Tech-friendly in Congress

News.com has released a scorecard ranking the "tech-friendliness" of members of Congress based on how they voted on 10 key technology-related bills dating back to 1995. (The lists differ between the Senate and the House.)

Not surprisingly, Republicans scored much higher than Democrats. GOP Senators scored an average of 61 percent, 15 points higher than Democrats. House Republicans, meanwhile, averaged 68 percent compared with 52 percent for Democrats.

From our neck of the woods, Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, a former RealNetworks executive, scored 80 percent on the five votes taken while she was in office. That puts her in a four-way tie for second place in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Sen. Patty Murray, also a Democrat, scored 70 percent. Her GOP opponent for re-election, Rep. George Nethercutt, scored 64 percent. By News.com's assessment, that makes him less tech-friendly than Reps. Adam Smith (D., 78 percent), Norm Dicks (D., 73 percent), Jennifer Dunn (R., 68 percent) and Doc Hastings (R., 67 percent) -- but more tech-friendly than Rick Larsen (D., 63 percent), Brian Baird (D., 55 percent), Jay Inslee (D., 55 percent) and Jim McDermott (D., 50 percent)

(See the full results for the House and Senate for more detail.)

In an interesting reflection of its techie audience, nearly half of the main analysis is dedicated to a critical examination of News.com's methodology.