Kentucky delegation more powerful than Ohio's

The Kentucky congressional delegation may be smaller, but its eight members are far more powerful overall than the 20 lawmakers representing Ohio, according to a new set of congressional power rankings released last week by Congress.org.

Most of that is due to Sen. Mitch McConnell's position as Senate minority leader. According to the rankings, the Louisville Republican is the fifth most powerful member of that chamber.

Sen. Jim Bunning of Southgate was much farther down the list, coming in at No. 64. But even he outranked Ohio's two senators.

Surprisingly, Ohio freshman Sen. Sherrod Brown was listed as more powerful than former governor and eight-year veteran Sen. George Voinovich. Brown, a Democrat, was listed at No. 84 while Voinovich, a Republican, came in at No. 90.

In the House, Minority Leader John Boehner of West Chester was ranked fifth out of 435 members.

Everyone else in the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky delegation, however, was listed on the bottom half of the power chart: Rep. Steve Chabot was No. 296, Rep. Mike Turner was No. 324, Rep. Geoff Davis was 397, and Rep. Jean Schmidt was No. 409.

The average of the scores ranked Ohio 40th among all states while Kentucky was 25th.

(This post was also included in today's "Inside Washington" column. Read the read of the column to find out what your lawmakers did in Washington last week, from bills introduced to what bills passed.)