Players with Power

Recommend...del.icio.us Digg it Furl Netvouz Netscape Newsvine reddit Yahoo MyWeb May 16th, 2006 at 09:35pm Freeda

So Congress.org just released congressional Power Rankings, and lo and behold, Iowa is doing pretty well.

Congressmen (and women) were ranked according to 15 ‘characteristics of power,’ including things like positions, influence, and legislative activity. You guys should probably just check out the background page to learn about their methodology, but here are some highlights:

In addition, the project team recognized that Members of Congress can exert or possess power that can’t be measured by these standard measures. Therefore, we created the “Sizzle/Fizzle” factor. For example, Sizzle factors can include a legislator’s unique background and experience (Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)) or relationships (Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)) or newfound popularity (Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)) that somehow adds weight to their power that is not scored in the other categories. In contrast, Fizzle factors can be applied to legislators who have seen their power diminish during the year, despite their position, due to scandal or other factors that impair the ability of the member to be effective. This was the only subjective criteria and was not weighted heavily in the overall ratings.

…

The Power Rankings project team acknowledges that Members of Congress sometimes exercise power in ways that cannot be seen or measured. The most tangible example of this is the ability to steer federal funding to their state through the appropriations process – called “earmarking.”

After these and other such stunning insights into the congressional processes, they came up with the following results:

Top five Senators:

1. Bill Frist (R-TN) 96.75
2. Arlen Specter (R-PA) 82.31
3. John McCain (R-AZ) 80.94
4. Charles Grassley (R-IA) 78.50
5. Harry Reid (D-NV) 71.06

Top five Representatives:

1. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) 97.25
2. Tom DeLay (R-TX) 63.50
3. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) 60.57
4. Don Young (R-AK) 55.00
5. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) 48.00
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first, Chuck is the 4th most powerful Senator, making Iowa proud–well, sort of.

Other surprises? Well, Tom DeLay is the #2 rep, although, one must suspect he has a pretty high Fizzle Factor, seeing as he resigned from office.

So how does Iowa stack up? Well, our fine state as a whole ranked third most powerful, with 28.92, after Nevada with 29.76 and New Mexico with 28.96. The scores come from the average of the state’s congressional delegate’s scores. Harkin weighed in at 37.94, which puts him at 35. For reps, we got Nussle at 54th with 23.44, Leach is at 69th place with 22.00, Latham is 190 with 15.50, and King is 208 with 14.94, and Grinnell’s own Boswell had a whopping 10.12, making him the 302nd most powerful representative.

Okay, so now you’re asking, so what? You’ve soldiered through this kinda long post full of numbers whose meanings are at best ill-defined and whose significance is probably illusory and you are wondering what this all means. Well, me too. Why did Congress.org do this? I don’t know! Can power be quantified? Probably not! Does this mean Iowa is going to be the proud recipient of more pork-barrell spending? Again, probably not (plus, don’t we produce pork?). Is Nussle going to call up Boswell to boast his numerical superiority tonight? One can only imagine.

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Entry Filed under: Miscellaneous, US Congress, Democratic Party, Republican Party

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