Environmental Groups Split on City Council Endorsement. Which One Do You Care About?

Council President Tim Burgess loves the environment. See! Here he is touring Bertha, the machine trying to bore a car-only tunnel under downtown! City of Seattle

Last month, John Roderick picked up a big endorsement in his challenge to Council President Tim Burgess: the Sierra Club of Washington State. Today, Burgess matched him with an endorsement from another big enviro group, Washington Conservation Voters.

In Burgess’s announcement of the endorsement, this was the only indication of why WCV sided with him:

“We’re proud to support Tim Burgess for Seattle City Council,” Shannon Murphy, president of WCV, said in Burgess’s release. “Tim is a strong leader on issues to protect our environment and is committed to progressive solutions for our region’s environmental challenges going forward.”

While the Sierra Club gave us lefties former mayor Mike McGinn (who has endorsed Roderick) and Council Member Mike O’Brien, Washington Conservation Voters has previously endorsed Bill Bryant, the port commissioner who’s now running for governor and whom Sydney has called “perhaps the most vocal pro-Shell official on the port commission.” They’ve since denounced Bryant’s statements about Shell. One wrinkle: the Sierra Club endorsed Burgess last time around and Burgess did vote, along with the rest of the council, in support of a resolution asking the port to reconsider its decision to host Shell.

I asked Twitter about this and people were not surprised at all.

@heidigroover Typical. Sierra club went for McGinn while WCV went for Murray in the mayoral election.
— Bennett Barr (@bennettbarr) June 16, 2015

@heidigroover WCV endorsed the tunnel too. They’re just not that environmentally focused. They’re power focused.
— Ben Schiendelman (@BenSchie) June 16, 2015

@heidigroover Self-explanatory. Great way of describing the difference between those orgs. WCV about pats on the back for “important“ folks.
— Elliott (@llttday) June 16, 2015

I’ve reached out to the two groups to hear more about their thoughts on this split.

In the meantime, let’s speculate wildly! What do you think is behind this split? Tell me in the comments.

And which of these is the more badass endorsement?

This post has been updated to clarify that Washington Conservation Voters’ endorsement of Bill Bryant was for his 2011 election campaign, not his current campaign for governor.