How Does Your Legislator Rate? CRA Releases 2009 Scorecard.
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Nine legislators rated perfect scores on the annual Legislative Scorecard published by the California Republican Assembly. That’s a drop from thirteen perfect scores last year.
More significantly, the average Republican score dropped from 87 to 81, while the averages for Democrats remained constant at three.
“It’s clear that Republicans moved to the left this year,” noted CRA President Ken Mettler. “Overall, the budget crisis seems to have brought out the worst in our Republican legislators. Too many of them supported tax increases and growth of government in the middle of the worst recession in a generation.”
Mettler praised the legislators who achieved perfect scores: Senators Sam Aanestad, Dennis Hollingsworth, Bob Huff, George Runner and Mimi Walters; and Assembly Members Joel Anderson, Chuck DeVore, Curt Hagman and Jeff Miller.
“These legislators continue to demonstrate their commitment to Republican principles and should be thanked,”
Mettler stated.
CRA reviewed hundreds of bills before settling on 18 key votes. Notable among the bills are measures to increase taxes and fees, provide for early release of criminals, and declare “Harvey Milk Day.”
The complete 2009 Scorecard can be downloaded here
The purpose of the scorecard is to focus on bills which may not seem important on the surface, but clearly demonstrate the divisions within the Democrat and Republican caucuses.
“Once again, Democrats accounted for all of the zero ratings in the scorecard,” commented Mettler. “Although the total number of zeros dropped from 63 last year to 56.”
The highest scoring Democrat on the CRA scorecard was again Senator Lou Correa who received a weak 39% – an increase of 20 points from his score last year. On the Assembly side, Assemblywoman Alyson Huber was tops among Democrats with a score of 28%.
Of the 120 legislators, the lowest scoring Republican was Senator Abel Maldonado scoring a paltry 22%.
“This is the first time in recent memory, perhaps in the history of the scorecard, that a Republican scored lower than two Democrats,” added Mettler.
