The Sierra Club's California Legislative 2017 Report Card

Of the 80 Assembly members, only 13 earned 100% scores, and of the 40 senators, 10 earned 100% scores. More importantly, of the 13 assembly 100-percenters, 5 were members of the legislative class elected for the first time in 2016, and 3 of those replaced poor or mediocre past performers on the score card.

The five new assembly members who earned 100% are Laura Friedman (43rd District, Burbank), Todd Gloria (78th District, San Diego), Ash Kalra (27th District, San Jose), Monique Limón (37th District, Santa Barbara) and Eloise Reyes (47th District, Inland Empire). The scores of Friedman, Kalra, and Reyes significantly outshone the 2016 scorecard scores of their predecessors, Mike Gatto, Nora Campos and Cheryl Brown, respectively.

“The voters in assembly districts 43, 27 and 47 clearly wanted a change when they voted three strong environmentalists into office. The good news is that those legislators they voted into office are performing as they promised,” said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California.

In the Senate, of the 10 senators who earned 100%, two were voted into office in 2016, Henry Stern (27th District, Calabasas) and Scott Wiener (11th District, San Francisco). Both replaced termed-out senators who were environmental champions, Fran Pavley and Mark Leno, respectively.

Overall, 24 senators earned scores of 70% or better, and 39 Assembly members earned scores of 70% or better. That means that more than half the senate votes in a way that reflects the environmental values that most polling shows that Californians hold. And slightly less than half of the assembly members are voting in a way that’s consistent with Californians’ concerns about the environment.

“A lot of different things go into why and how a legislator votes a certain way,” said Phillips. “Too often the campaign funding available from a polluting industry is pushing legislators to vote against their constituents’ interests in clean air, clean water, strong regulation and the effort to address climate change.”

To prepare the scorecard, Sierra Club California staff selected 12 bills to score in each house. The bills represent a cross-section of environmental and environmental justice issues and were among the top priority California legislation the Sierra Club’s staff and volunteers engaged in this year.

How each legislator voted on each bill was noted and a score was calculated by dividing the number of times the legislator voted with the Club’s recommendation by the total number of bills for which the legislator was present to cast a vote.

As in past years, Republican legislators ranked among the lowest performers on the scorecard. All nine zero scores in the Legislature were captured by Republicans. “You really have to work at earning a zero on our scorecard,” said Phillips. “You have to display an unusual commitment to opposing anything that has to do with providing clean water and clean air to your constituents.”

The scorecard is available online.  

Sierra Club California is the legislative and regulatory advocacy arm of the 13 Sierra Club chapters in California, representing more than 400,000 members and supporters statewide.