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Sierra Club
California Releases 2015 Legislative Report Card
Environment fares
well, but oil industry influence evident
SACRAMENTO
– Nearly twice as many California Senators as Assembly Members scored a 100
percent on Sierra Club California’s 2015 legislative report card.
“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.
Eight
Assembly members received 100 percent scores on the report card. That meant
they voted with the Club’s recommendations on a list of priority bills that
would protect the environment and public health. Fourteen Senators received 100
percent.
The
Assembly members receiving 100 percent scores are Richard Bloom, Susan Eggman,
Marc Levine, Patty Lopez, Adrin Nazarian, Anthony Rendon, Mark Stone, and Phil
Ting. Other Assembly members who scored 89% or above are Toni Atkins, Rob Bonta, Ed Chau, David
Chiu, Kansen Chu, Matthew Dababneh, Jimmy Gomez, Rich Gordon, Reginald
Jones-Sawyer, Sr., Kevin McCarty, Kevin Mullin, Bill Quirk, Miguel Santiago,
Tony Thurmond and Jim Wood.
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 percent on the report card.
“Getting
89 percent 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 percent 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.
“Generally,
if you got less than a 100 percent 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.
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 percent. The highest score among Assembly Republicans was 60
percent, which was garnered by David Hadley.
In
the Senate, the lowest score among Democratic members was earned by Cathleen
Galgiani, who scored a 50 percent. The highest score among Republican members
was thirty percent, earned by five members, Jeff Stone, Sharon Runner, Bob
Huff, Anthony Canella, and Tom Berryhill.
“Anything
below 60 percent would earn an F grade in most schools,” said Phillips.
The
report card is available on the Sierra Club California website at http://www.
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.
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