Written by Emma Moutaw
Democratic candidate, Nancy Casady, has announced that she is running for the 52nd congressional district against incumbent Democrat, Scott Peters. Casady is a La Jolla democrat who is a member of the State Food and Agriculture Board and is a prior manager for the Ocean Beach People’s Organic Food Co-op. She plans on competing against Representative Peters in the 2020 primaries.
Peters has come out saying that he does not support the Green New Deal and Casady has said that is her main reason for running. Casady has said she is a supporter of Peters but has been disappointed in his stance on the Green New Deal.
Casady said, “We are in a dire climate emergency, and it is growing every day.”
Nancy Casady tends to be a more radical leftist standing up for the Green New Deal, whereas Scott Peters tends to be more moderate. Now Peters is not only facing competition from Famela Ramos from the Republican Party but Casady from the Democratic party.
It is very rare to see someone stand up against the incumbent in their party, especially someone like Peters, who has been the congressional representative of the coastal and central San Diego for four terms now.
Peters took to Twitter to respond to an article from KPBS about why he doesn’t support the Green New Deal saying, “I’ve been working on environmental issues and climate action for 20 years. I wholly support all climate-related aspects of the Green New Deal, and I’m especially encouraged by the enthusiasm it’s brought, but it has two major problems.” He went onto say that the first problem was that it was a “non-binding resolution that contains no actual legislation.” He explained that for it to be implemented, you would have to pass it separately. His second major problem was that he didn’t agree with some of the things it contains, including federal job guarantee or free college for everyone.
Peters is the only Democrat in San Diego’s congressional delegation who hasn’t backed the resolution depicting the displeasure of local environmentalists who have protested outside of his office.
Even though he has been one not to support the Green New Deal, he did call them “aspirational” for raising eagerness for climate change. Though he completed them, he did chastise them for not having a clear legislative component.
Peters did come up with his own ‘climate playbook’ which is a 50 piece collection of legislation from both democrats and republicans since 2017 on how to combat climate change. The ‘climate playbook’ includes pieces on taxing carbon emissions and requiring new car fleets to have zero-emission vehicles.
Casady has already spoken out against Peters’ playbook, saying that it is not fast enough and does not do enough for the urgent crisis that is climate change.
In the past two elections, Peters has been winning with leeway to his republican opponents and winning by 13 points in 2016 and 27 points in 2018.
But now, he’s facing someone in his party, so it is unsure how it will play out.
