- Sen. Portantino tumbled to a 56% in this year’s Courage Score, ruining an otherwise respectable B-range cumulative GPA during his time in the state legislature. So what happened? There’s no way to be certain, but Sen. Portantino did something else out of the ordinary this year – he ran for Congress. While his Assembly and Senate campaigns have never had squeaky clean donor lists, he had the challenging task of attracting new funding streams for his federal campaign during the 2024 cycle, which ultimately included National Association of Home Builders PAC, Mortgage Banker Association PAC, Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America PAC, Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas PAC, and Marriott International PAC. If Sen. Portantino leaned away from progressive bills on housing, environmental justice, and consumer protections to appease these new big dollar donors, we hope selling out his hardworking State Senate constituents was worth it for the big L he took in the congressional primary.
- Of the 11 Courage Score bills that Sen. Portantino failed to cast a vote on this year, perhaps the most egregious were his sidesteps on consumer protection legislation. AB1826 was designed to establish more modern requirements for broadband, but it probably wasn’t very appealing to longtime Portantino donors like Comcast and Cox Communications. SB 1075 required credit unions to cap overdraft fees and alert customers every time they’re charged, but it would have put the squeeze on bad acting donors like Kinecta Federal Credit Union State PAC, Patelco Credit Union, and Redwood Credit Union. SB 1327 aimed to impose a state tax of 7.25% on the sale of user data to advertisers by companies generating more than $2.5 billion annually, which would have required big money funders like Disney Worldwide Services, Meta Platforms, and DoorDash to pay their fair share. Sen. Portantino wasn’t interested in any of these bills, choosing to passively shield his predatory campaign donors instead of taking action on behalf of the people who elected him to be their watchdog.
Anthony Portantino
State senate
Chair of Appropriations Committee
A

District
SD-25
Party
democrat
Score
95
Votes
Corporate Money
Type | Amount | |
---|---|---|
Real Estate | $128,800 | Sources |
Oil & Gas | $77,450 | Sources |
Cops | $91,450 | Sources |
Health Insurance | $58,600 | Sources |