Highlights from the New 118th Congress Legislative Effectiveness Scores
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is pleased to announce the release of the Legislative Effectiveness Scores (LES) for the recently completed 118th Congress (2023-25). This report, written by Co-Directors Craig Volden (of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia) and Alan Wiseman (of the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University), offers highlights from our initial analyses of these scores, including:
- We list the top-10 lawmakers in each party in the House and Senate, including many who continued their patterns of highly effective lawmaking from the previous congress.
- We note those lawmakers with the longest streaks of being in our prestigious “Exceeds Expectations” category, as well as first-term lawmakers in this category.
- We offer evidence that effective lawmaking continued, despite divided government and internal struggles within closely divided chambers.
- The pattern of behind-the-scenes lawmaking continued, with bill language modified and attached to must-pass legislation, such as omnibus appropriations packages and the National Defense Authorization Acts.
- Whether as stand-alone bills or part of larger legislative vehicles, we find many paths to successful lawmaking – traditional lawmaking successes by committee and subcommittee chairs, innovative proposals by liberal-leaning and conservative lawmakers alike, and moderates working with party leaders to advance their proposals as policy riders.
- The lawmaking capacity of Congress may be strained for a variety of reasons in the years ahead, including due to many of the high-performing lawmakers listed here losing their elections, winning elections to state-level office, moving into the administration, or retiring.
To read the full report, go here.
To see the updated scores for the 118th Congress, go here.
