2015 California Legislative Report Card: How green are your state representatives?

Nearly twice as many California Senators as Assembly members scored a 100% on Sierra Club California’s 2015 legislative report card. It measures how often they voted with the Club’s recommendations on a list of priority bills that would protect the environment and public health.

Kevin De Leon (D-24th state Senate District) Photo credit: Donna Specht

In the state Senate, Southern California legislators Kevin De Leon (D-24), Carol Liu (D-25), Ben Allen (D-26), Fran Pavley (D-27) and Holly Mitchell (D-30) earned a 100% score. Bob Hertzberg (D-18), Ricardo Lara (D-33) and Isadore Hall (D-35) received 90% scores while Patricia Bates (R-36) and John Moorlach (R-37) received a disappointing 20%.

In the Assembly, Southern California legislators did far worse. Only Richard Bloom (D-50), Anthony Rendon (D-63) and Adrin Nazarian (D-46) received a 100% score. Next closest were Ed Chau (D-49), Matthew Dababneh (D-45), Jimmy Gomez (D-51) and Miguel Santiago (D-63) with an 89% rating. Thirteen others scored 78% or less, including Matthew Harper with a 20% score.

“When you look at the votes, it’s pretty clear that many Democratic Assembly members who might vote well on other environmental issues, held back on votes that would have required them to challenge the oil industry to pollute less,” said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California.

Take action! Contact your state Senator or Assembly member about their score.

Sierra Club California's California Legislative 2015 Report Card

Bills supported by Sierra Club in the California Legislature

Fourteen state Senators received 100%, including the five mentioned above. The others are Marty Block, Loni Hancock, Jerry Hill, Hannah-Beth Jackson, Mark Leno, Mike McGuire, William Monning, Bob Wieckowski, and Lois Wolk.

State Sen. Fran Pavley, center, with Angeles Chapter leaders and activists Mike Sappingfield and Sandra Catrell. Photo credit: Donna Specht

Assembly members receiving 100% scores along with Bloom are Susan Eggman, Marc Levine, Patty Lopez, Adrin Nazarian, Anthony Rendon, Mark Stone, and Phil Ting. Other Assembly members who scored 89% or above in addition to those above are Chaare Toni Atkins, Rob Bonta, David Chiu, Kansen Chu, Rich Gordon, Reginald Jones-Sawyer, Sr., Kevin McCarty, Kevin Mullin, Bill Quirk, Miguel Santiago, Tony Thurmond and Jim Wood.

“Generally, if you got less than a 100% in the Senate, it was because you took a walk or voted against the environment on at least one bill the oil industry overtly worked to defeat,” said Phillips.

Assembly member Das Williams, who was absent from voting on the last two nights of the legislative session to attend to the birth of his daughter, missed voting on three bills he co-authored that were priority environmental bills. Had he been there to vote, he would have scored a 90% on the report card.
 

State Assemblyman Anthony Rendon was honored last August by the Angeles Chapter for his green record. Credit: Donna Specht

“Getting 89% or above in the Assembly is a good score this year,” said Phillips. “Anything lower than that means your constituents are not getting the representation on the environment and public health that virtually every public opinion survey indicates Californians want.”

The state Senators receiving 100% scores are Ben Allen, Marty Block, Kevin de Leon, Loni Hancock, Jerry Hill, Hannah-Beth Jackson, Mark Leno, Carol Liu, Mike McGuire, Holly Mitchell, William Monning, Fran Pavley, Bob Wieckowski, and Lois Wolk.

Ten bills were scored in each house. Several bills made it to floor votes in each house and are included in the report card for Assembly members and Senators. Some bills died in their house of origin and are only included in that house’s score tally.

“One of the things we looked at this year, too, was campaign finance reports. Thanks to the new system online at the Secretary of State’s website we could quickly research who received oil money in their last campaign and through the summer,” said Phillips. “It was disappointing — not surprising — to see how many legislators who had low scores received a lot of oil money.”

The lowest score among Democratic Assembly members was garnered by Jim Frazier, Adam Gray, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas and Freddie Rodriguez. They each received a score of 46%. The highest score among Assembly Republicans was 60%, which was garnered by David Hadley.

In the Senate, the lowest score among Democratic members was earned by Cathleen Galgiani, who scored a 50%. The highest score among Republican members was 30%, earned by five members, Jeff Stone, Sharon Runner, Bob Huff, Anthony Canella and Tom Berryhill.

“Anything below 60% would earn an F grade in most schools,” said Phillips.

The report card is available on the Sierra Club California website at www.sierraclubcalifornia.org.

Sierra Club California is the legislative and regulatory advocacy arm of the 13 Sierra Club chapters in California, representing more than 380,000 members and supporters statewide.