Kara Eastman is a climate hawk because she’s an advocate for children. She runs Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance, a nonprofit devoted to helping children in poverty, where she noticed that sick kids lived in homes lacking basic weatherstripping. That led to an interest in energy efficiency, and thus climate work. She found that poverty-stricken clients were just as interested in their carbon footprints as middle-class suburban folk, but lacked information, and accordingly worked with the Environmental Protection Agency to develop educational material. And now she’s running for Congress.
Kara Eastman is a climate hawk because she’s an advocate for children. She runs Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance, a nonprofit devoted to helping children in poverty, where she noticed that sick kids lived in homes lacking basic weatherstripping. That led to an interest in energy efficiency, and thus climate work. She found that poverty-stricken clients were just as interested in their carbon footprints as middle-class suburban folk, but lacked information, and accordingly worked with the Environmental Protection Agency to develop educational material. And now she’s running for Congress.
The seat is currently held by Don Bacon, a Republican who claims to stand for climate solutions, but voted against relief for victims of Hurricane Harvey. It’s the kind of swingy purple district that Democrats need to win in 2018 to flip the House away from inflicting permanent damage on our climate.
To get to Bacon, Eastman first needs to win against conserva-Dem Brad Ashford, who held the seat in 2015-16. In Congress, Ashford consistently voted for the Keystone XL pipeline and was the sole Democrat to speak out against President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Kara has spoken out and testified to the Nebraska Public Services Commission against Keystone XL (the same state commission that just voted, 3-2, to greenlight an alternate route for the pipeline).
We asked our members in the district if we should get involved in this primary—and they prefer Kara Eastman to Brad Ashford, 81% to 19%.
Democrats have a solid chance to flip this seat from red to blue–but the kind of candidate we send matters. Climate hawks have been fighting Keystone XL and other bad projects for years. This is our moment. We can help Kara win her primary against a pro-Keystone XL Blue Dog.
Chip in now to help send Keystone XL fighter Kara Eastman to Congress.
