New 118th Congress Legislative Effectiveness Scores

Executive Summary – 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 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.