State Sen. Jeff Stone, R-La Quinta, is one of only 10 of the 40 California State Senators to receive a grade of “A” on the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association’s 2018 Legislative Report Card.

The annual report grades lawmakers on their votes on issues important to taxpayers.  It is intended as a non-partisan tool to help constituents hold legislators accountable.

The report card is designed to help Californians gauge how their state representatives are actually performing on taxpayer-related issues —both positive and negative.

“The people of the 28th District recently re-elected me to represent them in the Senate because I promised the hard-working taxpayers of Riverside County I would stand up for them in Sacramento,” Stone said in a news release. “I appreciate the high mark from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and will continue to protect Prop. 13 and control expenses and eliminate waste in State government.”

Votes on 11 bills were used to score legislators, according to the HJTA. Only policy committee and floor votes are included in the scorecard.

More than half (76) of the 120 members of the legislature, all of them Democrats, received a grade of “F” from the taxpayers group.

Overall, 34 members, all of them Republicans, received a grade of “A.”

Read the entire report card here.

After Proposition 13 was approved on June 6, 1978, Howard Jarvis knew that taxpayers’ gains would be temporary without a permanent citizens’ organization to protect Proposition 13. To make sure that Proposition 13 provided permanent protections, he founded the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (originally called the California Tax Reduction Movement), starting with a handful of Tax Revolt grassroots activists.

Stone represents California’s 28th Senate District. The district, which is entirely in Riverside County, stretches from the vineyards of the Temecula Valley to the Colorado River and includes the cities of Blythe, Canyon Lake, Cathedral City, Coachella, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, Indio, Lake Elsinore, La Quinta, Murrieta, Temecula, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage and Wildomar.