There’s a funny thing about being in the majority. You get to vote in a much more progressively friendly way. For example, according to Progressive Punch, the five most progressive members of the Senate are all Senators that were just elected in 2006. And coming in tied for first is none other than Bob Casey Jr. It’s true. I’ve been watching every vote he casts, even on irrelevant stuff, and he has only voted against the mainstream Democratic position once that I’ve noticed. Here’s a look at the scores for our new Senators:

1T 98.55 Cardin, Benjamin L. D MD
1T 98.55 Casey, Robert P., Jr. D PA
3T 97.10 Brown, Sherrod D OH
3T 97.10 Klobuchar, Amy D MN
3T 97.10 Whitehouse, Sheldon D RI

16 91.30 Webb, Jim D VA
26 88.41 McCaskill, Claire D MO

29 86.96 Tester, Jon D MT

These numbers will flip around quite a bit as we get a larger sample of votes and they will wind up spread out among the entire caucus. But one lesson is already clear. If we aren’t constantly forced to make votes that can be used against us, even some of our socially conservative Senators won’t irritate us. For example, there are no ratings for the new senators on family planning because there haven’t been any votes on family planning.

Just for informational purposes, these are our worst senators on family planning (starting with the worst): Ben Nelson, Ken Salazar, Robert Byrd, Mark Pryor, John Kerry.

And here our five worst senators on issues of war and peace (starting with the worst): John Kerry, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Bill Nelson, and Mary Landrieu.

There’s a little surprise in there, dontcha think?