How Students Convinced O'Rourke to Swear Off Fossil-Fuel Money

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When former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, now a 2020 candidate, bounded up onto a platform inside Trinkle Hall on the campus of William and Mary College in Virginia in mid-April, he may not have known he was bounding into a carefully planned ambush. Scattered throughout the audience, student activists were engaged in a coordinated, and ultimately successful, campaign to force the congressman to swear off donations from the fossil fuel industry.

The Sunday before O’Rourke’s planned visit to campus, activists involved with the local chapter of Sunrise Movement, a grassroots group that sprung to life in the summer of 2017, began to work out their strategy over pancakes. They’d already scrambled to secure as many tickets as they could to the event. “We had multiple plans that we were going to follow in case there weren’t questions or in case we were not selected to ask questions,” says Maddie Belesimo, 20.

The day of the rally, they staked out their positions around the hall early. On their phones, each had the same question pulled up. Nineteen-year-old Maggie Herndon, a freshman history major, was the one who got to ask it. “You’ve already pledged to reject corporate PAC money. Given the corrupting influence that fossil fuel executives and their lobbyists have exerted on our politics and the role they’ve played in blocking climate action, will you pledge today to not knowingly accept any campaign contributions over $200 from the PACs, executives or lobbyists of fossil fuel companies by signing the no fossil fuel money pledge?“ she said.

O’Rourke had signed the No Fossil Fuel pledge in 2018 during his star-making run for the U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz, but Sunrise activists believe he broke it by accepting contributions from industry executives. In 2018, he took in more money from the fossil fuel industry than anyone in Congress other than his rival, Cruz. O’Rourke’s defenders argue that swearing off donations from individuals who work in Texas’s biggest industry would have effectively kneecapped his campaign.

It was a fraught question and so O’Rourke took a deep breath before treating it with one of his characteristically long, multi-clause answers.

“If you work in the oil fields, if you answer the phones at the office, if you’re one of my fellow Texans in one of our state’s largest employers, I’m not gonna single you out from being unable to participate in our democracy,” he began. “At this moment of division, if we exacerbate the divides, if we fail to include people into the solution, including those who work in oil and gas companies, if we fail to include coal miners in our transition from carbon-based energy sources, then we have written off their families and their communities.”

His voice rose, building to a crescendo: “You’ve got my commitment on the end-goal. You’ve got my commitment not to accept any PAC money. You’ve got my commitment not to accept any participation from lobbyists, but other than that I want to bring every single American together around…” Applause drowned out the last few words of his answer. “Thank you!” He shouted, looking satisfied with his own delivery.

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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/beto-orourke-fossil-fuel-pledge-828843/