A Los Angeles politician has been dubbed Chevron Cheryl by opponents after she accepted a $1million dollar campaign donation from oil major Chevron – to boost her environmental credentials.
Cheryl Brown, who is running for office in the Californian city’s assembly, has been criticised by trade unions who have supported an anti-Brown campaign after it was revealed Chevron contributed $1million to a committee backing Brown, and helped pay for a mailer touting Brown’s environmental record.
By law, the committee cannot coordinate activities with the Brown campaign.
Brown, who is part of a moderate block of Assembly Democrats, infuriated liberals last fall when she opposed a portion of a climate change bill that would have cut petroleum usage by motor vehicles in California in half by 2030.
The final bill, which Brown and other moderate Democrats voted for, did not contain the provision.
“Brown’s record puts the profits of polluters above ensuring clean air and drinking water for the people of our district, who suffer from some of the worst pollution in the country,” Hakan Jackson of CCAEJ Action said in a news release.
Brown is being challenged by liberal Democrat Eloise Reyes in the 47th Assembly District. Reyes is being supported by a group that includes labor unions and environmental activists. A republican candidate is also standing.
The Chevron Cheryl campaign’s sponsors are listed as “Neighbors United for a Stronger Middle Class to Support Eloise Reyes for Assembly 2016 – Major Funding provided by the United Food & Commercial Workers Western States Council.”
Brown’s supporters include elected Democrats, business groups and the California Democratic Party, which endorsed her earlier this year.
A defiant Brown told local media she voted for “the toughest fracking law ever in the United States … I voted for 6,000 bills and that’s all they can pull out. My opponent does not have a record so she has to resort to name-calling and false statements.”
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