John Carlson urges KVI listeners to “hit back” after NO on I‑2117 announces it has already raised over $11 million in early funds

This morn­ing, react­ing to the news that the NO on I‑2117 coali­tion has raised over $11 mil­lion in ear­ly mon­ey, includ­ing from Bill Gates, Ama­zon, Microsoft, and BP, long­time KVI talk show host and Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate read­er John Carl­son urged his lis­ten­ers to “hit back” by donat­ing mon­ey to Bri­an Hey­wood’s Let’s Go Wash­ing­ton com­mit­tee, which remains in the red due to Hey­wood’s deci­sion last year to fun­nel mon­ey into the com­mit­tee via loans instead of out­right contributions.

“What can you do? You’re hear­ing this, you’re get­ting angry? What can you do about it? […] Make a con­tri­bu­tion to the Ini­tia­tive 2117 cam­paign… stop the hid­den gas tax. Yes. I know that not a lot of peo­ple out there lis­ten­ing are gonna drop in a mil­lion dol­lars like Gates and some of the oth­er tech exec­u­tives. But you know what? A whole lot of peo­ple putting in small con­tri­bu­tions can even­tu­al­ly reach that plateau. So, let’s get busy. Let’s hit back at the cli­mate indus­tri­al gov­ern­ment com­plex,” Carl­son said after a seg­ment with Todd Myers of the right wing Wash­ing­ton Pol­i­cy Cen­ter, which Carl­son was involved in found­ing many decades ago. (Both Carl­son and Myers dis­like the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act and want to make it go away with I‑2117).

The big mon­ey brought in by the NO on I‑2117 cam­paign from big names is cer­tain­ly get­ting plen­ty of media atten­tion, and deserved­ly so. When the likes of Bill Gates write a mil­lion dol­lar check to a cam­paign, that’s a sto­ry. When our region’s largest cor­po­ra­tions decide to get involved in a bal­lot mea­sure cam­paign, that’s a sto­ry. We have pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws pre­cise­ly so that the pub­lic can see who’s try­ing to influ­ence them and secure their vote. And time­ly report­ing allows the infor­ma­tion that pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws require to be more wide­ly and effec­tive­ly dis­sem­i­nat­ed to the vot­ing public. 

How­ev­er, there’s more to this par­tic­u­lar sto­ry than what we heard from Carl­son this morn­ing. There’s two dynam­ics in par­tic­u­lar that I think are worth flagging. 

First is the absence of mon­ey com­ing in to Let’s Go Wash­ing­ton to help sell I‑2117.

I’m get­ting the sense that the right wing is espe­cial­ly angry about the NO on I‑2117 fundrais­ing haul because they don’t have their own haul to brag about. They qual­i­fied for the Novem­ber bal­lot thanks to one rich guy: Bri­an Hey­wood. Now a bunch of oth­er rich guys are com­ing in and open­ing their wal­lets to defeat I‑2117, where­as Hey­wood & Co. aren’t get­ting any deep-pock­et­ed rein­force­ments. They may have expect­ed that oil com­pa­nies would come in and start writ­ing checks — after all, in 2018, Big Oil spent over thir­ty mil­lion — that’s right, thir­ty mil­lion dol­lars! — to defeat Ini­tia­tive 1631.

But that was then. 

The Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act, unlike I‑1631, was pro­posed through the leg­isla­tive process. Every­one who want­ed to have a say in its draft­ing had that oppor­tu­ni­ty, includ­ing lob­by­ists work­ing for big oil com­pa­nies. And the result­ing law is some­thing they’d rather have than not have. It is a mar­ket-focused approach to fight­ing pol­lu­tion over time which pro­vides sta­bil­i­ty and pre­dictabil­i­ty. So they’re not going to be help­ing Hey­wood and Walsh out. Quite the oppo­site. BP, for its part, wants I‑2117 defeat­ed and is mak­ing funds avail­able to the oppo­si­tion to ensure that happens.

Momen­tum shifts are an impor­tant facet of pol­i­tics. Bri­an Hey­wood and Jim Walsh and their side have been rolling along, thanks in large part to Hey­wood’s checks, for many months. They were able to over­come major prob­lems plagu­ing their six-mea­sure paid sig­na­ture dri­ve and qual­i­fy. Then the Leg­is­la­ture decid­ed to adopt half their slate into law for strate­gic rea­sons. They had oppor­tu­ni­ties to take sev­er­al vic­to­ry laps, and did.

But now the momen­tum is shift­ing to the oppo­si­tion cam­paigns. Our side is doing a ton of orga­niz­ing to ensure these mea­sures get the vig­or­ous oppo­si­tion they deserve, and work­ing on build­ing the biggest, broad­est, best pos­si­ble NO cam­paigns. Carl­son can see it and feel it. So can any­one track­ing I‑2117 and its brethren I‑2109 and I‑2124.

When Geek­Wire report­ed on Ama­zon and Microsoft­’s involve­ment in the NO on I‑2117 cam­paign, reporter Lisa Stiffler reached out to Let’s Go Wash­ing­ton’s Hal­lie Balch with some ques­tions. One of those ques­tions was: where’s your list of endorsers and coali­tion part­ners? Balch came back with this, as report­ed by Stiffler for GeekWire:

When asked about the initiative’s sup­port­ers and donors, Balch said by email: “We don’t have an offi­cial list of big cor­po­ra­tion or bil­lion-dol­lar spon­sors because the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton state are the supporters.”

That’s what you say, I guess, when you haven’t been putting in the work of build­ing a strong coali­tion with lots of part­ners to achieve your desired objec­tive. When you’re just coast­ing along think­ing the sig­na­tures your paid peti­tion­ers col­lect­ed are sufficient. 

Wash­ing­ton is a big state with over sev­en mil­lion peo­ple and over four mil­lion vot­ers — reach­ing mil­lions of peo­ple is logis­ti­cal­ly com­plex. It helps to have resources and part­ners to do that outreach.

I’ve worked for and against statewide bal­lot mea­sures in Wash­ing­ton State for most of my life. Bal­lot mea­sure strat­e­gy is one of my fore­most areas of exper­tise. I con­sid­er the impor­tance of coali­tion-build­ing in a bal­lot mea­sure cam­paign to be para­mount. A cam­paign has a much bet­ter chance of suc­ceed­ing when it is inclu­sive and broad-based. 

That brings me to the sec­ond dynam­ic I think is worth tak­ing note of.

The fol­low­ing are a set of sta­tis­tics put togeth­er by the NO on I‑2117 coali­tion staff which speak to the cam­paign’s aspi­ra­tion to be broad-based and inclu­sive. Carl­son talked about match­ing big mon­ey with small dol­lar con­tri­bu­tions… but our side already has those, too. The cam­paign isn’t just rais­ing mon­ey from Bill Gates, Microsoft, Ama­zon, or oth­er well known names; it has grass­roots sup­port as well. Take a look:

• Over 100: Num­ber of Wash­ing­ton orga­ni­za­tions endors­ing No on 2117
• Over $11M: Amount raised or pledged to defeat I‑2117
• Over 1,300: Num­ber of grass­roots donors to No on 2117
• 95: Per­cent of No on 2117 donors con­tribut­ing $100 or less

And it’s only April! We have half a year to increase these numbers. 

I’ve been part of statewide cam­paigns that end­ed the cycle with only a frac­tion of the mon­ey and endorse­ments and sup­port that NO on I‑2117 already has. This is a very, very promis­ing start. And the cam­paign has so much poten­tial. This is a fab­u­lous oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring Wash­ing­to­ni­ans togeth­er in defense of the val­ues that make our state great, par­tic­u­lar­ly free­dom, empa­thy, mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty, and protection. 

We all deserve to live in a place with clean air, clean water, and clean soil. We all deserve to be free from cost­ly, can­cer-caus­ing pol­lu­tion. We all deserve to live in a place with laws that safe­guard what makes the Pacif­ic North­west the Pacif­ic North­west. Our snow­pack, our orcas, our salmon, our wildlife, our way of life… all are at stake! When we’re done bor­row­ing the plan­et from future gen­er­a­tions, what will our lega­cy be? 

There is no pol­i­cy we can adopt that will instan­ta­neous­ly reverse cen­turies of envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate dam­age we caused by burn­ing fos­sil fuels. But in pass­ing the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act, our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives took a major step towards get­ting us on the path to a clean ener­gy future. How we get there mat­ters. The strat­e­gy we’ve cho­sen affords us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to address oth­er soci­etal prob­lems such as income inequal­i­ty and lack of hous­ing while we tack­le the cli­mate crisis. 

Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act dol­lars are already mak­ing it pos­si­ble for young peo­ple in Wash­ing­ton to ride tran­sit with­out pay­ing a fare. They’re mak­ing it pos­si­ble for school dis­tricts to pur­chase elec­tric school bus­es that don’t belch emis­sions. They’re mak­ing it pos­si­ble for cities to plant more trees to reduce the impact of dan­ger­ous heat waves. They’re help­ing rur­al com­mu­ni­ties invest in solar and wind energy. 

In its most recent bud­get, the Leg­is­la­ture approved direct assis­tance for low income util­i­ty ratepay­ers, appro­pri­at­ing $157 mil­lion in CCA funds for $200 elec­tric util­i­ty rebates to be dis­trib­uted to 750,000 low and medi­um income house­holds begin­ning this autumn. 

Those are all exam­ples of the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act in action. 

See more by vis­it­ing climate.wa.gov and open­ing the project map.

Bri­an Hey­wood, Jim Walsh, John Carl­son & Co. want to repeal the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act and replace it with… noth­ing. Irre­spon­si­bly, they don’t have an alter­na­tive cli­mate action plan. If you ask them for one, they’ll piv­ot to crit­i­ciz­ing the CCA or say­ing some­thing else, because despite Hey­wood’s claim that they agree with their friends on the left that pol­luters should­n’t get off scot-free, they don’t favor any poli­cies that would put a price on pol­lu­tion or phase out fos­sil fuels.

Their posi­tion is at odds with the val­ues this state was found­ed upon. It’s also not a posi­tion our research sug­gests most Wash­ing­to­ni­ans agree with. For years, we’ve been ask­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans about their sup­port for cli­mate action laws. No mat­ter how we phrase our ques­tions, we always find a major­i­ty that are sup­port­ive. A major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans are even will­ing to put up with high­er prices for gaso­line and home heat­ing fuel to have strong cli­mate action laws. In the end, what mat­ters to most Ever­green State vot­ers is not how cheap reg­u­lar unlead­ed is, but what we do to take care of each oth­er and this great green land that has appro­pri­ate­ly been dubbed Cas­ca­dia.