News-Record.com

The N.C. Center for Public Policy Research put out its legislative effective rankings this week.

Click here for a PDF of the whole report.

The rankings are based on surveys of legislators, lobbyists and us scrubby media types. (And by way of full disclosure, yes, I did submit a survey this year.)

What do all these numbers mean?

First, remember the rankings are based on perceptions, not on a measure like how many bills someone got passed or what have you. And while the people who fill out the surveys are pretty knowledgeable, you have to figure there is some "conventional wisdom" and bias mixed in to the ultimate scores.

Also, it's helpful to think of these as relative measures. Does the fact that Harold Brubaker hold the 14 spot and Nelson Cole holds the 15 spot and Hugh Holliman holds the 16 spot mean that Brubaker is somehow two notches more effective than Holliman? No. All three are in roughly the same category.

Some notes on Triad legislators:

• Greensboro Rep. John Blust gets the good attendance award, being among the few legislators to be in the hizzle every day the House was in session. On the flip side, Blust ranks 119 out of 120 in effectiveness. Why? Because Blust butts heads with the powers that be, and his bills suffer the consequences.
• Greensboro Sen. Kay Hagan is the only Guilford legislator to hold a top 10 spot in either chamber. She rates 7 in the Senate.
• Holliman, from Davidson County, and Greensboro Reps. Earl Jones and Alma Adams saw big jumps in their rankings from the prior survey.
• Greensboro Rep. Pricey Harrison ranks 72 in her freshman term. Conventional wisdom, I'm told, says freshmen ordinarily end up in the bottom third of the rankings. By that measure, Harrison does well, making her way in to the top two-thirds.
• Guilford County's other freshman Laura Wiley, of High Point, places 96 out of 120. That's respectable but I would have put her higher based on a couple of bills she championed and a couple of budget provisions she helped knock down. My guess is she would have scored a good 15 or 20 points higher, up near Harrison, except for the fact she's Republican.