If you’re looking back at this year and lamenting how little work got accomplished during the coronavirus pandemic, take heart. The 116th U.S. Congress, whose term ends on Jan. 3, is on the brink of being the least productive, measured by laws enacted, since the years after World War II.
From January 2019 through Wednesday, the current Congress and President Trump had managed to pass and sign into law 252 public laws. If no more are enacted, that would be the lowest in records going back to the 80th Congress of 1947 and 1948.
The coronavirus pandemic had a lot to do with that, essentially sending lawmakers fleeing from the U.S. Capitol for weeks after passage of the $1.7 trillion CARES Act stimulus bill in late March and causing the House to implement a controversial vote-by-proxy plan.
“Americans should have expected that in an election year — when legislative activity often slows — which was also beset by a pandemic making meeting in person difficult, Congress might enact fewer laws. But the pandemic is not the whole story,” Michael Thorning, associate director of governance with the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in an email.
“Real and longstanding gridlock and dysfunction in Congress unrelated to the pandemic, combined with the politics of the 2020 election also contributed to fewer laws enacted. Without the pandemic, Congress might have enacted more laws, but given the current divided government dynamics hanging over Washington, it’s hard to imagine the 116th Congress was going to be an outstanding performer,” he said.
Thorning works on the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Healthy Congress Index, which measures how well the Congress is working compared to past ones by tracking legislative trends.
The 116th has been a divided Congress, with Republicans controlling the Senate and the Democrats the House, a formula seen in the only other two Congresses in recent decades to have less than 300 laws enacted, the 113th Congress in 2013 and 2014 and the 111th Congress from 2011 to 2012.
But the 116th’s record is likely to improve somewhat before it ends Sunday. Trump signed nine bills Sunday that have yet to be assigned public law numbers, and 55 bills were still awaiting action by the president. If they make it into law, which seems likely as most appear non-controversial, that would raise the 116th’s total to 316 laws.
That would be down from 442 in the prior GOP-controlled Congress but only the lowest since the 113th Congress’ 296 laws.
“We only get part of the story by comparing the numbers of laws enacted by each Congress. It tell us how much action Congress took, but does not tell us how much action was needed at the time,” Thorning said.
“As negotiations over the pandemic response dragged on and must-pass bills like annual appropriations and the defense authorization needed to be resolved as well, combined with the election, the room for other issues shrank,” he said.
While the number of laws may be down, the impact of the bills passed was sometimes huge. Four pandemic bills passed between March and April congressional scorekeepers estimated would cost about $2.4 trillion. The newest aid bill, signed by Trump Sunday, adds about another $900 billion to that total.
The coronavirus crisis was also largely responsible for something not seen in almost forty years – the Senate taking more roll call votes than the House in a one-year session.
As of Wednesday, the House had taken 253 roll call votes in 2020’s second session of the 116th, while the Senate had taken 290 and is likely to take a few more before the session is over.
According to Brookings Institution data, the last time the Senate voted more often was 1981, when the Senate took 497 votes while the House only took 371.
Usually the House takes far more votes, aided by an electronic voting system that allows its members to vote literally by slipping a card into a slot and punching a button. Meanwhile, the Senate, though it has only 100 members, does well to finish some votes in 20 minutes.
The pandemic led both chambers to make changes in their protocols, with the House adopting a controversial proxy voting plan that Republicans say is unconstitutional. Under the policy, a member can give written instructions to another member on how to cast their proxy on specific votes, allowing members citing health reasons to avoid having to vote in person. Combined with taking votes in small groups, House votes now take about 45 minutes, compared to as little as two minutes pre-coronavirus.
The House also rejigged its schedule to meet less, which often left House Speaker Nancy Pelosi alone in Washington as the most high-profile representative of Democrats nationally.
Thorning said that both hurt and helped Pelosi as she negotiated a second big coronavirus package. It meant the House could be more easily disrupted, as when Rep. Thomas Massie forced many members to return to Washington for a final vote on the CARES Act.
But it may also have given her a free hand in aid package talks.
“The absence of a large portion of members from the Capitol may have given leadership more leverage to negotiate, as there was some sense that members would need to defer more to their party leaders in order to act quickly,” he said.
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