By John E. Mulligan
Journal Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rhode Island's delegation to the U.S. Senate is the nation's most liberal, with Democrats Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse tied in the number one spot, with partisans from three other states. All five scored 88 on the liberal composite scale.

That's the top of the local news from the National Journal's survey of records amassed during the first session of the 111th Congress.

The Washington-based policy weekly arrives at its annual scores by tracking the votes of every member of Congress on dozens of key votes in several areas, such as economic policy and foreign affairs.

It's difficult to place Rhode Island on the left-right spectrum in the House of Representatives because one of its two Democratic Congressman, Patrick J. Kennedy, missed too many votes to be considered in the rankings.

Kennedy missed many votes to be at the side of his ailing father, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, and also left the House for a time to enter an addiction treatment facility last spring. Rep. James R. Langevin ranked 124th among House liberals with a composite rating of 74.2 on the liberal composite scale of 100.

The other Democrats tied in the top spot with the Rhode Island senators are Roland Burris of Illinois (who was appointed to fill the vacancy left when another top liberal, Barack Obama, got promoted last year), Maryland's Benjamin Cardin and Ohio's Sherrod Brown (both elected, like Whitehouse, in 1996).

Maryland's delegation figures as the nation's second-most liberal, with veteran Democrat Barbara Mikulski rated in 8th place. Illinois is third-most liberal, with Majority Leader Dick Durbin holding 9th place.

Neighboring Massachusetts would have been a contender, since John F. Kerry shared 6th place among liberals with fellow Democrat Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. But Senator Kennedy did not cast enough votes to be eligible for the magazine's report card. (Kennedy died last summer after a long illness.)

Like any system that purports to measure ideology, this one has some anomalies. Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, for example, is a man of the left by anybody's measure, but he ranks only 38th on the National Journal's Senate scale, in part because of his votes against measures he deemed insufficiently liberal.

There's little question, however, that New England's Senate delegation reflects the region's status as the most liberal region of the country.

The most liberal Republican senator, Maine's Olympia Snowe, hold's the 57th ranking - ahead of two Democrats, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and the retiring Evan Bayh of Indiana.

Fellow Mainer Susan Collins follows immediately after, ranking as the second-most liberal Republican. To put it another way, New England's most conservative Senator, the soon-to-retire budget hawk Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, stands to the left of all but four Senate Republicans: Snowe, Collins, Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of Ohio.

Rhode Island's opposite number at the right end of the ideological spectrum is Oklahoma. Republican Jim Inhofe holds top honors among Senate conservatives; the junior senator from the Seminole State, Republican Tom Coburn, is the fourth-most conservative member of the Senate.