Rep. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) was named 2009’s most beautiful person on Capitol Hill by The Hill newspaper this week.

Oh right, we meant to link to The Hill newspaper’s 50 Most Beautiful 2009 feature, aka the annual “Hill Hotties” list, which hit the stands earlier this week. As is tradition, we turn to DCist alum Jason Linkins, aka DCeiver and now of the Huffington Post, for the crucial analysis:

What makes The Hill’s annual listicle is, frankly, The Hill itself. With their oddball fixations, strange beauty metaphors, and bizarre photography decisions, the keepers of this list have always been one of the main attractions. Sadly, this year’s list is not nearly as bizarre as last year’s was. I like to think that maybe The Hill is working hard to deprive me of material. Sounds arrogant? Maybe. But the alternative — that our government is getting less beautiful — is just too difficult to contemplate.

The top honors this year go to Rep. Martin Heinrich (D), a freshman congressman from New Mexico.

One thing we’ll note is that it looks like for the first time in many years, a meaningful chunk of The Hill’s reporting staff was spared from the annual humiliation of having to show up and interview the folks selected for the Hotties list. In previous years it seemed like every single staffer had to participate, but at least a handful of Hill reporters we can think of are missing from the Hotties bylines this time around.