Opinion: WHY SHOULD I VOTE? by Andy Friedman

As we near the November elections, national politics are once again heavily discussed in the media. Unfortunately, what's missing from these discussions (and in the candidates' campaigns) are the issues that effect the lives of regular citizens. There is more discussion of Bob Dole's age than of the merits and/or faults of his proposed tax cut. Furthermore, there has been very little discussion of what really matters - how all of these policies and campaign promises will affect the regular citizen if they are put into motion after the election.

In the last two years, the Republican-controlled Congress has voted on a large number of bills weakening environmental standards. On the Clean Water Act, they voted three separate times to cut funding for Wisconsin's Clean Water and Safe Drinking water programs by over $70 million (HR 2099 on 7/28, 7/31, and 11/2/95). They also voted to allow oil companies to continue to release over 150 million pounds of air pollutants each year (HR 2099 on 7/21), and voted to cut EPA mercury, lead, and benzene cleanup programs. In that same period, our own Stteate Legislature postponed any action on Assembly Bill 758, the mining moratorium bill and, following Congress's lead, failed to address the issue of campaign finance reform.

Our current election system is closer to an auction than an election, with candidates sold to the highest bidder. Overwhelmingly, those bidders tend to be rich CEO's of large corporations. They contribute so highly in order to have their special interests tended to by our politicians, rather than the public interest. In a recent glaring example, Wisconsin Congressman Mark Neumann (R), who has taken $14,000 in polluter PAC money during his campaigning, held a fundraiser in Milwaukee hosted by members of the Chemical and Allied Trade Industries just one week after he voted to reduce their responsibility for oil pollution clean-up costs.

"Most elections are won or lost by a small portion of the overall voting public, and an even smaller portion of the general population"

Wisconsin Citizen Action and Wisconsin's Environmental Decade are grassroots organizations dedicated to changing this state of affairs. By combining our long history of work on important environmental issues with a concise examination of the role of money in politics, we seek to inform Wisconsin citizens on the impact these practices have on their lives. However, to be truly successful we need your help.

Most elections are won or lost by a small portion of the overall voting public, and an even smaller portion of the general population. Many elections are decided by a margin of 5% or less. Just by getting out to vote, you can make an important difference. Congressman Neumann won his 1994 election by 1,120 votes (a margin of only 0.5 % of the people who voted in his race). In the State Assembly, there are several legislators who won with a margin of under 5%. Voting has an enormous impact on the type of legislation brought before Congress. It is safe to say that former Congressman Barca would not have pushed for the drastic rollback in our environmental safeguards that Congressman Neumann has supported.

As a member of Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, you care enough to be more informed about environmental politics than the average voter. You can help by demanding that our legislators (and would be legislators) answer the tough questions on where their priorities are on our issues. Only when people become involved in elections on a grassroots level by volunteering their time and energy can we hope to diminish the importance that special interest money plays in politics. Informed election volunteers who can discuss the issues can, and do, influence their fellow voters. That small margin of voters may prove to be the difference between a majority of pro-environmental legislators, and the continued control of our legislatures by money-grabbing, pollution-friendly special interest politicians.

- Andy Friedman works for Wisconsin Citizen Action. The statewide organization can be reached at 414-272-2562.