This summer, RIPIRG released our annual legislative scorecard, which ranks our senators and representatives in Washington based on how they voted on important public interest issues in 2008.
In 2008, legislators had a chance to vote on a variety of critical public interest issues, including measures to promote energy efficiency, challenge political corruption, protect consumers from unsafe products and many others.
Nationwide, the voting record of 161 representatives and 24 senators, including Rhode Island’s entire delegation—Reps. Jim Langevin (Warwick) and Patrick Kennedy (Pawtucket), and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed—scored a perfect 100 percent.
However, 101 members of Congress scored 0 percent—meaning they voted with the public interest in none of the votes that we scored this year. A missed vote counted as a vote against the public interest in our scorecards.
RIPIRG distributed scorecards to thousands of households across the state during our summer door-to-door citizen outreach efforts.
