Minnesota District 4

President

We haven't reviewed any presidential candidates yet, but check back soon!

Minnesota Senators

Tina Smith
Excellent Click to read about our ranking scales

Tina Smith has been an incumbent since 2018. Her LCV scorecard rank is 100%. 

As a member of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Smith emphasizes the importance of fighting against the current administration’s environmental rollbacks. With a perfect voting record, she has proven the environment to be her focus. Smith has also partnered with Senator Klobuchar to secure $3 million of funding for the Lewis and Clark Regional Water System, a $40,0000 grant from the EPA for water quality monitoring in Grand Portage, and a $1.3 million grant for Great Lakes Restoration. She has been a strong advocate for clean energy, and is a member of the Senate Democrat’s Special Committee on the Climate Crisis. The Farm Bill also gives funding for clean energy projects in agriculture, an addition that Smith worked hard for. Smith also introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2019, which was meant to bring the electricity sector to net zero emissions by 2050 and encourage more zero-emissions products. 

Smith has made some great strides in sustainability in the political sphere, and we think she should be able to continue her good work.


Paula Overby
Good Click to read about our ranking scales

Paula Overby is a Technology Analyst. 

Overby supports renewable energy usage and reprimands our lack of government action in reducing fossil fuel usage. She believes that refusing to invest in renewable energy is disadvantageous towards our economy, at a time when renewable energy is being acquired and searched for globally. Overby advocates for energy policy focused on sustainable technologies and research into energy conservation in order to successfully face global warming. She is also against sulfide mining in Minnesota, instead advocating for long-term clean energy development.


Bob Carney
Weak Click to read about our ranking scales

Bob “Again” Carney is a Non-Profit Consultant.

Carney recently patented an invention to regulate sunlight reaching earth, which was designed to be both a solution to global warming and a way to provide less expensive solar energy, weather management, and solar powered aircraft and space launches. He plans on reviewing the elements of his invention to make sure it is scientifically sound, and says it should be implemented regardless of the truth of climate change. Carney’s invention is meant to improve on an idea by Dr. Roger Angel, by putting clouds of trillions of giant tethered mirrors at Lagrange Point One between earth and the sun. He does not seem to have a stance on climate change, and believes it may or may not be real.


Steve Carlson
Bad Click to read about our ranking scales

Steve Carlson is a Business Consultant. 

Carlson only supports government funding for renewable energy projects that resell the energy to the marketplace, and he does not think it should regulate greenhouse gas emissions. He further believes that states should take care of their own environments instead of government regulations, and he does not support cap and trade regulations. He also said, in an interview in 2018, that he believes we need to study climate change’s impact on different sectors of our society, but he agrees with the current administration about pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement and says we shouldn’t put our economy under the control of the United Nations.


Ahmad Hassan
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Ahmad Hassan is a Real Estate Broker & Texas Resident

Hassan does not have any environmental stances online. We would love to know about his environmental plans!


Christopher Seymore
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Aside from the creation of a Jobs Bill to help aspects of society such as the environment, Seymore does not have any environmental stances out. We would love to know about his environmental plans!


Cynthia Gail
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Cynthia Gail was a 2016 State Senate Candidate. 

Gail does not have any environmental stances online. We would love to know about his environmental plans!


James Reibestein
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

James Reibestein was a City Council Candidate

Reibestein does not have any environmental stances online. We would love to know about his environmental plans!


Jason Lewis
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Jason Lewis is an Ex-Congressman & Ex-Radio Show Host.

Lewis does not have any environmental stances online. We would love to know about his environmental plans!


Josh Ondich
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Josh Ondich is a retail worker. 

Ondich does not have any environmental stances online. We would love to know about his environmental plans!


Kevin O’Connor
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Kevin O’Connor is a Marijuana Legalization Activist. 

O’Connor doesn’t have a platform outside of hemp that we can find. However, hemp is a very useful plant that, if grown and harvested sustainably, can have a big impact on construction product production and consumption.


Oliver Steinberg
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Oliver Steinberg is the Grassroots State Party Co-Founder & Marijuana Legalization Activist

Steinberg doesn’t have a platform outside of hemp that we can find. However, hemp is a very useful plant that, if grown and harvested sustainably, can have a big impact on construction product production and consumption.


District 4 Representatives

Betty McCollum
Excellent Click to read about our ranking scales

Betty McCollum has been an incumbent since 2001. Her LCV scorecard is at 97%.

McCollum doesn’t have an extensive platform available, just a few sentences laying out her basic stances on environmentalism. She focuses mainly on anti-pollution efforts and protection for wilderness areas .

But with a little digging, McCollum’s voting record has a lot to say about her stances on clean energy and environmentalism. She has co-sponsored the Green New Deal, a sweeping piece of legislation aimed at implementing a radical change in energy production and consumption in America. She has taken action to hold the EPA responsible to designate and deal with dangerous new chemical spills, like the PFAS epidemic currently hitting the water sources for many major cities.

Locally, McCollum wants to ban copper-sulfide mining in the Rainy River watershed. Banning the mining operations will ensure that the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is protected from various pollutants and development, leaving the area a haven for local wildlife and for camping and canoeing expeditions. She has supported bills to keep carbon taxes in place and to introduce new ones, and has always voted to protect and preserve wild spaces and endangered species.

McCollum has her priorities straight. She has added her voice to amplify those in the struggling clean energy sector, and has always listened and done what’s best for the environment.


David Sanbeck
Weak Click to read about our ranking scales

David Sandbeck is a Network Engineer.

Sanbeck has a lot of vague policy support, but doesn’t really say why he is supporting something. He supports the Green New Deal, but only because it’s more radical than the current incumbent’s stances on clean energy and environmentalism. If he is supporting something, we want to know why. Simply disapproving of someone’s policies isn’t good enough, we need an explanation for those actions.

Similarly, he didn’t support the USMCA (The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) which was a trade deal that would have a big impact on farmers and raw material producers and refiners. His only reason? He didn’t think it was fair that only Mexican laborers would be getting a pay raise. He seems to be an “all-or-nothing” type of idealist, when in reality, any improvement to our system that alleviates the burden of climate change and helps mitigate the climate crisis is necessary- and actions like paying laborers a living wage in Mexico to improve work and living standards is exactly what he says he wants in a trade deal- while bashing the USMCA.

Sanbeck is a weak candidate with conflicting ideologies.

 


Reid Russell
Weak Click to read about our ranking scales

Reid Russell is a Woodwork Restoration Contractor.

Russell doesn’t have much to say about his stances on clean energy and environmental protections, but he does oppose the Enbridge Line 3 expansion. The Enbridge Line 3 expansion in bad for many reasons – not limited to the fact that this pipeline is to bring Canadian crude oil down to the states, and will increase oil refining capacity by 380,000 barrels a day. He also opposes the sulfide mining, and does not support PolyMet Mining Corporation, the corporation that is responsible for mining in Minnesota, yet is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.


Gene Rechtzigel
Bad Click to read about our ranking scales

Gene Rechtzigel is a Farmer and Property Manager.

If we’re being honest, Rechtzigel comes across as a bit of a conspiracy theorist. However, he does have some decent points about reducing the use of harmful pesticides in farming, labeling GMO food product, and the dangers of creating too many genetically modified seeds that will just lead to lining the pockets of big seed monopolies, potentially bankrupting small farming businesses.

Overall, though, definitely reads like a conspiracy theorist.


Alberder Gillespie
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Alberder Gillespie is an Ex-School Board Member and Political Consultant.

Gillespie does not have any environmental stances online. We would love to know about his environmental plans!


Sia Lo
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Sia Lo is an attorney.

Lo does not have any environmental stances online. We would love to know about his environmental plans!


Susan Sindt
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Susan Sindt is a Vaping Shop Owner and Ex-Teacher.

Sindt doesn’t have a platform outside of hemp that we can find. However, hemp is a very useful plant that, if grown and harvested sustainably, can have a big impact on construction product production and consumption.


Tiffini Flynn Forslund
Unknown Click to read about our ranking scales

Tiffini Flynn Forslund is a political organizer.

Forslund does not have any environmental stances online. We would love to know about her environmental plans!