The first session of the 114th Congress is more than halfway through, and Congress left the U.S. Capitol for the August recess.
While Congress has developed a reputation in recent years for doing little, early signs indicate productivity may be on the upswing with this Congress, according to a recent Pew Research Center analysis. Of the 49 bills Congress has enacted, 35 were substantive and 14 were ceremonial, such as commemorating a historical event or renaming post offices, according to the Pew analysis.
By contrast, the 113th Congress had passed only 21 substantive bills by its first August recess, and the 112th had passed only 19.
Not only did the 112th Congress pass fewer substantive bills before its first August recess, it passed only 296 bills in its two-year existence — about 2 percent of all bills introduced — making it the least productive Congress since 1947.
Whether Congress keeps up the pace this session still is an open question. The first session of each Congress generally is the time when bills are introduced. Much of the heavy lifting doesn’t come until the second session, which always falls during election year.
Still, when it’s come to the heavy lifting, this Congress has not let an opportunity to punt go to waste. Right before the recess, the House and Senate passed a three-month highway funding bill in lieu of an agreement for a long-term fix. And even though Congress has had more than 20 years to shore up the Social Security disability trust fund, it still hasn’t taken action. As it stands, the fund is expected to run out in December 2016, which would result in benefit cuts for 11 million Americans.
Also on this Congress’ plate this fall are a cyber security bill, the Iran nuclear agreement, a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown in October and a general spending plan.
So let’s take a look at what Congress and Maine’s representatives have been up to these last eight months, by the numbers.
(This information has been compiled from GovTrack.us, a website dedicated to transparency in the U.S. government, and Congress.gov.)
489: The number of roll call votes the House has held so far this session.
262: The number of roll call votes the Senate has held so far this session.
10: The number of votes U.S. Sen. Angus King has missed, which were because of his June surgery for prostate cancer. U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin have missed three roll call votes each this session. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has not missed one of the 5,995 roll call votes held since she took office in 1997. Out of the entire Congress, U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, has missed the most votes this session: 146.
6,261: The number of bills that have been introduced so far this legislative session, including 543 House resolutions and 289 Senate resolutions that tend to be ceremonial in nature and do not carry the weight of the law — S.Res.230 sponsored by King, for instance, designates Sept. 25 as National Lobster Day.
43: The number of bills sponsored by Maine’s congressional representatives so far this session. This includes 25 by Collins, 13 by King, three by Pingree and two by Poliquin.
12: The average number of bills each member of Congress has sponsored since the start of the 114th Congress, according to GovTrack.us.
29: The number of amendments to legislation proposed by Maine’s congressional representatives: 16 by Collins, 10 by King, two by Poliquin and one by Pingree. Some of these amendments have been wrapped up into larger bills that await action in Congress.
5,407: Bills that have been referred to a committee, of which 3,074 are from the House and 1,769 are from the Senate. It is in committee that the lionshare of Congress’ work is done. In addition to examining and developing legislation, committees also conduct hearings and oversee government agencies.
The likelihood a bill would survive committee is very low, as only 10 percent ever return to the either the House or Senate floor for consideration.
35: Bills sponsored by Maine’s congressional representatives that have been referred to committee: 20 by Collins, 12 by King, two by Pingree and one by Poliquin.
4: Resolutions sponsored by members of Maine’s congressional delegation — three by Collins and one by King — that have been passed. Neither Pingree nor Poliquin has put forward any resolutions.
325: The number of bills that have survived their ordeal in committee and await action in either the House or Senate. A bill must be passed by both chambers. This includes a Poliquin bill, H.R.2091, that seeks to give law enforcement more tools to enforce child support payments, and a Collins bill, S.1632, that would task the State and Defense departments with developing a strategy to combat Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group waging an insurgency in Nigeria.
171: The number of bills the House has passed that await action in the Senate. Among these bills is Pingree’s H.R.1607, the Ruth Moore Act of 2015, which would make it easier for victims of sexual assault in the military to obtain benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
46: The number of Senate-passed bills that await action in the House.
49: The number of bills that have been signed into law by President Barack Obama since January, about 1 percent of all the bills introduced to Congress so far. According to GovTrack.us, fewer than 7 percent of all bills ever become law.
2: The number of bills so far this session have been vetoed by Obama, including legislation authorizing construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, neither of which Congress has overridden. Since Obama took office in 2009, he has only vetoed four bills.
In fact, Obama has issued the fewest vetoes of any president since Abraham Lincoln, who vetoed only two bills, according to the U.S. Senate website. (Nevermind President James Garfield, who died after less than a year in office and didn’t have time to veto any bills.) Which president exercised veto power the most? That honor goes to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who vetoed a whopping 372 bills while in office.
0: The number of bills sponsored by Maine’s representatives that have become law so far this session.