{"id":698158,"date":"2026-10-15T11:18:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/?post_type=short-read&p=698158"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:18:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:18:52","slug":"so-far-the-119th-congress-is-among-the-least-productive-of-the-past-40-years","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2026\/10\/15\/so-far-the-119th-congress-is-among-the-least-productive-of-the-past-40-years\/","title":{"rendered":"So Far, the 119th Congress Is Among the Least Productive of the Past 40 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"U.S.
U.S. Senate pages walk through the Capitol building in Washington on Oct. 1. Congress is in recess until after the midterm elections. (Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Congress has many roles in the U.S. political system, including aiding constituents, approving presidential nominees and overseeing the executive branch. Its main job, however, is passing laws \u2013 something congresspeople have done a lot less of in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 119th Congress has enacted 121 laws since it convened in January 2025. That\u2019s the second fewest of any Congress in the past four decades, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Only the 118th Congress had enacted fewer laws (106) by this point in its two-year term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About this research<\/summary>\n

This analysis looks at how many laws the current Congress has passed compared with prior Congresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did we do this?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Pew Research Center does research to inform the public, journalists and decision-makers. This analysis is the latest in a series<\/a> that helps put current political conditions into broader context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did we do this?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

We examined each law enacted by the past 20 Congresses using Congress.gov<\/a>, an online repository of legislative information maintained by Library of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this analysis, \u201claws\u201d refers to \u201cpublic laws\u201d \u2013 that is, laws of general applicability as opposed to \u201cprivate laws\u201d that benefit specific people. The vast majority of the laws Congress passes are public laws. We didn\u2019t examine the relative handful of private laws. Nor did we analyze bills that passed Congress but were vetoed by the president and so never became law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We coded every law as either \u201cceremonial\u201d or \u201csubstantial.\u201d Ceremonial laws are intended primarily to honor or recognize an individual, group or cause, such as by renaming federal buildings and other public facilities; authorizing commemorative coins or Congressional Gold Medals; permitting outside groups to erect memorials on federal land; and appointing citizen regents to the Smithsonian Institution\u2019s board \u2013 typically a noncontroversial practice until recently. (In the past, laws that designated special days and months or expressed nonbinding policy statements also were considered ceremonial, but Congress has mostly stopped passing such laws.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Substantive laws, by contrast, are those that spend money, create or change permanent law, order government officials to do something, acquire or dispose of land or otherwise have some real-world impact, no matter how limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also noted the date each measure officially became law. For each Congress, we categorized \u201clame-duck laws\u201d as those that became law on or after Election Day near the end of its term. \u00a0In a small number of cases, bills passed by Congress before Election Day but not signed into law until afterward are included in those totals.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n

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Congress\u2019 productivity continues to dwindle<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Public laws enacted by each Congress, before Election Day <\/em><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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* As of Oct. 14, 2026.
Note: We sorted public laws into substantial and ceremonial categories. Substantive laws spend money, create or change permanent law, order government officials to do something, acquire or dispose of land or otherwise have some real-world impact, no matter how limited. Ceremonial laws have a smaller scope, such as honoring an individual or group.<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Source: Pew Research Center analysis of Congress.gov data.<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
PEW RESEARCH CENTER<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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