Mark Tenally / AP
As Congress wraps up its 116th session, diligent constituents may check in to see how their representatives fared at authoring legislation. In western Pennsylvania, Democrat Conor Lamb was the only Congressman to get anything signed by President Trump. But tallying up how many bills a member of Congress gets signed into law is just one of many ways to gauge efficacy.
“On paper, it looks like a piece of legislation never really went anywhere, when in fact, it got subsumed into a bigger bill,” said University of Pittsburgh political science professor Kris Kanthak. “It’s hard to tell what’s going on in Congress on a day-to-day basis, and that’s on purpose, because it makes it really difficult for you to look at your individual member of Congress and say, ‘Is this person making a difference or not?’”