How We Calculated the Grades

The goal of this report card is to authentically tell the story of what the Washington State Legislature did in the 2005 session to help or hurt our environment. Letter grades summarize our assessment of each legislator's performance on key environmental bills. In the table of grades, legislators' final grades are next to their names, followed by their votes on the legislation we're using for the report card. In the bill explanation section, we describe why each bill mattered and tell the story of how it evolved during the session.

Legislators receive a letter grade that reflects a combination of their votes on key bills, with extra points added or subtracted for actions taken in addition to voting. While we couldn't possibly know everything that went on behind the scenes, we have a good sense of who the major players were and what they did. "Heroes" received two extra points; "Honorable Mentions" received one; and "Zeroes" lost two points.

Votes on bills we considered especially important counted more in the final grade. We list the value for each bill in the narrative describing the bill.