Congress has gotten bad at being Congress

This was supposed to be a banner year for Republicans. For the second time in a decade, the GOP holds total sway over Washington, controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House. But as 2025 ends, the majority party has little to show for its meager efforts at legislating. In fact, the data shows that Congress is getting worse and worse at its main job: passing laws.

President Donald Trump spent this year barreling forward in myriad directions, enthusiastically stretching executive power to previously untested boundaries as he implements his agenda. Little of the president’s energy was spent working with Congress, however, to try to turn his policies into law. Even at times when more leadership could have helped guide an internally divided party, Trump left the heavy lifting to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

In fact, the data shows that Congress is getting worse and worse at its main job: passing laws.

Despite Republican majorities in the House and Senate, only 61 bills passed both chambers this year, according to Congress.gov. Of those, 22 were disapproval resolutions overturning Biden administration rules and regulations. Two others were bills renaming federal buildings: a post office in Oklahoma and a New Jersey outpatient clinic run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

In fact, as The Washington Post’s Paul Kane recently noted, the House “set a 21st-century record for fewest votes cast (362) in the first session of a two-year Congress.” Johnson frequently recessed the House early when faced with revolts from his caucus and opted to keep the chamber closed even before the 43-day long federal shutdown began. Meanwhile, the Senate has been spending most of its time in session this year on confirming Trump’s nominees rather than producing legislation.

Compare those statistics to the first year of the first Trump administration. In 2017, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., were the other two points in the Republican leadership trifecta. Those two GOP lawmakers got 97 bills to Trump’s desk that year. Fifteen of those bills were resolutions disapproving of Biden administration rules and three named federal buildings. By the end of the 115th Congress about a year later, 344 pieces of legislation had been enacted. It’s hard to imagine things picking up that swiftly over the next 12 months.

The decline in output becomes even more pronounced when contrasted to the last time Republicans held both houses of Congress and the White House in the pre-Trump era – which would be in 2003 under President George W. Bush. In the first year of the 108^th Congress, Republican lawmakers sent 198 bills to Bush’s desk to become law. Granted, 45 of those bills named federal buildings — but the remaining 153 still vastly outnumber the output from the more recent Congresses.

Part of the problem is a structural breakdown of the legislative process and lawmaking calendar, as Patrick McHenry, a former Republican House member from North Carolina, recently summed up to NPR:

‘The work stacks up in summer and then we leave the month before the budget is supposed to be done,’ he said. ‘The rules of the Senate dictate you have to have 60 votes to do anything on policy, so everything for the majority party when they have the White House comes resting on the third piece, which is the budget process, to get everything you could possibly get done in the budget reconciliation process.’

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McHenry said most of the agenda ‘hinges upon one big piece of legislation,’ which means if a measure isn’t included in that bill, it’s hard to get it through at all.

This year’s reconciliation bill, dubbed by Trump the “One Big Beautiful Act,” contained most of the GOP’s legislative priorities. The debate over whether it should be one bill or two had lasted the whole first half of the year before Republicans finally were able to lock in. It passed in July after Johnson and Thune spent the first half of the year pouring in time and effort. The measure also became law at the expense of almost anything else that wasn’t squeezed in.

For lawmakers deciding whether to stay or go, this largely wasted year could actually be a high point of productivity.

Getting only one real shot at lawmaking per year is also a reflection of how much power has consolidated at the top in both chambers, especially in the House. While laws once made their way up through congressional committees, most legislation now comes fully formed via diktat from the leadership. (This could be true of Democrats as well, though Democrats have a better track record of passing major laws when controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House.)

One tactic that’s been used in the House an unusual amount this year, the discharge petition, is an option for rank-and-file members to get around the speaker’s tight grasp on the legislative agenda. But procedural workarounds, while useful at times, aren’t a sustainable antidote to the lack of agency many legislators are feeling. Without work to do in Washington, many lawmakers have felt little incentive to stay in office. Already, a record number have announced plans to exit ahead of next year’s midterms.

Even with a new class of legislators, the self-reinforcing cycle of declining output is unlikely to change. Gridlock on the Hill tends to get worse under divided government. So if the GOP were to lose the House next November, the odds of bills reaching Trump’s desk dwindle even further. Which points up another sad truth: For lawmakers deciding whether to stay or go, this largely wasted year could actually be a high point of productivity.