At press time, Fitch said, “We made a mistake in congressman Clyburn. He should be No. 30 and not No. 77. ... we just did not give the majority whip enough points that he deserved. So we now fixed it.”
Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) is the only Republican ranked in top 10 in the House.
In the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and presidential candidate John McCain (Ariz.) are the lone Republicans ranking in the top 10.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), No. 9, edged out Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), No. 11, because of her greater success in steering funds back to her home state.
“We gave the three presidential candidates the same number of points as the sizzle factor,” said Fitch. “If Sen. Clinton did not have all those earmarks, she would be under Obama. It should be said that this is not an exact science; the point system is something we work very hard at but is not perfect. Those members who are between two to three points from one another have relatively the same amount of power.”
Clinton secured $340 million worth of earmarks in 2007, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group tracking federal spending.
Republican appropriators, however, did not appear to get much of a lift from their own earmarking prowess.
Sen. Thad Cochran (Miss.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, who collected nearly $800 million worth of earmarks last year, ranked 55th most powerful.
Rep. Bill Young (Fla.), the second-ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, is No. 159 on the power list, even though he is the House Republican with the highest dollar amount of earmarks for the first half of the 110th Congress.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who has long been known as Washington’s king of earmarks, ranked No. 14, two slots behind former Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (Mass.).
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