The good folks at the Consumer Federation of California have released their annual scorecard (PDF) on legislative votes.  Props go out to all the legislators who voted with consumers on every vote that came their way: Mark DeSaulnier, Christine Kehoe, Mark Leno, Carol Liu, Alan Lowenthal, Fran Pavley, Darrell Steinberg, Pat Wiggins and Lois Wolk.

Now, you could quibble with some of their selections of bills. Notably, AB 48, a bill introduced by Asm. Portantino to regulate private, unaccredited, for-profit post-secondary schools, was where most of the Assembly Dems stumbled on their way to perfection.  There were a slew of Dems who would have been perfect save the Consumer’s Fed position on AB 48. Now, the bill could definitely use some tightening up. It is still far too friendly to these institutions. Many of them are perfectly good institutions to help students find their way on their career path. Others are simply degree mills which don’t actually offer any help or real education to these students. The Senate have this bill coming to the floor soon, so we could see a number of those folks with perfect scores dropping out of the realm on that vote.

On the flip side, you really have too many perfect anti-consumer records to count, but it is worth noting that both the current Senate minority leader and the past minority leader went a solid 0-for-7, putting them squarely on the side of big business over the consumer.

And then looking at the rest of the Dems, there are a few that point out at you. First, Senator Ron Calderon voted 5 times out of 8 against the consumer position on the bill. That, however, isn’t that much of a surprise, considering Calderon’s past record. On the Assembly side, Asm. Alyson Huber stands out like a sore thumb.  She voted the wrong way on all of the noted bills that came to her for a vote, save for a very contentious bill on municipal bankruptcy proceedings, AB 155 by Asm. Mendoza.

It is profoundly disappointing to see some Democrats so opposed to Democratic values as to vote against the majority of the consumer friendly legislation. The Democratic Party has been traditionally known as the party that supports the rights of consumers. Hopefully, our legislators will remember the next time the vote comes up.