by Morgan Goodwin
It wasn't hard to find candidate Farrah Kahn in the parking lot. The Mayor of Irvine and candidate for OC's 3rd Supervisor District may have been the shortest person around, but there was no doubt of who was in charge. She was handing out flyers and instructions to the dozen volunteers, many of them Sierra Club members, who were clustered around ready to go knock on doors for her.
I had made this trip to the city of Orange to participate in part one of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter's 2024 political mobilization. Along with 30 other dedicated Sierra Club members, we contributed well over 100 hours to our priority candidates in February. Three of them won or advanced. Dave Min will be the undeniable environmental candidate in the race for Congressional seat 47 in the fall. In Los Angeles, environmental champion Nithya Raman narrowly edged out a big-money challenger to keep her seat with a razor-thin 50.7% of the vote. And also in Los Angeles, a ballot initiative to require the city to implement pedestrian safety improvements passed by a massive 65%!
Unfortunately, Farrah Kahn did not succeed in her supervisor race. But what matters almost as much as the outcome is the Sierra Club’s reputation for showing up to support our champions. Despite all the shade we like to throw at our elected leaders, it's a hard job. (I have some sense of it, having served as mayor and city council member in Truckee, CA for 5 years before moving to LA and getting hired by the Sierra Club.) Our environmental movement needs principled environmental champions with track records of fighting and winning on the issues that matter. We show up for them when our issues are before them, and we show up on the campaign trail. Our dedication, sometimes over a leader's decades-long career, is an under-appreciated part of the massive value the Sierra Club brings to the world.
I'm honored to be part of an organization this dedicated to winning local political victories. We are building the environmental majority to steer the ship of our civilization through this grievously difficult time toward a just and sustainable future. Thank you for being a Sierra Club member (and if you're not, maybe now is the time?)