My Elected Officials
Find and contact your federal, state, and local officials.
Most Popular Pages
|
| Q&A on Power Rankings |
|
Q. What is new for Power Rankings in this release? A. Based on input from scholars, congressional staff and other experts, we continue making minor adjustments to committee scoring as well as take into account new developments and trends in Congress. In addition, we have added the "Bacon Barometer" to help the public gauge the amount of bacon, or earmarks, they secure for their district, state or region. Q. Does Knowlegis Power Rankings give me a complete picture of my Member of Congress' effectiveness? A. The rankings cannot provide a complete picture of the work conducted by Members of Congress because some of that work is not included in the legislative record (such as behind the scenes negotiations), or because it is difficult to quantify (such as constituent service). Some Members of Congress focus their energies, resources, and power on district-oriented activities that are not recorded anywhere in a quantifiable way. Knowlegis Power Rankings is primarily a “Washington-focused” research project that seeks to shed light on legislators’ work, which is often difficult for citizens to assess and sometimes subject of political hyperbole. Q. What does the Power Ranking or Power Score measure? A. Knowlegis, in consultation with academic experts and practicing congressional staff, examined dozens of factors that could contribute to the exercise of power and effective outcomes. This score measures how powerful or effective a member of Congress might be in advancing a legislative, political, party or personal agenda in 2008. We created these Power Rankings as a tool for citizens to assess their elected officials. Of course this tool does not reflect the totality of contribution that a member of Congress makes to his constituents or the nation, but it does measure many of those factors that both the public and official Washington have come to recognize as the levers or characteristics of power. Q. What does their overall ranking or rank by chamber score mean? A. We took the Power Score and ranked each member against one another by chamber. So House members are ranked against other House members and Senate members are ranked against Senate members. We did not rank the entire Congress because the power structures are very different and by default Senators as a group nearly always have more power than their counterparts in the House. Q. What factors did you consider when setting the scores? A. Our project team identified 20 characteristics of power. These characteristics were then measured and weighted to determine the relative power possibly demonstrated by Members of Congress in 2007. We grouped those characteristics into four broad categories: Position, Influence, Legislative Activity, and Earmarks. Q. What do you mean by "Position"? A. How much power the legislator might wield through his/her new position in the Congress by virtue of tenure (years in office), new committee assignments and new leadership position. The project team developed weightings for all committees and subcommittees, taking into consideration the new majority or minority status of the member. These factors determine their position in Congress and demonstrates their potential power. Q. What do you mean by "Influence?" A. How much power the legislator demonstrates to influence the congressional agenda or outcome of votes through the media, congressional caucuses and typically campaign contributions. These factors demonstrate actions taken to be effective or exercise power. Q. What do you mean by "Legislative Activity?" A. How much power the legislator demonstrates through the passage of legislation or shaping legislation through amendments. This is one visible factor that demonstrates effective use of power or influence. Q. What factors do you not measure or take into account? A. The Power Rankings project team acknowledges that Members of Congress sometimes exercise power in ways that cannot be seen or measured. For example, we did not measure some variables such as effectiveness in assisting constituents in the district and state, known as "casework." Nor did we measure legislators' visibility in the district and state, such as public appearances or communication with voters. Finally, legislators often play important roles as liaisons with federal agencies in matters where state or local governments have a vested interest in a special project (such as military base closures). These factors, while crucial to a Member's re-election, are hard to measure and rarely contribute to power and effectiveness in the House or Senate. Q. What is Sizzle/Fizzle? A. The project team recognized that Members of Congress could exert or possess power that cannot 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. McCain) or relationships (Sen. Clinton) or newfound popularity (Sen. Obama) that somehow adds weight to their influence 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. Q. What is meant by "non-voting delegate? A. Washington, DC and the territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have delegates to Congress in the House of Representatives who participate in committees and many other activities that contribute to power. However, they currently do not have full voting privileges on the floor of the House (in 2007, Delegates were given limited floor voting privileges), and, therefore, had points deducted from their Power Score to represent this limitation. However, most of the work done in the House of Representatives, and the power exerted by its members, is done at the committee level. Therefore, you will find that some non-voting House delegates actually have more power than House members who can vote on the floor. Q. Was all legislation counted when measuring the legislation scores? How about amendments? A. The team eliminated from bills of a ceremonial or commemorative nature such as naming of post offices or other public buildings, and non-binding resolutions that expressed the "sense of the Congress." Amendments were counted, but those which did not substantially change the bill or existing law were excluded. These included amendments dealing with technical changes or changes to the preamble or title. Q. How much data did you review? A. Knowlegis staff carefully researched, sorted and considered thousands of data points to determine what legitimately demonstrates the exercise of power and its effectiveness. The team limited the research to the 2007 calendar year. Our researchers reviewed thousands of media articles, hundreds of bills that passed out of committee and through each chamber, as well as the amendments that attempted to shape the outcome of legislation. We collected data on the position of each Member of Congress in their institution, and considered any characteristic or action that could contribute to their "Sizzle/Fizzle" factor. Q. Were all the measures objective? A. Nearly all of the data was quantifiable and is publicly available. Q. Why are committee scores so important? A. Nearly all of the work in Congress is conducted in committees organized by topics. Each committee has a chair from the majority party and a ranking member of the minority party. The chair and ranking member are often determined by their tenure or years in office. Depending on the committee, ranking members may have more influence than others. It is in committee where the language of the bill is set. Because some committees deal with topics that have a greater impact than others, we have assigned values or weight to each committee relative to other committees. Appropriations for example, because this is where tax dollars are allocated, was one of the most important committees and its members received more points toward their Power Score than other committees. However, because of the recent rule changes in the Congress, their power is more limited and the scores have been adjusted accordingly. Q. How is the State Average and Ranking determined? A. The Power Scores for each member of the House and Senate from each state were averaged by chamber and then averaged together to determine the Power Score for the delegation of each state. This is the average, not the cumulative, power for Members of Congress in this state delegation. We add up the power scores for each member of the state delegation for the House and the Senate, and then divide by the number of members in the delegation (or by 2 for Senators) to arrive at the average score of the delegation for each chamber. The House and Senate delegation average scores were then added together and divided by two to get the average member power score of the entire delegation. Those average delegation scores were ranked for the 50 states plus DC. The map displays the average weighted score of the average member of each state's combined House/Senate delegation. Factors such as number of House members for a state will impact the overall average score with smaller states showing higher scores than larger states, due to the number of members in the House and Senate. The information is for informational purposes and does not necessarily reflect the cumulative power of the state in Congress. Q. What does Power Ranking by Party, Committee, Tenure etc. measure? A. We thought it would be helpful for people to see not only where their representatives rank overall in the chamber, but by other criteria. We rank members by their Power Score by their political party for example so you can compare Democrats and Republicans within their caucus. We rank members by each committee to show which are the more powerful or effective members of any committee. We ranked them by their state delegation so you can compare your Senators or how your representative compares to others in your state’s delegation. And we rank them by their class or the year they were elected. This way you can compare how the class of 1994 members have fared compared to one another since they were first elected. Members elected in a special or off year election were grouped with the most immediate regular election year class for comparison purposes. Someone elected in 2005 for example was grouped with the class of 2004. Q. How often will Knowlegis update the Power Rankings? A. We will revise all data and update it on an annual basis at the mid point of the Congress and in election years just prior to the election. This will provide constituents with a tool to measure their representatives and hopefully aid them in their voting decisions. If you would like to be notified by e-mail when the Power Rankings change you may sign up for an e-mail alert here. Q. Who is responsible for the research that went into devising the Power Rankings? A. You may read the biographies of the team and get additional information on the Background for Power Rankings page. |
| About Power Rankings | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
Power Rankings © 2008 Knowlegis, LLC |
Stay Informed
Sign Up for Our Newsletters
- Vote Monitor
Get Your Representatives' Votes sent to you by email weekly.
- Congress.org Newsletter
Get the Congress.org spotlight news sent to you by email weekly.