Battle for the Senate: A Ten State Roundup

The stakes for environment and energy policy are high in this year’s Senate elections.

Control of the Senate is important for many reasons, including the majority party’s control over the agenda and its power to launch investigations. Given that the Republicans are in such a strong position in the House, it matters even more than usual which party controls the other chamber. The parties are far apart on many issues, notably including environmental and energy policy. This is the last in a series of blog posts on the critical races.

Previous posts have looked at ten key Senate races that are likely to decide the balance of power in the Senate. It’s been an interesting process. I’ve learned, for instance, that some campaign websites have almost no discussion of issues while others features well-articulated policy stances. I’ve also been struck by the number of lawyers (or at least law school graduates) among the candidates. In terms of environmental stances, the Democrats are uniformly more environmentalist than the Republicans. The difference is often extreme, but in a few states – most notably Illinois—the Republican’s views are more moderate.

Just to pull everything together in one place, here are the links to the posts about individual states:

You might also be interested in looking back at the initial, overview post in this series.which contains a more extensive discussion of why Senate control matters so much.

We’ll know two weeks from now how it all comes out. Either way, this turbulent election year should soon be coming to an end. In the meantime, don’t forget to vote!

2 Replies to “Battle for the Senate: A Ten State Roundup”

Dear Dan,
We hear a lot of complaints about Trump being a sexual predator. So it is only fair to point out that Hillary is a major advocate of sexual immorality both in her personal life and in her public policies. She openly supports, promotes and encourages children and young people to reject Biblical morality, disobey God, disobey their parents and practice homosexuality and fornication, beginning at young age. She attacks and despises those of us who uphold traditional moral values.

Hillary recently had a grandson, I doubt that she desires for her precious grandson will grow up and become gay. Yet she encourages other people’s children, especially young boys, to embrace filthy depraved sexual perversion, and to openly practice sexual immorality when they reach the legal age of consent.

Hillary never explains how this filth is morally righteous, or how it helps families, or how it makes America a better nation. It seems like her sole focus is pandering to the sexual gratification of sick twisted deviants. She does not care whether it is right or wrong, nor who gets hurt (provided it is not someone in her own family).

Trump also has problems with sexual morality but he is repentant and does not pose the threat to innocent children that we see in Hillary. She promotes policies that encourage our sons to be gay and our daughters to be whores. She is far worse than Trump.

BBQ PLANET says:

October 26, 2016 at 5:03 pm

Your continual habit of bringing up sexual morality on an environmental forum is quite strange. Although it does betray the truth: you have made it clear that you decide whether or not to believe evidence of man-made climate change based on whether or not the messenger agrees with your sexual mores.

I have to say: the narrative you wrote about Hillary is quite twisted, and goes way beyond the absurd things I see even far-right-wingers say. Is this a popular view among the fringe recesses of the right?

As much as I dislike Trump, I’m glad to see that he (and most of the rest of the Republican party) are not nearly as interested in fighting gay marriage as the far-right seem to be, even if they are technically against it. Maybe that is just a function of the fact that most politicians, even conservative ones, are more likely to come in contact with a large diversity of people on a regular basis. I bet this serves to dispel the most extreme comic book caricatures that they might otherwise believe about those they disagree with (of which your comment is a clear example of).

While religious conservatives have spent centuries shaming those with same-sex attractions, fortunately our society has entered a new era of acceptance. You are free to hold whatever religious views you want, but the separation of church and state means that we can no longer legislate your religious codes.

The irony is that religious conservatives pick and choose which religious laws they want to impose on others. Do they bemoan the fact that adultery is no longer the crime that it was early in our nation’s history? Nope. Like I talked about in an earlier comment about slavery, the rules that religious conservatives think should be imposed on others change from generation to generation. Yet every generation thinks that their selection of codes is the sweet spot: not to restrictive, not to loose. It is almost as if it is actually more about culture than faith. Who would have thought?

Comments are closed.

Reader Comments

bqrq says:

October 26, 2016 at 5:19 am

Dear Dan,
We hear a lot of complaints about Trump being a sexual predator. So it is only fair to point out that Hillary is a major advocate of sexual immorality both in her personal life and in her public policies. She openly supports, promotes and encourages children and young people to reject Biblical morality, disobey God, disobey their parents and practice homosexuality and fornication, beginning at young age. She attacks and despises those of us who uphold traditional moral values.

Hillary recently had a grandson, I doubt that she desires for her precious grandson will grow up and become gay. Yet she encourages other people’s children, especially young boys, to embrace filthy depraved sexual perversion, and to openly practice sexual immorality when they reach the legal age of consent.

Hillary never explains how this filth is morally righteous, or how it helps families, or how it makes America a better nation. It seems like her sole focus is pandering to the sexual gratification of sick twisted deviants. She does not care whether it is right or wrong, nor who gets hurt (provided it is not someone in her own family).

Trump also has problems with sexual morality but he is repentant and does not pose the threat to innocent children that we see in Hillary. She promotes policies that encourage our sons to be gay and our daughters to be whores. She is far worse than Trump.
1. BBQ PLANET says:
  
  October 26, 2016 at 5:03 pm
  
  Your continual habit of bringing up sexual morality on an environmental forum is quite strange. Although it does betray the truth: you have made it clear that you decide whether or not to believe evidence of man-made climate change based on whether or not the messenger agrees with your sexual mores.
  
  I have to say: the narrative you wrote about Hillary is quite twisted, and goes way beyond the absurd things I see even far-right-wingers say. Is this a popular view among the fringe recesses of the right?
  
  As much as I dislike Trump, I’m glad to see that he (and most of the rest of the Republican party) are not nearly as interested in fighting gay marriage as the far-right seem to be, even if they are technically against it. Maybe that is just a function of the fact that most politicians, even conservative ones, are more likely to come in contact with a large diversity of people on a regular basis. I bet this serves to dispel the most extreme comic book caricatures that they might otherwise believe about those they disagree with (of which your comment is a clear example of).
  
  While religious conservatives have spent centuries shaming those with same-sex attractions, fortunately our society has entered a new era of acceptance. You are free to hold whatever religious views you want, but the separation of church and state means that we can no longer legislate your religious codes.
  
  The irony is that religious conservatives pick and choose which religious laws they want to impose on others. Do they bemoan the fact that adultery is no longer the crime that it was early in our nation’s history? Nope. Like I talked about in an earlier comment about slavery, the rules that religious conservatives think should be imposed on others change from generation to generation. Yet every generation thinks that their selection of codes is the sweet spot: not to restrictive, not to loose. It is almost as if it is actually more about culture than faith. Who would have thought?