The Largest Number Of Scientists In U.S. Are Running For Office

The Largest Number Of Scientists In Modern U.S. History Are Running For Office In 2018

This comes at a time when there’s only one Ph.D. scientist in Congress.

By Alexander C. Kaufman 02/03/2018 08:00 EST 
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/science-candidates_us_5a74fffde4b06ee97af2ae60

Demonstrators pack the Earth Day March for Science Rally on the National Mall on April 22, 2017.
More than 60 researchers and technologists are running for federal office in 2018 as part of a historic wave of candidates with science backgrounds launching campaigns.

At least 200 candidates with previous careers in science, technology, engineering and math announced bids for some of the nation’s roughly 7,000 state legislature seats as of Jan. 31, according to data that 314 Action, a political action committee, shared exclusively with HuffPost.

The group, which launched in 2014 to help scientists run for office, said it is talking with 500 more people and is pressing about half of them to run. An additional 200 such candidates are running for school boards.

“The sheer number is really astonishing,” 314 Action founder Shaughnessy Naughton told HuffPost. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”

This is the largest number of scientists to run for public office in modern history. If any of them win, it could dramatically multiply the number of scientists in Congress beyond Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), the lone Ph.D. scientist, a physicist.

The surge in congressional bids comes as scientists are experiencing a fierce political backlash. A year into his first term, President Donald Trump has yet to name a science adviser and has proposed dramatically slashing research budgets across federal agencies. He openly mocks the widely accepted science behind global warming and has nominated ardent climate deniers to key environmental positions. Under Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, the White House has reversed regulations to reduce greenhouse gases and put new rules in place to give control of the agency’s science advisory boards to researchers paid by industries.

YURI GRIPAS / REUTERS
President Donald Trump has yet to name a science adviser, leading some to declare that Fox News is filling the position.
The so-called war on science is being waged in Congress, too. Under the leadership of Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a virulent climate change denier and fossil fuel ally, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology has mounted repeated “witch hunts” to tarnish the credibility of scientists, leading some to call it the “House (anti)science panel.”

“The attacks on science, of course, didn’t start with the Trump administration, but it has been a catalyst to getting scientists out of the lab and into running for federal office,” Naughton said. “That is one bright spot.”

This weekend, 314 Action plans to announce its support for two new candidates running for the House of Representatives, bringing its total endorsements to 16.

The group is backing Brian Forde, a former senior technology adviser in the Obama administration, in his bid to unseat Rep. Mimi Walters. The Orange County Republican, who has served two terms from California’s 45th Congressional District, so routinely votes against climate change legislation that she has a paltry 4 percent lifetime score on the League of Conservation Voters’ ranking.

“She’s voting for herself to rise up in leadership, she’s not voting for her constituents,” Forde, who led a climate data initiative under President Barack Obama, told HuffPost by phone Friday.

These are people that are genuinely outraged and concerned by the direction the country is going in, especially in this administration and this Congress.
Shaughnessy Naughton, 314 Action founder
“I grew up in this district. This is where I won the local science fair in fifth grade. This is where I learned how to code and build a computer,” he added. “This is one of the most highly educated districts in the country.”

314 Action is also endorsing Suneel Gupta, a systems architect and former executive at Mozilla and Groupon, who is running for Michigan’s 11th District seat. His campaign bills him as the “first tech candidate in the industrial Midwest.”

He’s running to replace Rep. David Trott, a Republican attorney nicknamed the “foreclosure king” because he used to own one of the state’s largest “foreclosure mill” law firms. Trott, who said he would not run for reelection this year, has a 4 percent lifetime League of Conservation Voters score, and the crop of Republicans running to succeed him don’t seem poised to improve on that. At a Republican debate held last month, all six candidates answered no when asked 59 minutes in if they believed “in manmade climate change.”

“This is what we’re up against,” Gupta told HuffPost, adding that he wants to bring “evidence-based policy solutions into Congress.” “We don’t have enough of that now, and we need it now more than ever.”

314 Action is working with roughly 20 other federal campaigns and plans to endorse up to 10 more candidates before the election cycle is over. The group raised $207,157 and spent $223,159 in 2016, according to data collated by the Center for Responsive Politics. But the group said it raised $2 million in 2017, and is on track to bring in $5 million to $7 million throughout this election cycle. 

“These are not people that envision themselves as politicians and build a résumé around that,” Naughton said. “These are people that are genuinely outraged and concerned by the direction the country is going in, especially in this administration and this Congress.”

“It seems that time has really come,” she added. “I find that really encouraging.”

This story was updated with 314 Action’s latest fundraising numbers. 

特朗普輕視科學惹眾怒？美掀起科學家從政潮 2018科研人士競選創紀錄

Emma Chou • 2018-03-07 16:36:48 來源：前瞻網

      作為具有科學背景候選人曆史浪潮的一部分，2018年有超過60名科研人員和技術人員參加聯邦政府職位競選。

據數據顯示，候選人中至少有200名曾從事科學、技術、工程和數學工作，於1月31日宣布競選美國全國約7,000個州議會議席。314 行動是一個政治行動委員會，獨家分享資料給《赫芬頓郵報》。

314 行動組織於2014年成立，旨在幫助科學家競選政府職位，並表示正在與另外500多人交談，並促使其中大約一半的人參加競選。另外200名這樣的候選人正在競選校董事會。

“這個數字真的很驚人。”314行動創始人肖恩尼·諾頓告訴《赫芬頓郵報》， “我們從未見過這樣的事情。”

這是現代曆史上科學家競選公職人數最多的一年。如果他們中的任何人獲勝，都將會使國會的科學家人數大大增加，而國會中比爾·福斯特(D-Ill.)是唯一的博士，科學家，物理學家。

隨著科學家們經曆激烈的政治反彈，國會出價的激增。 在第一個任期的第一年，唐納德·特朗普總統尚未任命一位科學顧問，並提出大幅削減聯邦機構的研究預算。 他公開嘲笑全球變暖背後廣為接受的科學知識，並在關鍵環境職位提名氣候變化否定者，還讓美國退出了《巴黎氣候協定》。在環境保護局局長斯科特·普魯特的領導下，白宮已經改變了減少溫室氣體排放的規定，並出台了新的規定，以便將該機構的科學顧問委員會的控製權交給由行業支付的研究人員。

所謂的科學戰也是在國會進行的。在眾議員拉馬爾·史密斯的領導下，科學，太空和科技方麵的眾議院委員會一再發動“政治迫害”，詆毀科學家的信譽，導致一些人稱之為“眾議院(反)科學小組”。

“對科學的攻擊當然不是從特朗普政府開始的，但是它已經成為讓科學家走出實驗室並競選聯邦辦公室的催化劑。”諾頓說，“這是一個重點。”

本周末，314行動計劃宣布支持兩名競選眾議員的新候選人，16人為其背書。

314行動正在支持奧巴馬政府的前高級技術顧問布萊恩·福德(Brian Forde)，試圖將眾議員米米·沃爾特斯(Mimi Walters)趕下台。這位奧蘭治縣共和黨人曾在加利福尼亞州第45屆國會地區任職兩屆，經常投票反對氣候變化立法，她在環保選民聯盟的排名中隻獲得了4%的可憐分數。

“她在為自己的領導地位投票，她並不是為她的選民投票。”在奧巴馬總統領導下開展氣候數據倡議的福德周五告訴《赫芬頓郵報》。

“我在這個地區長大。這是我學習如何編寫和構建計算機的地方。”他補充道。 “這是美國受教育程度最高的地區之一。”

314行動也支持Suneel Gupta，係統架構師兼Mozilla和Groupon的前執行官，他正在競選密歇根州第11區的席位。他的競選讓他成為“中西部工業界的第一個技術候選人”。

314行動正在與其他大約20個聯邦競選組織合作，並計劃在選舉周期結束之前再支持多達10個候選人。根據響應政治中心整理的數據，該組織在2016年籌集了207,157美元，並花費了223,159美元。但該組織表示，它在2017年籌集了200萬美元，並有望在整個選舉周期內帶來500萬至700萬美元的收入。

諾頓說：“這些人不是將自己想象成政治家，而是圍繞這個概念為簡曆再添一筆。” “這些人真的非常憤怒，並且擔心國家的發展方向，特別是在這界政府和國會的管理下。”

“看來時間真的到了。”她補充說，“我感到非常振奮人心。”