Sacramento Report: Who Is San Diego’s Most Effective Lawmaker? ^⁠7%

7/31/2026, 3:50:10 PM

Topics: Lawmaking Effectiveness, Political Analysis, Elections

Keywords: Legislative Session, San Diego Lawmakers, Bill Passage Rate, Voting Records, Campaign Finance, Election

BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Overconfidence Bias, and Biased Writer Voice, with Representativeness Heuristic as the most egregious example at 7% saturation with 82 hits. Analysis detected 685 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,173 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 18.6% and a BS Rank of ⁠7% (23,765 of 25,470 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 93.30% of the article peer group.

Confidence50%

underlinesheatmap

1,173 words

Sacramento Report Countdown

31 days until the legislative session ends

95 days until the November election

Bid adieu to summer vacation.

The end-of-session countdown has begun as lawmakers are packing up their suitcases to return to Sacramento for the ninth inning of the two-year session.

Before they’re back on Monday, we’ve dug into the data to see how San Diego’s legislators have performed so far.

We looked at how many bills each member introduced, passed and voted for or against from 2025 to 2026 using CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database.

The raw data can be viewed here .

One important caveat … Nothing is really “dead” in the California Legislature because there are always novel maneuvers to get around deadlines and dust off forgotten bills.

It’s unlikely that’ll be the case with any of these bills, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Here Are Some Highlights

Out of San Diego’s 10-member delegation, Assembly Democrat Chris Ward has the highest batting average.

Nearly one in four of his 37 bills have cleared both chambers at a passage rate of 24.3 percent.

Chula Vista Assemblymember David Alvarez is not too far behind at 23.7 percent.

That ties each of them at 36th among all 120 lawmakers, or in the 70th quantile, for bills passed this session, according to an analysis of CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database.

Alvarez also ranked first for most “no vote recorded,” or “NVR,” tallies.

NVRs happen when a lawmaker doesn’t vote on a bill because they’re absent, choosing to abstain or are present but don’t cast a vote.

It’s a common tactic lawmakers use to avoid voting against bills they don’t like in order to not upset their colleagues and lobbyists.

According to CalMatters’ analysis, Alvarez did not vote 400 times, which puts him at the top among his San Diego colleagues and 32nd overall in the Legislature.

Republican Sen.

Brian Jones follows for second-most NVRs at 348.

How about who voted yes?

La Mesa’s LaShae Sharp-Collins ranks first in San Diego and 16th among all lawmakers for “aye” votes.

The freshman assemblymember approved 93 percent of the 4,586 bills she voted on.

She also ranks first for most total votes cast in the delegation and 22nd overall.

There’s been notable “no” votes scattered across, too.

Among San Diego’s Democrats, Sharp-Collins voted “no” the most at 32 times.

A bill passage rate of 18 percent puts her in the middle of the pack.

Alvarez ranks second for fewest “no” votes, doing so five times out of 3,505 votes.

That’s less than 1 percent of the time.

He falls just short of Democrat Akilah Weber Pierson who ranks first, at four “no” votes out of 3,893, or just 0.10 percent of the time.

Sen.

Steve Padilla is third place at seven “no” votes.

That puts them toward the bottom of the pack for most “no” votes between all lawmakers in both chambers.

Weber Pierson is 111th while Alvarez is ranked at 107th.

Padilla falls in a more distant third at 93rd.

This aligns with overall trends among Democrats who voted against their colleagues less than 1 percent of the time from 2017 to 2024, according to a CalMatters analysis .

The two are also neck-and-neck on getting their bills passed.

Weber Pierson ranks fourth in the delegation at 21 percent and Padilla, who is up for re-election, closely follows at 20 percent.

As far as bucking trends, Republicans excel when it comes to their scorecard.

At an eye-popping 1,134 “no” votes, Assemblymember Carl DeMaio is the clear standout, voting against members’ bills about half the time.

He’s also had the most bills killed with only five of the 31 bills he’s introduced since 2025 still alive.

Jones ranks second overall among San Diego lawmakers for “no” votes 645 out of 2,819 times, or roughly 23 percent.

Four of the 35 bills he’s introduced have passed, making for an 11 percent passage rate.

Solana Beach Assemblymember Tasha Boerner has cleared the fewest proposals among San Diego Democrats.

Four of the measures she’s introduced have cleared both houses, ranking her 94th overall.

The four-term lawmaker also tops the list among San Diego legislators for most vetoes with three total.

Alvarez and Padilla are tied for second place at two.

With less than 100 days to the November election, lawmakers benefit from getting their bills passed so that they have a good story to sell on the campaign trail.

All but two members — Jones, who terms out, and Weber Pierson who began her four-year term in 2024 — are up for re-election.

That includes:

David Alvarez, Assembly District 80

Catherine Blakespear, Senate District 38

Carl DeMaio, Assembly District 75

Steve Padilla, Senate District 18

Darshana Patel, Assembly District 76

LaShae Sharp-Collins, Assembly District 79

Chris Ward, Assembly District 78

Akilah Weber Pierson, Senate District 39

San Diego’s most effective lawmakers are loaded when it comes to campaign dollars.

Running uncontested for a third term, Alvarez has raised $713,000 and has $483,000 cash on hand.

Padilla, who’s also running an uncompetitive race, has amassed one of the biggest war chests of San Diego members at $1.2 million.

Among Democrats, only Sen.

Catherine Blakespear has him bested, raising nearly $1.7 million for her North County district, which is a GOP target this year.

We can expect an onslaught of committee hearings beginning next week.

But action on the chamber floors will really ramp up closer to Aug. 31, the deadline for all bills to pass.

Planning groups opposed to San Diego’s Midway Rising project held an open meeting Tuesday night to discuss Senate Bill 958 , Weber Pierson’s bill to help the project get around the city’s 30-foot height limit.

The town hall was organized to address Peninsula Planning and other community groups’ concerns about the potential impacts to traffic and coastal views from the planned stadium and apartment complex, according to organizer Patty Ducey-Brooks.

Members whose districts represent parts of the Midway were invited but did not attend.

That includes Weber Pierson, Ward and Boerner whose offices said they couldn’t make it due to scheduling conflicts.

Staff for Weber Pierson and Boerner showed up on their behalf.

Next week, we’ll dive deeper into why lawmakers chose to vote against so few bills this session and in years past.

What I’m Reading Now

La Mesa hops on the cannabis tax train, advancing a 1 percent hike to help boost city revenue, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

Speaking of revenue … San Diego County is in a bit of a pickle.

It needs more money, but recent polling found different hurdles with each of its tax-raising ballot measures, Voice of San Diego explains.

Proposed ballot language for a voter ID initiative has, in true California fashion, sparked a chain of lawsuits, from KPBS .