Former congressman irked by today’s GOP

BAR HARBOR – The Republican Party has badly derailed from its mission to balance the budget and minimize government, a former congressman and early environmentalist said Tuesday at the College of the Atlantic.

Pete McCloskey, who was a Republican representative from California from 1967 to 1983, was a co-founder of the first Earth Day in 1970 and a co-author of several important pieces of environmental legislation, including the Endangered Species Act. He also was an activist against the war in Vietnam and made the first speech suggesting impeachment of President Richard Nixon in 1973.

McCloskey is spending the week at the college as part of the school’s Wiggins Lecture Series in Government and Polity.

“The Republican Party was pro-environment in those days,” McCloskey remembered in an interview in the lounge of The Turrets. “It was for a balanced budget and against interfering with a woman’s right to choose.”

McCloskey, 78, said that he is busy these days advocating for a change in command of his party.

“My wife and I are making an effort to unseat what we call the DeLay Republicans,” he said. “They don’t have any Republican values I remember.”

The current administration is making decisions that are worrisome to the former Congressman, including giving “tax breaks to the rich,” and planning to veto the recently passed bill to prohibit torture.

“I think [senators] Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have to be embarrassed by the White House these days,” he said.

Though he is a man with a mission, McCloskey does not come across as a zealot. Friendly and talkative, the former congressman looked relaxed in a blue plaid shirt as he spoke enthusiastically about Maine’s political leaders and the campus and students at the College of the Atlantic.

“Maine has always contributed honest politicians, whether they were Republican or Democratic,” he said.

He singled out Snowe, Collins and former senators George Mitchell and Margaret Chase Smith for their contributions to the country.

McCloskey will spend most of his stay at the college speaking with students individually and in classes. He also will give a public talk on youth and politics, a topic close to his heart.

He remembered the genesis and effects of the first Earth Day, which was a primarily student-led movement that had far-reaching consequences when students publicly denounced politicians they called the “dirty dozen.”

“In 1970, among young people, there began to be questions,” he said. “Was development worth clear-cutting the forests and polluting the oceans?”

In the next elections after the April Earth Day celebration, several of the denounced politicians were defeated.

“A bunch of kids from Earth Day from all over the country had worked to defeat them,” he said. “Suddenly, the environment was a force out there … That started the period of all the great environmental legislation.”

Some of the hard-won legislation, including the Endangered Species Act, is being weakened by the current administration, McCloskey said. He added that he is worried by what he perceives as an ongoing movement to weaken the system of checks and balances among the three branches of government.

“It would be a return to a form of government we once rebelled against,” he cautioned. “You’d call it a dictatorship, not a congress.”

McCloskey’s talk on “Youth and Politics: Setting the Political Agenda,” will examine ways in which youth can make a difference in politics and will be held at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20. It’s free and open to the public.