The Consumer Federation of California has issued its 2012 Legislative Scorecards, listing how our representatives in Sacramento have voted on legislative bills related to consumer protections. Most of them have done fairly well, but San Leandro State Senator Ellen Corbett deserves recognition for being named as one of only seven “Consumer Champions,” for her lifetime 100% pro-consumer voting record.
Berkeley State Senator Loni Hancock and Berkeley Assemblymember Nancy Skinner also deserve special mention. They both got a 100% pro-consumer voting score for 2012. Hancock sports a lifetime 99% score and Skinner a 96% one.
Our other local Assembly members did not do as well. San Leandro’s former representative, Mary Hayashi, got a 67% score for 2012, though her 89% lifetime score isn’t too bad. Former Oakland Assemblymember Sandre Swanson scored 88% in 2012, but 96% over all.
Meanwhile, current Fremont Assembly member Bob Wieckowski got 80% in 2012, bringing down his lifetime (which in his case, it’s just 2 years) score to 92%. He’s faulted for voting in favor of SB 1161, a bill which took away the power to regulate Voice over IP phone service from California Public Utilities Commission and for voting against SB 1208, a bill that required publicly traded corporations to include the names and compensation of the five most highly compensated retirees in statements filed with the Secretary of State.
Not surprisingly, Tri-Valley Assemblymember Joan Buchanan has the worst consumer protection record of Alameda County legislators. She barely scored 63% for 2012 and 73% overall for her 4 years in office. She is also faulted for voting in favor of SB 1161 and against SB 1208, but also for not casting a vote in favor of AB 2149, a bill that would prohibit “gag clauses” from appearing in the settlement of a civil lawsuit stemming from elder or dependent adult abuse.
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Margarita Lacabe blogs about Alameda County Democratic politics at http://democraticpolitics.tumblr.com/ and about San Leandro issues at San Leandro Talk
http://www.nobeliefs.com/RepublicanDay.htm You might actually believe you and others like you are 'self-made' and 'self reliant', but at the end of the day, you're NOT. But something tells me if you really were, you would most likely be the guy on the Motorized Barstool on this link; http://www.darwinawards.com/index.chapter1.html
Dalamar, everytime I read one your posts, I hate to think it, but a kitten probably dies somewhere.
If the government didn't have "consumer protection" laws, there would still be laws against fraud, abuse, breach of contract etc, and there would be insurance that existed to cover aspects of those claims (or at least legal defense of them). What passes for "consumer protection" laws in your mind tend to raise the cost of insurance by providing lawyers with more fundamentally baseless, if legal, grounds to sue companies. And by raising the cost of doing business, you're harming, not protecting consumers. But we all know you don't really care about that.
People 'DESERVE recognition'??-- IF you're going to editorialize, please have the decency to label it an Editorial, OK?? Sheesh...
For example, we absolutely do not "need" a monstrosity like Dodd-Frank. If a bank sold something that wasn't what they said it was, how is that not fraud? That's been illegal since time immemorial. If a dishonest dairyman sells milk past the due date, how is that not fraud? We really need the FDA to tell us that's wrong? Not really. Sure you can argue you need the FDA to enforce it, but you don't need the detritus of all the other subpart 9a blah blah of some 80,000 page regulation. Etc etc. I'm saying that nearly all of these so-called consumer protections are simply ways for lawyers to get rich, and for soft-headed bureaucrats to attempt to justify their existence (and pension).
I much rather focus in the exorbitant packages that our city employees get. At the top their salaries are twice those of legislators and they get a lot of perks. The City bought our Police Chief a $50K+ SUB and pays for her gas to commute home.