[How I, a registered democrat, am voting for the environment in the June 6, 2006 primaries in California. I'm stuck voting at my old address at zip 90035. Here's my current voting list.]

My vote for Senator: Dianne Feinstein

What does the Senator do?: The Senator serves a 6-year term as one of 100 members of the U.S. Senate, helping to enact federal laws, ratify treaties, and confirm U.S. Supreme Court nominees and officials of the executive branch.
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Yes, I know DiFi’s got her probs. But if you think she’s bad, you gotta look at the other 2 Dem candidates running for this position.

Look at Martin Luther Church, for ex. This retired member of the US Air Force seems like an extreme conservative to me. He told the OC Register that he thinks immigrants without family or a job should just be sent back, doesn’t care about “personal beliefs on any one issue such as abortion,” and — with regard to domestic wire taps — says “Extreme circumstances demand extreme solutions.”

The other contender, Colleen Fernald, sounds slightly better, although this self-described mother, artist, and entrepreneur has no political experience at all. Still, according to the OC Register, Fernald calls for an immediate withdrawl of National Guard from Iraq, followed by all other troops, and wants international conflicts to be handled by the United Nations.

However, Fernald also wants to “await investigation into lawfulness” of domestic wire taps before opinionating about them, and she wants even employed undocumented workers to go back to their countries of origin.

Yes, the situation’s dire. Environmentally, the California League of Conservation Voters opted to give NO Endorsement for the US Senate. I also can’t find any endorsement from the Sierra Club. The LA Weekly opted to give no endorsement, mainly due to the fact that Dianne Feinstein backed Bush’s 2001 tax cut for the rich — the only Dem senator from a clearly blue state to do so.

Still, DiFi seems the best of 3 evils. According to the Sierra Club, Feinstein’s voted pro-environment. She says she’s against the privatization of Social Security, new-gen nuclear weapons, and human reproductive cloning; but for pro-choice judges for the Supreme Court, embryonic stem cell research, renewing the federal Assault Weapons Ban, and working with allies on foreign policy issues.

Which is why I’m voting for her Tuesday. But I hope to vote for a more progressive candidate in the general elections this November.

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