{"id":13877,"date":"2014-12-29T07:00:43","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/in-late-spurt-of-activity-congress-avoids-least-productive-title\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:20:56","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:20:56","slug":"in-late-spurt-of-activity-congress-avoids-least-productive-title","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/12\/29\/in-late-spurt-of-activity-congress-avoids-least-productive-title\/","title":{"rendered":"In late spurt of activity, Congress avoids \u2018least productive\u2019 title"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2014\/12\/FT_14.12.23_Congressional-productivity_1.png\"><img data-dominant-color=\"e4dfd1\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #e4dfd1;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"310\" height=\"414\"  srcset=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/12\/FT_14.12.23_Congressional-productivity_1.png?resize=310,414 310w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 480px, (max-width: 782px) 782px, 640px\" class=\"wp-image-25790 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/12\/FT_14.12.23_Congressional-productivity_1.png\" alt=\"laws passed by recent congresses\" ><\/a><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With\u00a0the 113th Congress now in the history books, we conducted a final tally of our nation&#8217;s legislative productivity &#8212; in terms of both total laws passed and of substance. Our calculation finds that the 113th just barely avoided the dubious title of &#8220;least productive Congress in modern history.&#8221; But that&#8217;s only because of <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/12\/02\/how-productive-are-lame-duck-congresses\/\">an exceptionally active lame duck session<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In all, the expiring Congress enacted 296 laws, 13 more than the 2011-12 Congress. Of those, we categorized 212 as substantive by our deliberately generous criteria\u00a0(that is, anything besides building renamings, commemorative-coin issuances and other purely ceremonial laws); that was four more than the previous Congress.<!--more--><\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2014\/12\/FT_14.12.23_Congressional-productivity_2.png\"><img data-dominant-color=\"f6f5f4\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #f6f5f4;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"310\" height=\"752\"  srcset=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/12\/FT_14.12.23_Congressional-productivity_2.png?resize=310,752 310w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 480px, (max-width: 782px) 782px, 640px\" class=\"wp-image-25794 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/12\/FT_14.12.23_Congressional-productivity_2.png\" alt=\"laws passed during lame duck sessions\" ><\/a><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One might not have predicted such a finish. When Congress broke for its election recess, it had passed just 185 laws, putting it on pace to be the least-productive in recent history. In fact, we expressed <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/09\/23\/congress-still-on-track-to-be-among-least-productive-in-recent-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">some skepticism<\/a> that lawmakers\u00a0would end the year with a burst of activity.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But we were wrong: The 111 measures passed in the lame duck session (which lasted just over a month) accounted for well over a third (37.5%) of the 113th Congress&#8217; entire legislative output &#8212; continuing a trend of more and more business being <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/12\/02\/how-productive-are-lame-duck-congresses\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">put off till after election season<\/a>. That business included passing a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/post-politics\/wp\/2014\/12\/09\/whats-in-the-spending-bill-we-skim-it-so-you-dont-have-to\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$1.1 trillion spending bill<\/a> that avoided another government shutdown, extending several dozen <a href=\"http:\/\/thomas.loc.gov\/cgi-bin\/query\/D?c113:4:.\/temp\/~c113qxSxOZ::\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">expiring tax breaks<\/a>, and enacting a massive <a href=\"http:\/\/armedservices.house.gov\/index.cfm\/ndaa-home?p=ndaa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">defense-policy bill<\/a> that does everything from authorizing U.S. aid to forces fighting the Islamic State to extending the deadline for establishing a memorial to President John Adams.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To be sure, Congress was busy with the ceremonial stuff, too. Lawmakers made sure to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thomas.loc.gov\/cgi-bin\/query\/D?c113:3:.\/temp\/~c113xIS9HU::\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">award a gold medal to Jack Nicklaus<\/a>\u00a0and confer honorary citizenship on Revolutionary War hero <a href=\"http:\/\/thomas.loc.gov\/cgi-bin\/query\/D?c113:5:.\/temp\/~c113qNOMXi::\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bernardo de Galvez y Madrid <\/a>before leaving town for the holidays.\u00a0We classified 71 of the 111 laws passed during the lame duck session as substantive, or 64% &#8212; the lowest such percentage among the past eight Congresses.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most productive Congressional lame duck session, by the way, was the 107th Congress in 2001-02. As the nation was moving toward war against Saddam Hussein&#8217;s Iraq and continuing to grapple with the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, all but one of the 84 laws passed during that time were substantive, including the\u00a0creation of the Homeland Security Department.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An unusually active lame duck session enabled the 113th Congress to avoid its predecessor&#8217;s record for legislative unproductivity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_crdt_document":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"bylines":[{"key":"b4c479ea6e9e1e003b72aecd3177ad30","termId":842}],"acknowledgements":[],"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[79],"bylines":[842],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[521,525,529,526,527,528,522,520,523,517,518,519],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-13877","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-congress","bylines-drew-desilver","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-data-labs","research-teams-global","research-teams-global-migration-and-demography","research-teams-internet","research-teams-journalism","research-teams-methods","research-teams-pew-research-center","research-teams-politics","research-teams-race-and-ethnicity","research-teams-religion","research-teams-science","research-teams-social-trends"],"label":"Short 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