PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS
5.6 Environmental partisanship in the USAThe League of Conservation Voters, a
bipartisan pressure group, keeps an annual
‘environmental scorecard’ recording how
Republicans and Democrats in Congress vote
on key pieces of legislation affecting theenvironment. Records show clearly that
Democrats are much more likely than
Republicans to support environmental
protection measures, and that the gap between
the two parties is steadily widening.Average % supporting environmental measuresHouse Senate1998 2001 2004 1998 2001 2004Democrats 72 81 86 84 82 85
Republicans 24 16 10 12 9 8This partisanship is further confirmed by an
expert survey of American political scientists
who placed the Democrats at 6.01 and the
Republicans at 16.77 on a scale where ‘1’
represents support for environmental protectionover economic growth, and ‘20’ represents
priority to economic growth over environmental
protection (Benoit and Laver 2006 ).
Source: http://www.lcv.org/index.htmfurther deregulation, refused to sign the Earth Summit biodiversity conven-
tion and eventually resorted to condemning environmentalists as extremists
who threatened American jobs. By contrast, Clinton, with the enthusiastic
environmentalist Al Gore^8 as his running mate, contested the 1992 election
on a pro-environment platform, and on a lower-profile, but still relatively
strong, environmental stance in his 1996 re-election campaign, whilst Gore’s
personal commitment to the environment was a distinctive feature of his
unsuccessful bid to become president in 2000. The election of George W.
Bush saw another sharp swing against environmental interests, illustrated
byhis renouncement of US support for the Kyoto Protocol, his support for oil
exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and his efforts to rewrite
environmental regulations to favour industry.
Why, given the limited saliency of environmental issues, have the
Democrats proved greener than the Republicans? Institutional factors,
notably the ‘winner takes all’ electoral system that characterises every level
of the federal structure, make it extremely difficult for small, poorly funded
parties to gain electoral success. However, the federal system and the weak
political parties provide multiple opportunities for interest groups to lobby
representatives in Congress and state legislatures, and to influence the rela-
tively pluralistic policy process. As in the UK, rather than attempting to build
agreen party, environmentalists have focused on influencing the established
parties. Unlike Britain, they have concentrated on one party, the Democrats,