Quantifying what sort of job lawmakers do is tough.
There are aspects of the job that can be quantified, including the number of bills lawmakers get passed and how much money they bring home to their districts in the form of earmarks. But not all bills are created equal — a bill to rename a post office is not the same as one that dramatically reshapes the nation’s economy, defense or culture. And some aspects, such as how much a legislator does on behalf of their constituents, are difficult or even impossible to quantify at all.
So this report card is an imperfect one, presenting what information can be quantified, including scores assigned by the Center of Effective Lawmaking — a joint project of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University — based on the quality of legislation members of the 117th Congress introduced and how close those bills made it to becoming a law.
According to the center, House Republicans, who were in the minority in the previous session, had an average legislative effectiveness score of 0.58, while House Democrats had an average LES of 1.40. Senate Republicans, also in the minority, had an average score of 0.77 and Democrats had an average score of 1.23.
Here’s how members of the Los Angeles County delegation fared:
Rep. Nanette Barragán, D-San Pedro
Bills introduced: 25 bills, 3 of which became law
Resolutions introduced: 5
Earmarks requested: $7.5 million in the 2021 omnibus spending bill
Legislative effectiveness score: 1.038
The bills passed included H.R. 189, which authorized the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to fund research into health disparities; H.R. 1095, which renamed a Compton post office the PFC James Anderson, Jr., Post Office Building; and H.R. 1870, which requires the Department of Homeland Security to assign personnel to monitoring and sharing information on terrorism and other threats related to surface transportation hubs.
Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Thousand…
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