This is based on the rating by the
League of Conservation Voters. Each year they produce a
Scorecard, in which all congresspeople are rated.
The way the rating is generated is there are roughly 20 votes designated by as key votes, on a whole range of environmental issues. The LCV rating = the percentage of the time that a congressperson votes the way LCV asks them to.
Here's the list of all congresspeople whose LCV ratings in 2003 have are at least 50% and have improved by at least 15% relative to 2001-2, arranged by state. If you see one of your congresspeople on the list, please send them a note thanking them for their improved environmental record--your contact could make the difference between this improvement being permanent (because they know people are watching) and a simple 1-year aberration.
Once again, note that this is only the
most improved environmentalists, as they're the ones that most need encouragement from their constituents. In the future, I'll put out the list of best enviromentalists, and the most regressed ones.
The states are alphabetized by state name, though I'm using the ZIP abbreviations. So, for example, IL comes before IA. Sorry my HTML isn't good enough (and I'm too lazy) to make it into a pretty table, but this should be adequate to find your Senator or Rep if he/she is there.
State Name (Party) Rating Improvement
AZ Sen. McCain (R) 53 17
AR Snyder (D) 95 31
CA Dooley (D) 55 19
CT Shays (R) 90 17
DE Sen. Carper (D) 89 29
FL Brown, C. (D) 90 17
FL Davis, J. (D) 100 23
FL Hastings, A (D) 90 17
GA Lewis, J. (D) 100 23
HI Sen. Akaka (D) 84 20
IL Johnson, T. (R) 75 25
IL Lipinski (D) 60 34
IL Rush (D) 85 21
IL Kirk (R) 80 21
IN Sen. Bayh (D) 74 18
IN Hill (D) 95 50
IA Leach (R) 90 31
MD Gilchrest (R) 55 19
MA Meehan (D) 95 18
MA Neal (D) 95 18
MO Skelton (D) 60 19
NJ Saxton (R) 75 16
NM Sen. Bingaman (D) 79 15
NY Israel (D) 100 23
NC Etheridge (D) 80 16
NC Watt (D) 100 23
OH Kaptur (D) 95 18
SC Clyburn (D) 85 17
SC Spratt (D) 90 22
TN Ford (D) 90 17
TX Jackson-Lee (D) 85 17
TX Johnson, E.B. (D) 90 17
TX Lampson (D) 70 20
VA Moran (D) 95 18
VA Scott (D) 95 27
WA Sen. Cantwell (D) 100 20
WA Sen. Murray (D) 95 19
WA Dicks (D) 95 18
WA Larsen (D) 95 73
WA Smith, A. (D) 100 18
The party breakdown, in terms of who is improving, is 33 Democrats and 7 Republicans. A preview of a future diary reveals 5 Democrats and 25 Republicans are substantially worse in the environment than they were in 2001-2. Thus, the centers of gravity of the parties are moving further and further apart on the environment (Ds getting better, Rs getting worse), making it increasingly difficult for an honest environmentalist to be non partisan.
Now for a poll: