Science candidates prevail in US midterm elections.
I had the privilege of having a Congressperson who was a scientist - Rush Holt - until he retired. Before being elected to Congress, Dr. Holt was the Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics labs.
While I didn't always agree with everything he said or did, overall he was a magnificent congressperson, the best Congressperson I ever experienced by orders of magnitude, which is not to say that his replacement, Bonnie Watson Coleman is a bad Congressperson, only that Rush Holt was the best, by far.
He should have been our Senator, but didn't come close in the only race he entered; won by Corey Booker; Rush wasn't flashy, just solid, decent, extremely intelligent, thoughtful, concerned with justice, open, helpful and responsive.
(For the record, the worst Congressperson I ever had was Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who happily went to prison directly from Congress.)
My tempered joy aside, it appears that our new congress will include several scientist/legislators. From Nature:
Science candidates prevail in US midterm elections (Jane J. Lee,
Amy Maxmen, Jeremy Rehm & Jeff Tollefson Nature 563, 302-303 (2018))
They include Elaine Luria, a US Navy veteran and nuclear engineer in Virginia, and Chrissy Houlahan, a former business executive with a degree in engineering, in Pennsylvania. Illinois saw wins by registered nurse Lauren Underwood, a former senior adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services, and clean-energy entrepreneur Sean Casten, who has degrees in engineering and biochemistry.
The four — all Democrats — are among roughly 50 candidates with science backgrounds who ran for the House in 2018, sparked in part by opposition to President Donald Trump. Fewer than half of these novice politicians made it past the primaries to the general election, but many science advocates are already looking to the next campaign cycle.
“I’m feeling good,” says Representative Bill Foster (Democrat, Illinois), a physicist who has pushed to increase the number of scientists in elected office. Foster, the only current member of Congress with a science PhD, is excited about wins at the state and local levels by candidates with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering or medicine (STEM).
I am personally pleased to see a Democratic nuclear engineer elected, which is why I bolded her discipline in the excerpt above. If I have any difficulty with my fellow Democrats, it is with those who promote what I regard as our creationism, anti-nukism, which marks us a climate change hypocrites, too prevalent in the party to which Nobel Laureate Glenn Seaborg proudly belonged - he headed the AEC when most of our life saving nuclear infrastructure was built - is finally going the way of other anti-science stuff one hears, anti-vax, anti-GMO, etc., etc, that have also represented poisoned wings of our party.
We have no hope, absolutely no hope, of addressing the most severe environmental crisis experienced by human civilization without nuclear energy. I'm glad someone's there who can understand this.
If there's any civil lining on the reign of the orange naked emperor, it is that his attacks on science have raised awareness among scientists of what the stakes are, a new dark and poisoned age, or an age in which knowledge and intellect triumph.
Congrats to our new STEM scientist/congresspeople.
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