Friday, January 9, 2015

Hedge Fund Billionaire Tom Steyer Considering Run for Barbara Boxer’s Senate Seat

Following up on "Nebraska Supreme Court Strikes Down Lower Court Decision On Keystone Pipeline" immediately below.
From Politico:
Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer is mulling a run for Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat, according to a person close to the former hedge fund trader.
“My sense is that he will take a look at it and consider it over the next few days or so,” the person said.
The person added that Steyer has been approached by some in the liberal community to run for Boxer’s seat, while others have urged him to run for governor of California in 2018. Another option: running for Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat if she retires in 2018.
Almost as soon as Boxer announced that she would not seek reelection in 2016, Steyer began reviewing polling data and making calls to California labor and political figures, associates said. And he is consulting with the contacts he made while running two multi-million-dollar advocacy campaigns focused on statewide ballot measures in 2010 and 2012.
Steyer has spent tens of millions of dollars on federal elections in recent years, shelling out more than $65 million in the recent midterm elections alone, in a bid to turn climate change into a top-tier political issue. If he runs, Steyer’s campaign would likely be one of the most environmentally focused in history, putting to the test the billionaire’s convictions that climate change is a winning issue....MORE