Who are the most powerful U.S. Senators?

I ask this because I just found out that as President pro tempore of the Senate, Ted Stevens is fourth in the line of Presidential succession. The thought of Ted Stevens as President of the United States is most disconcerting. Who in the Senate holds a lot of power both on and off the Senate floor?

power as a Senator goes according to size and economic power of your state, and the senior Senator has more power than the junior Senator. There's some fray and skill or loyalty based promotion in the committees and Senate leadership, but that stuff is a fairly flat pyramid.

I looked at this a while ago. Technically, Diane Feinstein and Charlie Schumer could be the most powerful Democratic Senators but the picture is a bit muddled by being in the minority party. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, plus John Kerry confusing the matter with their personal celebrity and seniority. One of them would be Leader but for the long split of the Party that forces compromise moderate Leaders, e.g. Daschle and now Reid.

Over on the Republican side it's kind of interesting- their internal chauvinism has de facto elevated John Cornyn over Kay Bailey Hutchison, as far as I can tell, among the Texas duo. Their Party's cultural deference to insiderdom and promotion of useful stooges has further mucked up the natural order according to the social and economic power of state they represent. Small staters like Lott, McConnell, Domenici, Pat Roberts, and Orrin Hatch hold unusually disproportionate power. Big staters like Mel Martinez and the Missouri, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia duos are disproportionately powerless, afaict. It suggests to me that some power outside the Republican Senate caucus steers the relative distribution of power.

I see two factors (which might be two reflections of the same thing) that Reichbots value more than the strict seniority system: (1) How 'bulletproof' they are in spearheading narrow-interest policies, and (2) How much 'excess' campaign funds they can distribute to their poorer kin. It seems to have quite a bit to do with the approve-disapprove margin they have in their state. The two highest, however, are Collins and Snowe. Both misogyny and their modest campaign finance levels.

Collins, for example, runs the Dingo PAC which gave $71,500 to Republican Senate candidates in 2004. Murkowski (AK), Spector (PS), Voinovich (OH), Bond (MO), DeMint (OH), Thune (SD), and Isakson (GA) all got $5,000 or more from Collins' PAC.

Orrin Hatch, on the other hand, runs "Campaign for America's Future" which gave $92,000 to Republican Senate candidates in 2002. Susan Collins(!), Liz Dole, Gordon Smith, and Ted Stevens all got $10,000 from Hatch's PAC. Hatch has cash on hand of $1,937,824 so far in preparation for his 2006 reelection. He's a rainmaker ... and bulletproof with a 36% approval-disapproval margin.

The various PACs and campaign committees are constantly laundering their cash, running on 2-year campaign cycles with a 6-year term of office. It'd take a team of accountants (and programmers?) to track the flow of cash between these bastards.

Stevens' power is from sitting on appropriations and chairing the commerce/transportation committee. President pro temp is a figurehead, whose only real power is in the succession line, although anything that took out the top three quickly enough to prevent replacement would probably take him out as well.

The difference between powerful and non-powerful committee chairs depends on the latitude they have to shape the majority party's will. Specter is not particularly powerful, since he is beholden to the smoke-filled room that allowed him to stay on. The majority and minority leaders are the most important people in the Senate as a whole, the minority leader having probably more power through negotiation and parliamentary procedure than even the committee chairs. I think Reid is actually more powerful than Frist. Sure, Reid doesn't get much of what he wants, but he's got more latitude to shape Senate action than Frist. Frist is beholden to the people who would replace him in a split second with Lott.

especially the committees which have huge budgets to parcel out like transportation, agriculture, etc.

The majority and minority leaders have to be right up there too.

I would think right now the Republican moderates can pretty much get whatever pork they want to keep them happy.

Kennedy's up there. He's just been there for so freakin' long, and of course, he's got the name.