Announcing the Release of the 207th Pennsylvania General Assembly 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 207th Pennsylvania General Assembly (2023–2024). 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.
Pennsylvania marks the latest addition to our public data release, following earlier reports on Montana and Georgia. We will continue to expand our data availability and analyses to all fifty states in the coming months.
Highlights from the 207th Pennsylvania General Assembly SLES scores (2023–2024):
- Top Performers: We identify the top 10 most effective lawmakers from each party in both the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Senate, including legislators who have consistently ranked highly across multiple General Assemblies.
- Exceeds Expectations: We highlight members who earned our prestigious Exceeds 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.
- Pennsylvania Insights (2023–2024): Our data show how sharply partisan lawmaking had become in Pennsylvania over the past decade, with minority-party lawmakers largely cut out of the process. For example, in 2015–16, minority-party Democrats in the House passed nearly two dozen proposals into law; by 2021–22, only one Democratic House bill and two Democratic Senate bills became law. With Democrats entering the House majority in 2023–24, lawmaking opportunities expanded. Although most Democratic bills stalled in the Republican Senate, more than 100 became law. Although divided government can cause partisan gridlock, there is some evidence that it has been promoting an increase in working across the aisle in Pennsylvania.
You can explore the full report and detailed findings below:
