How did your legislator perform on the environment in 2011?

Are you ready to know their scores and take action? Today the team at CLCV released our annual California Environmental Scorecard today, one year prior to the 2012 election. The record of the year’s most important environmental votes (available at http://www.ecovote.org/scorecard/2011-scorecard) reveals how members of the state legislature and Governor Jerry Brown performed on the environment in the 2011 legislative session.

If there is one takeaway message from this year's Scorecard it is the need to elect environmental champions in 2012 who protect our air, water, wild spaces, and quality of life. The perfect storm of redistricting and open primaries will produce an unprecedented number of competitive races for the legislature next year. This represents a huge opportunity to elect a "green" majority to the legislature -- but that will only be possible if we have enough support from environmental voters to get involved in the dozens of races that will be in play.

The 2011 Environmental Scorecard details how right-wing legislators used the recession to justify a record number of bills attacking California’s bedrock environmental protections. CLCV and its partners defeated the majority of these proposals while advocating for dozens of bills to expand clean energy usage and protect public health and natural resources. Working with several new lawmakers, the environmental community helped deliver several of these proposals to Governor Brown’s desk.

True to his campaign promise to be a champion for the environment, Governor Brown signed the vast majority of pro-environmental bills, including: a landmark bill to increase California’s renewable energy portfolio standard to 33% by 2020; a bill to protect babies and toddlers from a toxic chemical in bottles and sippy cups; a ban on the sale and possession of shark fins; and a package of legislation that makes clean drinking water more accessible for all Californians.

Importantly, several of our priority bills failed by only a few votes and never made it to the governor’s desk. This underscores the need to elect an environmental majority in California’s legislature.

CLCV is already hard at work on our endorsements and other work to elect legislators in 2012 who will reject demands to roll back our landmark environmental laws. We need to elect leaders who will protect California’s natural heritage and state parks, safeguard the public’s health by working to improve air and water quality, and reduce our exposure to toxic chemicals. Finally, we must elect champions for clean technology and renewable energy opportunities that will keep California at the forefront of a new economic prosperity.

2011 California Environmental Scorecard Highlights:

Governor Jerry Brown: 83%

Senate average: 61%

Senate Democrats: 86%

Senate Republicans: 18%

Senators with 100% score: 6

Highest Scoring Senate Republican: Blakeslee, 53%             

Lowest Scoring Senate Democrat: Correa, 29%

Assembly average: 67%

Assembly Democrats: 92%

Assembly Republicans: 19%

Assemblymembers with 100% score: 14

Highest Scoring Assembly Republican: Fletcher, 53%    

Lowest Scoring Assembly Democrat: V. Manuel Perez, 71%

Perfect 100%:

Senators: Corbett, DeSaulnier, Evans, Kehoe, Liu, Steinberg.

Assemblymembers: Allen, Ammiano, Butler, Cedillo, Davis, Feuer, Fong, Gordon, Hayashi, B. Lowenthal, Monning, Skinner, Swanson, Yamada.