Capitol Weekly Insider Survey: The best and worst legislators of 2025

Our Capitol community is a bit like high school. There are cliques, gossip is rampant, and everybody wants to know which party you’re headed to tonight. And what is high school without that yearbook staple, senior superlatives? Best dressed. Most likely to succeed. Most talented.

We at Capitol Weekly thought it was time that legislators – who are not ranked in our annual Top 100 – were put under that kind of microscope.

In our latest survey conducted in partnership with Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc., we polled thousands of Capitol denizens on their favorite and least favorite legislators.

As with the Top 100, this is sure to spark some controversy.

Best member of the Assembly: Buffy Wicks
Oakland’s progressive Assemblymember, who seems to always be carrying multiple pieces of ambitious legislation, ran away with this one. Wicks garnered 10.2 percent of the vote, with Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) coming in a distant second with 5 percent of the vote. Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose) was a close third with 4.2 percent.

Then-Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher of Yuba was the top GOP vote getter, followed by Assemblymember Carl DeMaio of San Diego, the latter of whom will see his fortunes change as we move down this list.

Best member of the Senate: Scott Wiener
Wiener is a bit like Wicks in that the progressive lawmaker from San Francisco always seems to be carrying multiple, big-ticket bills. And like his Bay Area colleague, he also was the head-and-shoulders winner of this category, taking 12.7 percent of the vote.

The Senate’s soon-to-be new leader, Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara), came in second with 6.6 percent of the vote. Sen. Angelique Ashby (D-Sacramento) rounded out the top three with 6.1 percent.

Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) was the highest ranked Republican, followed by Sen. Roger Niello of Fair Oaks.

Best member of the Legislature, regardless of chamber: Buffy Wicks
This was, as you might imagine, a battle royale, pitting the winners of the previous two categories against each other and it was close. Wicks won with 9.1 percent of the vote, with Wiener nipping at her heels at 8.4 percent. Kalra came in third with 3.4 percent.

This is also the last category where we’ll provide the breakdowns of the voters’ party registration. Both Wicks and Wiener had the same number of Democratic voters – 23 – but Wicks won the strength of one more independent voter, 3 to 2. Kalra made the list entirely based on Democratic support.

Gallagher, DeMaio and Grove all were the top Republican vote getters, which wasn’t surprising given their finishes in the previous categories, although as we hinted above, DeMaio has some (well, many) detractors as we’ll soon see.

Best legislator under 40: Isaac Bryan
The coveted best youngster category was a barn burner. Bryan, a Democratic Assemblymember from Los Angeles, grabbed 9.1 percent of the vote, squeaking out a narrow victory over Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San Jose), who received an 8.5 percent mark, and Sen. Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) (8.1 percent).

This may be the tightest win ever for Bryan, who inhabits a safe Democratic seat and has cruised to victory in his legislative races. In all seriousness, Bryan boasts a meaty progressive resume, having led a local ballot measure campaign on racial justice and previously serving as the founding director of the UCLA Black Policy Project, establishing him as a leading voice on racial issues in the Legislature at the ripe old age of 33.

Hardest-working legislator: Scott Wiener
This really wasn’t much of a contest. Wiener took 13 percent of the vote. The next closest vote-getter was Kalra with 6.9 percent, followed by Senate Leader Mike McGuire (D-North Coast) at 6.1 percent. (And you’d better be working hard if you’re the leader of a chamber.)

While we didn’t ask voters why they made their selections, it’s a safe bet that Wiener won this because of his prodigious output, which we wrote about in May. That was just a lucky coincidence that we highlighted his productivity back then, but the sentiment of that piece remains: Wiener takes on difficult fights over a wide range of issues, from housing to AI to psychedelics.

Best consensus builder: Robert Rivas
Our first (and only) leader to notch a victory here, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Salinas) won with 6.4 percent of the vote, besting Wicks and Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Woodland Hills), who each had 5.1 percent.

Biggest troublemaker: Carl DeMaio
We told you we’d be returning to Mr. DeMaio – and this won’t be the only time. Far from it.

The bombastic Republican who has a long history of fighting with labor and generally not playing well in the policy sandbox took this category with 31.6 percent of the vote, by far the widest margin of victory of anything polled in this survey. Wiener and Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward) tied for second with 9.2 percent each.

DeMaio seems to relish a fight, with his opponents on the left as well as with his presumed allies on the right. We could recount his greatest hits, but is there really a point? Just about a year into his first term in the Assembly, the community seems to know what he’s about, or at least has formed a strong opinion.

A very strong opinion, as you’ll soon see.

Best prepared: Christopher Cabaldon
Cabaldon, the Democratic senator from Yolo, beat out two powerhouses on this list – Wicks and Wiener – to secure the moniker of the most prepared legislator. And that’s no small feat given how many big, ambitious bills those two carry.

Cabaldon secured 8.2 percent of the vote in this category, besting Wiener at 7.3 percent and Wicks at 5.2 percent. That might seem strange but recall that before he joined the Legislature Cabaldon served as mayor of West Sacramento for two decades, during which the small city racked up a bunch of first – first city to establish universal preschool, among many others – and was named America’s Most Livable City.

That kind of stuff doesn’t just happen, and his success at moving those policy goals to conclusion testifies to his preparedness.

In our latest survey conducted in partnership with Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc., we polled thousands of Capitol denizens on their favorite and least favorite legislators.

Most duplicitous: Carl DeMaio
Hard as it may be to believe, the Carl DeMaio lovefest that is this survey is just getting started. He eked out a narrow victory over Wiener for this “distinction,” 9 percent to 8.6 percent (with Wahab coming in a distant third at 4.8 percent of the vote).

“Duplicitous” might qualify as a 25-cent word for some our less verbose readers. So, in case you’re wondering, the Merriam-Webster definition is “marked by duplicity: deceptive in words or actions,” and it just gets worse if you explore further. MW defines duplicity (because you know you shouldn’t be defining a word by its variant) as “contradictory doubleness of thought, speech, or action” or “the quality or state of being double or twofold.”

So, yeah. High distinction here alright.

Most effective Democrat: Scott Wiener
Just after barely losing to DeMaio on the duplicitous front, Wiener comes back to snag the most effective title with 13.9 percent of the vote, beating out Wicks (10 percent) and Ashby (4.8 percent).

We’re not going to make any jokes about the potential of duplicity having anything to do with effectiveness. No-ooh, we’re not. We’re just here to give the productive and apparently quite popular Sen. Wiener his flowers for yet another legislative superlative win.

Most effective Republican: Shannon Grove
Grove claimed one of the few huge wins for Republicans in the last few years when her bill on increasing penalties for sex traffickers effectively clobbered the entire Assembly Public Safety Committee. She has also made lots of hay this year with her bill to allow classic car owners to avoid getting their vehicles smog certified, getting the bill through the Senate and into the Assembly.

The Bakersfield senator came out on top of this contest with 17 percent of the vote, beating out Assemblymembers Heath Flora of Ripon (13.8 percent) and Juan Alanis of Modesto (7.6 percent).

Biggest potential for higher officer: Scott Wiener
This is the fourth category Wiener topped, perhaps owing in part to his oft-stated intention to seek the seat in Congress currently held by Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) when the grand dame of California politics decides to hang up her high heels.

Wiener won this one with 9.2 percent of the vote, beating out Gabriel and bicycle-enthusiast and former Sen. Anthony Portantino, who actually lost in his bid for higher office when failed to make the general election in the race to replace Adam Schiff in the U.S. House of  Representatives. Both Gabriel and Portantino garnered 6.4 percent of the vote.

Legislator I’d most like to hang out with: Heath Flora
Flora has done here what no other Republican has been able to accomplish, win a category in this esteemed survey head-to-head with Democrats. Is it any wonder he was selected as the Assembly Republican Caucus’ next leader while we were literally writing up this story? (The survey was conducted between July 3^rd and July 7th.)

The Ripon lawmaker captured 6 percent of the vote, beating Assemblymembers Patrick Ahrens (D-Silicon Valley), who had 4.6 percent, and Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), who had 3.7 percent.

The legislator I most try to avoid: Carl DeMaio
The third ignominious title for DeMaio, and we’re not even done yet. He won this pretty easily, capturing 17.9 percent of the vote, beating Wiener (10.7 percent), who is admittedly a polarizing figure in the Legislature, with folks who either love him or hate him, and Assemblymember Tasha Boerner (D-Encinitas) who had 6.1 percent of the vote.

We’ll stop here to avoid piling on. We do have one more DeMaio “victory” to chronicle.

Most humble: Juan Carrillo
Carrillo, a Democratic Assemblymember from Palmdale, took the title of most humble with 7 percent of the vote. He beat out Kalra (5.5 percent) and Assemblymember Mike Fong of Alhambra (3.5 percent).

If you’re unfamiliar, Carrillo is a Mexican immigrant, having been born and raised in Guadalajara. He immigrated to Los Angeles at the age of 15, then earned an associate’s degree from the College of the Desert, a bachelor’s from Cal Poly Pomona and a master’s from Cal State Northridge. He worked as a city planner for 15 years, then entered politics, serving on the Palmdale City Council before joining the Legislature in 2022.

He might be a California success story, but folks don’t think he’s let that go to his head.

So vain they probably think this survey’s about them: Carl DeMaio
Based on this survey, it’s safe to say the San Diego Assemblymember has detractors in the Capitol. A lot of them. Older Capitol denizens will know we named this category after the classic 1972 Carly Simon song “You’re So Vain.” All you young staffers, go look it up. It’s great.

But you could argue this poll was about DeMaio. He’s dominated it – for mostly the wrong reasons – more so than just about anyone else (with the exception of Wiener, although the results for him were both positive and negative. DeMaio’s were almost exclusively negative.)

DeMaio grabbed this last category rather easily, capturing 12 percent of the vote. He beat out top youngster Bryan (8.9 percent) and the aforementioned Wiener (6.2 percent), he of love-him-or-hate-him fame.

Editor’s note: Please watch for future Capitol Weekly surveys of a similar vein about lobbyists and legislative staffers. If you are not receiving these surveys and would like to participate, please email us at [email protected] to be added to our list. Survey recipients cannot forward the survey to others. Votes logged from forwarded email surveys are rejected. (We rejected 24 such results from a single forwarded email this go-around.) 

In order to participate in Capitol Weekly surveys – and there will be many more of them – your own email address must be entered into our system. we’re happy to add folks to our list, so long as you’re a member of the Capitol community.

Capitol Weekly reporter Brian Joseph contributed to this story.