Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who is the 40th governor of California, serving since January 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California from 2011 to 2019 and as the 42nd mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.
Political Notebook: EQCA grades Gov. Newsom, CA lawmakers less than perfect
Due to their not casting votes in favor of various LGBTQ rights bills, 22 Democratic lawmakers failed to receive a perfect score on the 2021 legislative scorecard compiled by a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization.
Governor Gavin Newsom was also dinged on the scorecard for his veto last fall of a substance use treatment bill. Equality California is releasing its annual scorecard Monday (January 31).
It shared a copy of it with the Bay Area Reporter last week ahead of its publication. Despite the less-than-stellar results on the scorecard for the governor and roughly a third of the Democratic legislative caucus, "great progress" was still made last year on advancing LGBTQ legislation in California, noted EQCA Executive Director Tony Hoang. "While states across the nation pursued and passed policies attacking the transgender community, the California Legislature invested in the health and well-being of trans and gender-nonconforming people and adopted legislation to better respect and affirm Californians' gender identities," wrote Hoang in his introductory remarks for the scorecard.
The 2021 scores for the Democrats are an improvement from 2020, when 33 members of the party's legislative caucus fell short of 100% scores.
