Arizonans in Congress: Who’s got the clout?
by Tucson Citizen on Mar. 05, 2008, under Opinion
Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.
The Congressional Power Rankings are out – about as scientific as college basketball’s RPI rating but better than 14th- century Incan surgery.
The report is done annually by Capitol Advantage, a D.C.-area information clearinghouse. They use criteria such a solid committee chairmanship or legislative record to rank the lawmakers.
For Arizona, it’s a good-news, bad-news sort of thing.
Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl are the most- and third-most-powerful Republican senators, respectively. That doesn’t mean much right now because Republicans are in the minority by a single Lieberman.
Reps. Raúl Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords seem to be losing clout in the U.S. House. Grijalva sits at 247 out of 435, down from No. 181 last year. Giffords fell from 252 to 277. Grijalva is only in his third term and Giffords is a rookie, so it’s important not to expect too much from a political neophyte . . . unless your name is Barack Obama. Obama, Giffords and Grijalva all have the same notation explaining part of their score: “Too little experience to have much clout.”
The rankings underline a point about Arizona politicians. We either end up with Evan Mecham or Barry Goldwater. Rep. Rick Renzi (left) ranks last with a raw power score of -2.35. Negative! How do you have negative power? Being stripped of your committee assignments and getting indicted is a pretty good start.
BLAKE MORLOCK
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