Congress.org’s latest annual Power Rankings of the members of Congress provides some interesting talking points concerning Arizona’s 10 member delegation.

First a little background: The deep thinkers behind the rankings score each member on a number of factors, including position, indirect influence, legislative activity, earmark passage and “sizzle/fizzle.”

Clearly, nearly all of that is subjective. For example, racking up federal expenditures for earmarks is considered a positive factor in the rankings. Congress.org’s deep thinkers associate earmark passage with political influence. Sure, there’s an argument to be made for that.

Of course, other deep thinkers associate earmark passage with self indulgence, wasteful spending and stains on congressional records. So, what of Sen. John McCain, and Reps. Jeff Flake and John Shadegg who specifically don’t request earmarks? The Power Rankings knock their scores for that. 

Furthermore, Democrats get an automatic edge because they comprise the majority party in both the Senate and House and as a result will score higher in the position and legislative activity categories. That’s to be expected.

So with that preamble…

On the Senate side, Congress.org ranked Republicans McCain is 10^th and Jon Kyl 18^th, or second and third overall among Republicans. Interestingly, McCain’s presidential rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barak Obama place ninth and 11^th in the Senate respectively.

Congress.org attributes McCain’s ranking in part to position as a ranking party member of a committee, his frequent media coverage, positive sizzle and for successfully amending bills.

He’s knocked for running for higher office, because doing so allegedly reduces or defuses his power to help current constituents. Other deep thinkers could offer the argument that emerging as his party’s nominee for president may give him a certain amount of added clout, but, of course, it’s Congress.org’s rankings so their deep thinkers get the final word.

Kyl should climb in coming years with the real and perceived power associated with his new No. 2 position in the GOP leadership team.

On the House side, Congress.org ranked Democrat Ed Pastor 84^th; Republican Shadegg 211^th, Democrats Raul Grijalva 246^th, Gabrielle Giffords 277^th and Harry Mitchell 334^th; and Republicans Jeff Flake 372^nd, Trent Franks 387^th and Rick Renzi dead last at 435^th.

Also of note, Renzi was the only member in either the Senate or House to get a negative score.

A report in Tuesday’s edition of Roll Call could be sobering for the Republican challengers seeking to oust Democratic U.S. Reps. Harry Mitchell’s and Gabrielle Giffords in the fall.

Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Congress, reported that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a huge financial advantage against the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The committees direct political expertise, and more importantly funding, toward selected races nationwide. At least they do that most years.

Roll Call writer Nathan L. Gonzales reported that through 2007, the DCCC had collections of $35.1 million, while the NRCC had $5.4 million.

Gonzales wrote, “Both committees generally give first priority and focus to incumbents, followed by open seats and then challenger races. With a number of vulnerable incumbents and more than two dozen open seats to defend, GOP challengers shouldn’t expect much more than a pat on the back from their campaign committees.”

Using that formula, Arizona’s Republican incumbents Reps. Jeff Flake and Trent Franks will get first-priority funding, though in reality, they won’t need it because they’ll only face token opposition.

The second-priority funding will go to whichever candidates emerge from the GOP primaries for the open seats currently held by outgoing Republican Reps. John Shadegg and Rick Renzi.

The third-priority funding will go to the Republican challengers for Mitchell’s and Giffords seats, which could be competitive. That is, if there’s any funding left.

Political newcomer Jeffrey Brown e-mailed me the other day. He was frustrated that the Tribune hasn’t included him in stories discussing the emerging field of U.S. House candidates in Arizona’s 1^st Congressional District race.

Brown and I spoke briefly by telephone before he hung up on me.

He is one of four Democrats seeking the office. It has been a low-profile campaign so far. The Federal Election Commission has no record of Brown raising or spending any money on the race for the office that Republican incumbent Rep. Rick Renzi is vacating.

According to his campaign Web site, which is still under construction, Brown worked for 13 years at United Airlines before leaving the company in 2004 to work on the John Kerry/John Edwards presidential campaign.

The Web site summarizes Brown’s time since then this way:

In 2005 Jeffrey, suffered a life changing event which found him hospitalized and in a nursing home, temporarily confined to a wheelchair. “This experience provided me with an insight to the potential future of many Americans, and the struggles of quality of life for the elderly and the disabled. This experience has strengthened my resolve to improve the quality of health care in this country, and I hope to give a voice to all of those who are often forgotten and neglected in our society.” 

Jeffrey is currently employed part time for Discount Cab Company, and is currently active in the Dennis Kucinich for President Campaign as the Southwest GLBT coordinator, and is a fervent supporter of equality for all.

The other Democrats in the race are former state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, environmental attorney Howard Shanker and former TV reporter Mary Kim Titla.

On the Republican side, the lone announced candidate is radio talk show host Sydney Hay. State Rep. Bill Konopnicki widely was expected to enter the race, but he bowed out, which could clear the way for other Republicans enter the race.

The thin GOP field has created a fair amount of intrigue about other potential candidates. And as news reporters and former news reporters know, non-denials are nearly the same thing as admissions. Stay tuned…

Republican state Rep. Andy Tobin is forming an exploratory committee as he considers running for incumbent Republican Rick Renzi’s seat in the U.S. House.

Renzi is under federal investigation for possible public corruption and has announced that he will not seek re-election in Arizona’s 1^st Congressional District. The vast district takes in huge regions northern, central and eastern Arizona, including most of booming Pinal County.Republican state Rep. Bill Konopnicki was widely expected to join the federal race, but last week announced that he’ll take a pass. That left a huge void on the Republican side of that race.

Enter Tobin.

“By the end of the week, we’re going to open an exploratory committee and see what our opportunities are, see if our supporters are there,” Tobin told me.

“It’s a huge district. It’s almost the size of the state of Illinois,” he said.

 Um, not to get all technical and everything, but Illinois is 57,918 square miles in size, while Arizona’s 1^st Congressional District is 58,608 square miles. So, the congressional district that includes Arizona’s portion of Four Corners actually is 690 square miles larger than Illinois, which by the way, ranks as the 25^th largest state in the country.

“It’s bigger? That big?” Tobin asked. “That’s huge.”

The job is huge as well. It would require Tobin to be away in Washington most of the year. That’s a serious consideration. Tobin, 49, has five children – two adult sons, plus two high schoolers and a middle schooler.

“Basically, I’ve got a yellow light from the family, because we’re still in the thought process as well. My business partner gave me a green light. I don’t know if that means he wants to keep me away from my office or not,” he said.

Tobin, a resident of Paulden, has an employee benefits company, TLC Employee Benefits, in the
Prescott area.

Tobin said he has been thinking about entering the race for the past month or so, but considered Konopnicki to be the front-runner.

“When Mr. Konopnicki got out, we thought we had better open an exploratory committee right away. I’m going to guess that we have about 30 days to get a good shot at it, to get our information together. We won’t wait long,” Tobin said.

He likely will make a decision about whether to run by March 1, he said.

Meanwhile, the lone Republican who’s in the race is radio talk show host Sydney Hay.

On the Democrat side, former state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, environmental attorney Howard Shanker and former TV reporter Mary Kim Titla all are in.

Harry Mitchell, No. 221½.

Democrat Reps. Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords have established themselves as true moderates during their first six months in the U.S. House, according to an op-ed piece headlined “For Freshmen, Fresh Voting,” by John Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

In fact, Fortier writes that he was surprised to find that most of the freshman Democrats in the House are voting on the conservative side of their party. “None of the 30 Democrats who replaced Republicans are among the most liberal 20 percent of Congress,” Fortier writes.

Fortier bases his findings on Voteview, a statistical rating compiled by political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, who have been in the congressional ranking business for decades. Their latest rankings are based on the House members’ voting records during the first six months of 2007.

Fortier compares the new Democrats’ voting records against their Republican predecessors’ records. “Among the biggest changes, J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., and Chris Chocola, R-Ind., who had voting records among the 10 percent most conservatives, have been replaced by Harry Mitchell, D, and Joe Donnelly, D, respectively, who rank almost exactly in the middle of the 110^th Congress,” Fortier writes.

A little background is in order here. Voteview ranks all 435 members of the House each session, though Poole told me the rankings frequently include more than 435 spots to account for representatives who serve part of their terms, leave office and are replaced by others.

The most liberal representative is assigned the rank of 1. The most conservative representative is assigned the rank of 435, or higher if circumstances dictate. Using that scale, here’s how the
Arizona delegation ranked during the first half of 2007:

Raul Grijalva, Democrat, tied with four others for 26½.

Ed Pastor, Democrat, tied with nine others for 77½.

Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat, 219.

Harry Mitchell, Democrat, tied with one other for 221½.

Rick Renzi, Republican, 261.

Trent Franks, Republican, 426.

John Shadegg, Republican, 432.

Jeff Flake, Republican, 433.

Statistically, the middle of the pack is 217½, so both Giffords and Mitchell fell into the conservative half of both the Democrats and the entire House. Another interesting note is that the latest Voteview rankings only had 434 spots because of ties, so Flake was the second-most conservative at 433, while Shadegg was the third-most conservative at 432. The most conservative spot was held, as it has been for the past several years, by presidential candidate Ron Paul, R-Texas.

Poole told me the rankings are based on an optimal classification algorithm, which I suppose means something to people who know what that means. “It’s one of those things where the reason why it’s not out there more in the mass press … is our method is based upon statistical basis that are not real easy to explain, but are far more precise than all those other ways to measure,” he said.

I’ll take his word for it.

Anyway, Fortier’s piece is available here: www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,publD.27087/pub_detail.asp

The Voteview rankings and more background on the researchers’ optimal classification algorithm are available here: www.voteview.com

All Arizonans come home eventually.

Sen. Jon Kyl’s chief spokesman Andrew Wilder is transferring from Kyl’s Washington office to his Phoenix office during the next two weeks. Wilder, who has been on the Republican senator’s staff for nearly nine years, will bring his PR duties with him.

Incidentally, Andrew Wilder’s wife Rebecca Wilder is leaving her post in Washington as senior manager of media relations for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to serve as public information officer for the Arizona Corporation Commission.

It’s a small circle really. Two corp commers, Republicans Kris Mayes and Jeff Hatch-Miller, are considering running for the U.S. House. Mayes would be a candidate to succeed retiring-under-FBI-investigation Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, while Hatch-Miller would be a candidate to oppose freshman Democrat Rep. Harry Mitchell.

Andrew Wilder previously served as a talk show producer for KTAR radio in Phoenix and as a staffer for Sen. John McCain. Rebecca Wilder previously served on former Gov. Fife Symington’s staff. They start their new Arizona assignments Nov. 5.

Rick RenziRep. Rick Renzi was named a three-peat winner on a watchdog group

No great surprise here, but U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi formally announced that he will not seek re-election in 2008, according to Roll Call.The Republican is being investigated by the FBI for possible public corruption. He resigned from all of his House committee assignments weeks ago and has not been raising any money, while Democrats and Republicans alike have been lining up for the race.Here

While past performance is no guarantee of future results, those interested in Rick Renzi

Mary Kim Titla, who broke ground in the TV news industry, plans to make inroads in the U.S. Congress.Titla said she plans to run as a Democrat in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, one of the largest congressional districts in the nation. It takes in Flagstaff, Prescott, Apache Junction, Casa Grande and Safford, among other cities and towns scattered across northern, central and eastern Arizona.The seat currently is held by Republican Rick Renzi, who is under federal investigation for possible public corruption.Titla grew up on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and was one of the first American Indian women to have a prominent role on TV news crew in a major market at KPNX. If Titla, 46, wins office, she would be the first American Indian woman to represent Arizona in Congress."After much soul searching and prayer and after being encouraged by voters, I am humbled and honored to inform you I have decided to run for Congress for Arizona’s 1stCongressional District as a Democratic candidate. I will be making an official announcement soon," she said in a statement on her Web site, www.marykimtitla.com."Believing I am the change needed in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, I am ready to be a real voice for the people and although I am a conservative Democrat, I intend to reach out and better serve all citizens of District 1 no matter what party they belong to," she wrote.Titla said she soon will launch a "Hear The People" tour to take the pulse of the district.She said she stands for quality education, strengthening families, bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq and cleaning up curruption in Washington.Titla left TV news to start NativeYouthMagazine.com two years ago.