Announcing the Release of the 2023-2024 Wisconsin State Legislatures State Legislative Effectiveness Scores (SLES)
The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is proud to announce the release of our State Legislative Effectiveness Scores (SLES) for the 2023-2024 Wisconsin legislative session. This initiative is part of our broader effort to measure the lawmaking effectiveness of individual legislators in all 99 state legislative chambers in the United States.
These scores capture lawmaking effectiveness by tracking the number of bills legislators sponsor, how far those bills advance through the legislative process, and the substantive significance of the proposals.
Wisconsin marks the latest addition to our public data release, following earlier reports on Montana, Georgia, and several other states. We will continue to expand our data availability and analyses to all fifty states in the coming months.
Highlights from the 2023-2024 Wisconsin legislative session:
- Top Performers: We identify the most effective lawmakers from each party in the Wisconsin lower and upper chambers, including legislators who have consistently ranked highly across multiple legislative sessions.
- Above Expectations: We highlight members who earned our prestigious Above Expectations designation for lawmaking effectiveness, including both seasoned legislators with sustained records and first-term lawmakers who quickly distinguished themselves among their peers.
- Majority Party Advantage: Consistent with CEL research, majority-party legislators were generally more effective lawmakers, reflecting structural advantages such as agenda-setting power and committee leadership.
- Other Findings: In terms of broader patterns, it is difficult to over-state the degree to which minority-party lawmakers are shut out of the lawmaking process in Wisconsin. While the SLES of minority-party lawmakers across the country on the whole averages about 0.6, the scores for minority-party members in Wisconsin have been around half of that, averaging around 0.3, and their successes are mostly limited to early lawmaking stages. Indeed, combining the last three legislative terms together – across both the Assembly and the Senate – the number of laws sponsored by Democrats totals just ten, compared to 638 coming from Republicans. This ratio is significantly out of proportion to the number of seats the parties hold in the chambers, and well beyond what is seen in most legislatures across the country.
You can explore the full report and detailed findings below:
Photo by Jeff dean at English Wikipedia.
