Congressional Clout Calculator

Congressional Clout Calculator

Here's a fun tool: congress.org calculates the relative power or "clout" of every member of the House and Senate. You can sort by tenure, state, party, everything but shoe size. Naturally, Reid and Pelosi top the charts. There's also a special page for the presidentials - Tom Tancredo is in the bottom 5% of the House.

Aside: anyone else remember the "Top 5% Of The Web" logo from the 1996-era internet?

As for our Iowa delegation, Harkin ranks 17th in the Senate but Chuck Grassley is 25th, not bad for a minority party member but a huuuge drop from the #3 he held as a majority party chair of a major committee last year.

The House delegation doesn't fare as well - freshmen (2) and minority Republicans (2) rate lower. Boswell is up at 45th, putting him near the top of the `96 class. The next most powerful House member is - ready for this - Dave Loebsack, in the upper third of the freshman class and just below the middle of the House overall. Braley is near the middle of the freshmen. Latham is on the low end even of the 1994 class. Krazy King is the back end of the dog but who needs actual clout when you have talk shows?

So play and enjoy.