Open Poll: Who is your favorite Member of Congress

[Jim Lane]

31. Jerry Nadler

One difference between him and Alan Grayson is that Nadler, resisting the post-9/11 hysteria, voted against the PATRIOT Act. OK, cheap shot, Grayson didn't vote against it because he wasn't in Congress then -- but that illustrates why I rank Nadler first. Both of those guys talk the talk and walk the walk, but Nadler's just been doing it longer (first elected in 1992, and fighting the good fight in the New York State Assembly before that).

Now, I will concede that his first campaign manager was the odious Dick Morris. As against that, it was in the 1960s, in Nadler's (successful) campaign for student government president at Stuyvesant High School. The teenage Morris had not yet revealed his true colors. I think Nadler can be forgiven that one.