Expiring Congress narrowly avoids 'least productive' title
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The expiring 113th Congress was the second least productive in modern history, with only a busy lame duck period helping it narrowly avoid the dubious title of least productive, says a new Pew Research Center study.
The report showed that the current two-year Congress, which officially concludes next week but which essentially ended the week before Christmas, enacted 296 laws — 13 more than the 112th Congress of 2011 and 2012. Of those, Pew categorized 212 as “substantive” — that is, anything besides minor or ceremonial legislative actions like building re-namings and commemorative-coin issuances. That’s four more than the previous Congress.
When Congress broke for its mid-election recess in September, it had passed just 185 laws, putting it on pace to be the least-productive in recent history.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The 111 bills passed in the lame duck session after the November elections accounted for 37.5 percent of the 113th Congress’ entire legislative output, Pew says. Those measures included a $1.1 trillion spending bill that avoided another government shutdown, extending several dozen expiring tax breaks, the confirmation of several key presidential nominations and enacting a massive defense-policy bill that included aid to forces fighting the Islamic State.