickled down to state and local chapters.
Plus, the Sierra Club typically pays less than other groups like TCC---an organizer might make a salary in the low $30,000s, which isn't enough to support a family (Benjamin and his wife, for example, just had a kid). Their loss is the city's, TCC's, and the EPC's gain.
You'd have to recommend a pretty harsh budget cut to make Gov. Chris Gregoire look like a good guy these days. In order to balance the state budget for the remaining six months of the current biennium, Gov. Gregoire is proposing a list of grim cuts: Eliminating the "Disability Lifeline" grant (a monthly stipend for people who are unemployable due to mental illness or disability); eliminating community health care clinic grants; eliminating drug co-pays for seniors; eliminating the Basic Health Plan; eliminating food assistance for the poor; and on and on.
However, one place Gregoire doesn't go is scapegoating immigrants, a current favorite hobby of the GOP. In response to Gregoire's budget, the Republicans say her cuts aren't big enough, and they've added children of undocumented parents to the chopping block by going after Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (an income assistance program designed to help low-income parents care for their children.)
Both the state senate and house GOP have ID'd TANF as a program that needs to be cut back dramatically—specifically tying proposed cuts to illegal immigrants. One recommendation would eliminate all TANF aid to undocumented parents. The GOP is recommending an $80 million cut.
Today's loser is The Sierra Club.
As we reported yesterday, the Transportation Choices Coalition just hired a new state lobbyist---Carrie Dolwick, most recently the legislative director for the local Sierra Club.That's good news for TCC, but Dolwick's departure after just six months was the third high-profile departure from the Club in recent weeks, and the fourth since Craig Engelking, Dolwick's predecessor at the Club, left to join the city's Office of Intergovernmental Relations in January.
The chapter has also recently lost its executive director, Trevor Kaul, who recently left after four years, and its conservation program coordinator, Craig Benjamin, who left to join the Environmental Priorities Coalition in mid-November (after accepting, then declining, a job at Mayor Mike McGinn's budget shop).
What's going on? Sources tell PubliCola the national Sierra Club isn't raising money the way it did during the Bush years, when they had an obviously anti-environmental adversary, and that the shortfall has trickled down to state and local chapters.
Plus, the Sierra Club typically pays less than other groups like TCC---an organizer might make a salary in the low $30,000s, which isn't enough to support a family (Benjamin and his wife, for example, just had a kid). Their loss is the city's, TCC's, and the EPC's gain.
