WashPIRG Advocacy News

SEATTLE—Six out of the eleven members of the Washington Congressional delegation voted for the public interest more than 80 percent of the time between January 22, 2003 and March 16, 2005, according to the annual Congressional Scorecard for U.S. Senators and Representatives on major public interest issues released today by the Washington Public Interest Research Group (WashPIRG).

"At the behest of special interests, Congress has voted to allow clear-cutting in our national forests and weaken consumer protections, and has failed to cut global warming pollution, failed to increase automobile fuel economy, and failed to make polluters pay for toxic waste cleanups" said WashPIRG Executive Director Robert Pregulman. "These scorecards are an important tool to educate the public about the voting records of their elected officials and to help citizens hold those officials accountable."

In addition to tracking such diverse public interest votes as protecting the Clean Air Act; protecting the Arctic Refuge from drilling; preventing unfair credit card practices; and increasing access to affordable prescription drugs, the scorecards also list information about campaign contributions, biographical data, past PIRG scores, and telephone numbers for citizens to contact their elected officials.

Scores on the WashPIRG Scorecard for the Washington delegation were:

Sen. Maria Cantwell 95%
Sen. Patty Murray 100%
Rep. Jay Inslee 90%
Rep. Rick Larsen 81%
Rep. Brian Baird 86%
Rep. Doc Hastings 0%
Rep. Cathy McMorris NA%
Rep. Norm Dicks 76%
Rep. Jim McDermott 95%
Rep. Dave Reichert NA
Rep. Adam Smith 71%

"We applaud Senator Murray for being public interest hero," said Pregulman. "She was the only member of the Washington delegation that earned a perfect score. We also want to point out that Representative Hastings is a public interest zero as he was the only member of the delegation to score 0%"

Nationally, 157 members of the House or Senate scored 80% and above, of whom 33 scored 100%. One hundred ninety-three (193) members of either chamber had scores at 10% or below, with 97 members scoring 0%.

"With a few bright spots like the House's rejection of subsidized road building and logging in the Tongass National Forest, the 109th Congress is continuing the anti-public interest history of recent years," continued Pregulman. "The Senate voted to let industries off the hook from paying for their toxic waste clean-up; the House rejected efforts to strengthen consumer protections from electric company price gouging; and the House and Senate denied decreasing our dependence on foreign oil by increasing the fuel economy of vehicles."

"We urge members of the Washington congressional delegation to strengthen our environmental laws - clean up polluting power plants, preserve our last wild forests, and defend Superfund and America's other environmental protections," concluded Pregulman.

The scorecard and key to the votes scored within can be viewed online at http://www.washpirg.org.

WashPIRG is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public interest advocacy organization.