Jean Schmidt 409th most powerful member of Congress

By Nate Noy

The website Congress.org has always been a great way for DC insiders to gauge where they should be spending their time trying to influence legislation. Capitol Advantage is the company that compiles and publishes the rankings and is well respected as an independent and unbiased source.

Everyone of course hopes that “their” representative has some pull in Washington, so my question of the day is this: does Jean Schmidt have any “pull” whatsoever?

First let’s look at the data for the members of Congress from Ohio:

Name Rank in State Score Rank in House
Rep. Boehner (R-OH-8) 1 39.09 5
Rep. Kaptur (D-OH-9) 2 23.53 64
Rep. Jones (D-OH-11) 3 22.02 79
Rep. Regula (R-OH-16) 4 18.00 150
Rep. Ryan (D-OH-17) 5 16.09 179
Rep. Kucinich (D-OH-10) 6 15.09 198
Rep. Hobson (R-OH-7) 7 14.53 207
Rep. Sutton (D-OH-13) 8 14.00 226
Rep. Space (D-OH-18) 9 12.50 252
Rep. Wilson (D-OH-6) 10 11.50 290
Rep. LaTourette (R-OH-14) 11 11.28 293
Rep. Chabot (R-OH-1) 12 11.03 296
Rep. Pryce (R-OH-15) 14 9.53 324
Rep. Turner (R-OH-3) 14 9.53 324
Rep. Tiberi (R-OH-12) 16 9.28 335
Rep. Schmidt (R-OH-2) 17 6.50 409
Rep. Jordan (R-OH-4) 18 2.38 435

No real shocks here, Boehner of course a Minority Leader is near the top and followed by members with significant tenure. As expected Schmidt is near the bottom.

A closer look at how Schmidt obtains her ranking:


The rankings are broken into three subcategories:

Position – Based on numbers of years served in Congress as well as committee assignments and leadership positions the Member of Congress holds. Much of the power a member wields is directly a result of their seniority on a committee or in the chamber as a whole.

Indirect Influence – Refers to the action taken by a member of Congress in 2006 to attempt to affect the outcome of an issue or bill by proactive means. For example this may include, appearing on a Sunday morning talk show, getting newspaper interviews or leading a caucus such as the Congressional Women’s Caucus demonstrates that the Member of Congress influenced the legislative agenda of Congress. This could also include raising and donating money to colleagues or challengers in an attempt to gain allies and support for election to leadership positions or for passing legislation.

Legislation – Refers to the success at each stage of the lawmaking process of the passage of a bill into law in 2006. Members receive points when their bills are passed out of committee, successfully passed on the floor in their chamber, passed by the other chamber, and then signed into law by the President. This also includes attempts to shape the bill through amendments.


For Position Jean scores a 13. A point of comparison would be Zack Space who is a first term Congressman, he scores a 27. Charlie Wilson, another first-termer, scored a 25.

For both Influence and Legislation Schmidt scores a whopping 0, notta, nil, nothing! In other words Schmidt has no pull whatsoever in the media and has failed to introduce or cosponsor any legislation with success.

Basically when Jean Schmidt opens her mouth no one ever listens or cares what she has to say, unless of course she is once again making a fool of herself. NICE, just the kind of “representation” Ohio-2 deserves, but I guess if you people vote for her on Tuesday then you will in fact get what you deserve. It is just a shame that the fools that vote for and support Schmidt subject the rest of us to her uselessness.