Electoral
We help elect members of congress who will fight to protect our oceans, and, we defeat candidates and members who don’t. That, in essence, is what Ocean Champions is all about.
Ocean Champions' bipartisan electoral success has been consistent and continues to grow. In our first election in 2004, we supported 14 candidates, of which 11 won (79%). In 2006, 16 of the 20 candidates we supported won (80%), and we played an important role in defeating ocean enemy #1, Richard Pombo (click here to see how truly bad this guy was for the oceans). In 2008, we supported 34 candidates and 28 of them won (82%).
In 2010 our electoral work is more important than ever. We are poised to advance a healthy oceans agenda, but the rapidly shifting political landscape threatens our progress. We will work to preserve and strengthen a pro-ocean Congress, and play big in the races whose outcomes will impact major ocean conservation priorities, such as climate change, fisheries reform and preventing harmful algal blooms. Specifically, we’ll focus on the following:
- Ensuring that our current congressional champions return to Congress to continue their good work for ocean conservation
- Seeking new candidates and members worthy of the Ocean Champions endorsement and thus willing to make healthy oceans a legislative priority
- Defeating candidates and members who are ocean enemies including (but not limited to) Richard Pombo and Andy Harris. Andy Harris is running against current champion Frank Kratovi, and has one of the worst environmental records in the history of the Maryland legislature. We helped defeat each of them once before, and now we need to do it again.
- Strengthening the Ocean Champions Political Action Committee (PAC) to be even more impactful in electing pro-ocean candidates to Congress and defeating the bad guys. 100% of every dollar given to the PAC goes directly to pro-ocean candidates and campaigns.
Ocean Champions participates fully in the political process using a full complement of electoral and legislative tools to support endorsed champions and defeat bad candidates, including but not limited to PAC giving, advertising, polling, education, voter ID and “get out the vote” campaigns.
| Consistent and Growing Electoral Success | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Supported | Won | HIghlights |
| 2004 | 14 | 11 (79%) |
|
| 2006 | 20 | 16 (80%) |
|
| 2008 | 34 | 28 (82%) |
|
| 2010 | TBD | TBD | |