10 Best Senators

TIME.com: America's 10 Best Senators -- Apr. 24, 2006 -- Page 1: "By law, just about anyone can be a U.S. Senator. The Constitution requires only that you have reached your 30th birthday, reside in the state you represent and have held American citizenship for nine years. But if the framers made qualifying for the job easy, they made excelling at it difficult. James Madison called the Senate a "fence" against the "fickleness and passion" of public opinion, and the rules of the place ensure that it is as cumbersome and restrictive as that sounds. Any of the 100 members can try to change, or completely hijack, another member's bill as it comes up for a vote. And any one of them can bring the place to a halt with a filibuster. Mastering a powerful institution that relies on comity but requires confrontation takes a special kind of talent."