Score Explanation

CLCV publishes the annual California Environmental Scorecard, which rates the actions of every state legislator and the Governor on the state’s environmental priorities each legislative year.

Along with our partners in the environmental community, we select the twenty to thirty most significant environmental bills in each session and track how each legislator votes on each bill. Legislators' scores are shown as a percentage. The higher the percentage, the more often they voted environmentally.

In the Scorecard, each green checkmark represents a pro-environmental action (a “yes” vote on a good bill or a “no” or “not voting” on a bad bill). Each red "x" represents an anti-environmental action (a “no” vote on a good bill or a “yes” on a bad bill).

NV, or “not voting,” is shown when the legislator did not cast a vote on a bill. It is counted negatively because it has the same effect as a “no” vote, UNLESS that vote is excused due to illness or family leave. Hover over the "NV" image to find out if that vote was excused or not; "Neutral" means it was an officially excused absence, and "Bad" means that it was simply a missed vote when the legislator had a legitimate opportunity to cast one.

In addition, each dash (—) indicates either an excused non-vote (due to illness or family leave) or a lack of opportunity to take action and does not count toward the member’s final score. (We will be working to make this more clear as we work the bugs out of our site.)

If the member's Current Year Score is indicated as "N/A", that generally means the legislator was not in office during the most recent year scored; it can also signify that that legislator's opportunities to vote were too few for us to calculate a score.