The New, Do Nothing Washington

Updated December 31, 2014

Now that we are at the end of 2014, let's take a brief look at how much time America's legislators actually spend doing the business of the nation and how much they accomplish.

Here is a calendar showing the days that the House sat/will sit in the Second Session of the 113th Congress:

  

That's a total of 112 sitting days in 2014 or an average of 9.3 sitting days per month.  You'll note that during the ISIS and Ebola crises that are destined to bring the United States to its knees, the House has been rather empty.

Here is a calendar showing the days that the Senate sat/will sit in the Second Session of the 113th Congress:

That's a total of 193 sitting days in 2014 or an average of 16.1 sitting days per month.

Since the Resume of Congressional Activity is not yet available for the Second Session of the 113th Congress, let's look back one year to the First Session of the 113th Congress to see what was accomplished by the same cast of characters in the period between January 3, 2013 to January 3, 2014, starting with the House:

Days in Session: 160

Time in Session: 767 hours 33 minutes

Average Session Length: 4 hours 48 minutes

Pages of Proceedings: 8138

Pages of Proceedings per hour of sitting: 10.6

Public Bills Enacted into Law: 56

Total Bills Passed per day of sitting: 0.35 

Bills Introduced: 3810

Yea and Nay Votes: 299

Now, let's look at the Senate:

Days in Session: 156

Time in Session: 1095 hours 12 minutes

Average Session Length: 7 hours

Pages of Proceedings: 9124

Pages of Proceedings per hour of sitting: 8.33

Public Bills Enacted into Law: 17

Total Bills Passed per day of sitting: 0.11

Bills Introduced: 1894

Yea and Nay Votes: 291

Please note that in both cases, there were no private bills enacted into law.

Here for your perusal is the Resume of Congressional Activity for the First Session of the 113th Congress:

  

As a bit of background, according to the Congressional Research Service, the 2014 pay for Members of Congress is $174,000 annually.  The Speaker of the House makes $233,500 and the President pro tempore of the Senate  and the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate each make $193,400.  On top of that, Representatives and Senators are allowed to make up to 15 percent of the annual rate of basic pay for level II of the Executive Schedule for federal employees ($26,550 in 2013) in outside earned income.  Outside earned income cannot include the following:

"...a Member may not receive compensation for affiliating with or being employed by a firm, partnership, association, corporation, or other entity providing professional services involving a fiduciary relationship, except for the practice of medicine; allowing his/her name to be used by such a firm, partnership, association, corporation, or other entity; practicing a profession involving a fiduciary relationship; serving as a member or officer of the board of an association, corporation, or other entity; and teaching without prior notification to, and approval from, the House Committee on Ethics, in the case of Representatives, or the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, in the case of Senators."

Both Representatives and Senators are not allowed to accept honoraria.  There is, however, no limit on the amount of non-salary income that members can retain from their corporate dividends, investments or profits.

Now that we have some background, let's look back at the First Session of the 80th Congress, Harry Truman's famous "Do Nothing Congress" and compare their activities to that of the current Congress, again, starting with the House:

Days in Session: 144

Time in Session: 686 hours 2 minutes

Pages of Proceedings: 5739

Pages of Proceedings per hour of sitting: 8.4

Public Bills enacted into law: 275

Private Bills enacted into law: 94

Total Bills Passed per day of sitting: 2.56

Bills Introduced: 4831

Yea and Nay Votes: 84

Now let's look at the Senate:

Days in Session: 143

Time in Session: 807 hours 36 minutes

Pages of Proceedings: 6150

Pages of Proceedings per hour of sitting:7.6

Public Bills Enacted into law: 120

Private Bills enacted into law: 37

Total Bills Passed per day of sitting: 1.1

Bills Introduced: 1924

Yea and Nay Votes: 138

Here for your illumination is a screen capture showing the Resume of the 80th Congress for both the First and Second Sessions:

  

When you compare what American taxpayers are getting for their Congressional dollar today, you can see that even when compared to the 80th "Do Nothing Congress", the 113th Congress was mired in partisan bickering.  While roughly the same number of bills were introduced in both sessions and the number of sitting days was comparable, the "do nothing" Congress was able to enact nearly ten times the number of bills into law than the current crop of Washington's best and brightest.  One thing that the current Congress is better at than their peers in the 80th Congress, however, is the number of pages of proceedings issued per hour of sitting.

Mediocrity would seem to be the slogan of the new "Do Nothing Washington".  Perhaps if the honourable Members were to spend less time fundraising and more time doing what they actually get paid to do, things would get done.

What Did the 113th Congress Really Accomplish?

It's now apparent that the First Session of the 113th Congress was the least productive in the last 25 years.  According to the Library of Congress, a total of 65 Bills were passed into law, 28 percent of the 25 year average of 230.  While more laws are not necessarily a positive thing, I thought that it would be prudent to take a detailed look at what was really accomplished by the House and Senate.

Here is a list of some of the critical laws that have been passed during the First Session of the 113th Congress:

1.)  H.R. 1071 - To specify the size of the precious metal blanks that will be used in the production of the National Baseball Hall of Fame commemorative coins.  This new law modifies the requirements for the production of silver and gold coins commemorating the National Baseball Hall of Fame, requiring that such coins be struck on planchets of specified diameters.  This bill was introduced in the House on March 12, 2013 and was passed by the House on April 24, 2013, the Senate on May 7, 2013 (unanimously) and signed into law by the President on May 17th, 2013, just over two months after it was introduced by Rep. Richard Hanna of New York.  See, the House and the Senate can get things done at light speed when they are really important to the ongoing business of the nation!

2.) H.R. 475 - To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to include vaccines against seasonal influenza within the definition of taxable vaccines.  This new law amends the Internal Revenue Code adding influenza vaccines to the list of vaccines that are subject to the excise tax on taxable vaccines. This bill was introduced in the House on February 4, 2013, passed by the House on June 18, 2013, the Senate on June 19, 2013 and signed into law by the President on June 25, 2013.  Again, legislative light speed was invoked!

3.) H.R. 258 - The Stolen Valor Act of 2013.  This new law amends the Federal Criminal Code, making it illegal to fraudulently hold oneself to be the recipient of a Congressional Medal of Honor, a Navy Cross, a Purple Heart, an Air Force Cross and other honours if that individual intends to use the claim to obtain money, property or other tangible benefit.  Those guilty would be subjected to a fine, imprisonment for not more than one year or both.  This bill was introduced in the House on January 15, 2013, referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations on January 25, 2013 passed by the House on May 20, 2013 (390 yeas and 3 nays), the Senate on May 22, 2013 (unanimously) and signed into law by the President on June 3, 2013.  While this law is obviously very important to the country's legitimate veterans, it impacts relatively few Americans. 

4.) H.R. 1092 - This law designates the air route traffic control centre located in Nashua, New Hampshire as the "Patricia Clark Boson Air Route Traffic Control Centre".  This bill was sponsored by Rep. Ann Kuster of New Hampshire (no surprise there) and was introduced to the House on March 12, 2013 and referred to the Subcommittee on Aviation on March 13, 2013.  After 40 minutes of debate on June 25, 2013, the House passed the bill and the Senate unanimously passed the bill on July 24, 2013.  The President signed the bill into law on August 9, 2013.

5.) H.R. 185 - This law designates the United States courthouse located at 101 East Pecan Street in Sherman, Texas as the "Paul Brown United States Courthouse".  This bill was sponsored by Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas (again, no surprise there) and was introduced to the House on January 4, 2013 and referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on September 27, 2013.  After 40 minutes of debate, the House passed the bill on October 22, 2013 and the Senate unanimously passed the bill on December 17, 2013.  The President signed the bill into law on December 20, 2013.

Of the 65 new laws that passed through the House and Senate in the First Session of the 113th Congress, seven or nearly 11 percent of the total new laws created involved naming something with six involving the naming of buildings or other federal infrastructure and one involved naming a section of the Internal Revenue Code with an individual's name.   

It is reassuring to see that, in light of the fact that they accomplished relatively little over the past year, at least the 113th Congress concentrated their efforts on matters that were urgent to the national well-being given that they could have been spending their time on other issues like the national debt and changes to the nation's gun laws.  It's also interesting to note that, when the issue is critical to the ongoing viability of the United States, the House and Senate can actually pass laws at legislative light speed.

The First Session of the 113th Congress - Mission Accomplished?

Updated December 29, 2013

With the First Session of the 113th Congress winding up for their Christmas and New Year's break, I thought it prudent to take a look at what has been accomplished thus far with data current to the end of November 2013.

Here is a calendar showing the days that the House sat during the First Session of the 113th Congress:

Here is a calendar showing the days that the Senate sat during the First Session of the 113th Congress (excluding part of December):

Now, let's see what got accomplished during the time that the House and the Senate was in session:

For the 160 days of work for the House and 151 days of work for the Senate in the First Session, the two august bodies managed to pass a total of 55 public bills into law; 14 for the Senate and 41 for the House.  While relatively little was accomplished, the Senate created 8538 pages of proceedings and the House created 7365 pages of proceedings.  That's a pile of words!  According to the Library of Congress, the Congressional Record, a more or less resume ofverbatim account of the proceedings of both Houses of Congress averages about 272 pages every day, making it the world's largest daily newspaper.  A total of 6366 measures were introduced; 1777 were bills introduced in the Senate and 3624 bills were introduced in the House.

Let's look back at the number of bills that the First Session of the 113th Congress has passed into law and compare them to the historical record since the 100th Session.  Please note that I am using data from the Resume of Congressional Activity as listed on the United States Senate website located here.  

Here is a graph showing the number of bills that have been passed into law by both the House and the Senate for each Session:

On average, since 1987, Congress has passed 230 bills in each Session.

Here is a graph that showing the number of bills that have been passed into law by the Senate for each Session:

On average, since 1987, the Senate has passed 75 bills in each Session.

Here is a graph showing the number of bills that have been passed into law by the House for each session:

On average, since 1987, the House has passed 155 bills in each Session.

As you can clearly see, if the First Session of the 113th Congress expects to get anywhere close to the average over the past twenty-five years by their last sitting day in December, they have their work cut out for them.  At only 55 bills passed thus far, this is looking like the poorest law-passing Congress in a generation.  Keeping in mind that John Boehner recently said that productivity on Capitol Hill should be measured by the number of laws repealed rather than the number of laws passed, it is interesting to note that not only has the 113th Congress passed almost no new laws, they have not repealed any either.  Just in case you wondered, here is a look at one of the laws that they did pass, H.R. 1071, which specifies the size of the precious metal blanks used in the production of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coins.

Don't get me wrong, more laws are most definitely not necessarily a good thing, however, it is not particularly the aim of the House and the Senate to cut down creating more laws, rather, it is the current partisan environment in Washington that is preventing them from doing so.  Perhaps this helps us to understand why American voters are increasingly becoming disillusioned with government.

The 113th Congress - mission not accomplished unless of course obfuscation and partisan politicking were the goals.