California’s LGBT Legislators - And Now There Are 8

Nov. 4, 2011 - PRLog -- Recently Assembly Member Cathleen Galgiani came out as a lesbian during an interview with The Record, a Stockton Newspaper. She is now one of 8 openly lesbian or gay members of the state legislature. That is the highest number of openly LGBT legislators in the history of the California Legislature.

In the interview, Assembly Member Galgiani said that, by coming out now, she hopes to send a positive message to young people who are struggling to come to terms with their sexual identity.

She also said that she did not fully realize that she was lesbian until after she was first elected to the Assembly in 2006.

Gagiani is a Democrat representing the Stockton and Merced areas (Assembly District 17). Because of California’s term limits laws, Galgiani will be ineligible to run again for her Assembly seat next year. However, she has announced that she is running for the 5th California Senate District, which represents part of the San Joaquin Valley.

California Communities United Institute (CalComUI) gave Galgiani an over all score of 91% for her voting record, in the Assembly this year. That is far from an awful score. Her overall score was higher than any Republican Assembly Member. However, among Assembly Democrats, she and Assembly Member Alyson Huber were tied at the lowest score of 91%. CalComUI gave Galgiani the same overall score in 2010. You may see a copy of CalComUI’s 2011score card by directing your browser to the following link.

http://www.calcomui.org/callegislativescorecard.html

Assembly Member Galgiani’s 2011 scores by issue area were as follows:

HIV/AIDS - 95%
Economic Justice Issues - 91%
LGBT Issues - 96%
Issues of concern to People of Color - 87%
Women’s issues - 89%

A major reason her overall score was as low as it was, is that she missed a lot of votes on bills that CalComUI supported. She missed 17 votes. However, she also voted against SB 9 twice. This was a bill that would have let the state consider paroling a state prisoner, who was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, if his or her crime was committed when the offender was 18 or less.

Some might think her relatively low score (compared to other Assembly Democrats) was because of her central valley district. Some valley districts have pretty even splits between Democratic and Republican voters. In such districts legislators need votes from both Republicans and Democrats to be sure of being re-elected. of whatever party they support.

But Assembly Member Galgiani’s district is not evenly split. 47% of the voters are from her party, the Democrats. Only 33% are registered Republicans. Most voters tend to vote the straight party ticket. And in her last election Galgiani won by a wide margin, 58% to 43%. We also looked at voter registration in the Senate district she is running for. There too the registration numbers were not close (47% Democratic versus 30% Republican).      

So, Galgiani is a good legislator. We did give her a score of 91%. But she could be better.

Boyce Hinman

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We help California residents write to their state legislators and the governor on legislatn and public policy relating to the following issues:

HIV/AIDS
Economic Justice
LGBTI Issues
Issues of Concern to People of Color
Women's Issues