Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse is getting top marks for his legislative work in the 118th Congress, which went from January 2023 to December 2024.
Neguse was the top Democrat in advancing legislation in two policy areas: environment and public lands, according to the Center for Effective Lawmaking from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.
“There's a deep appreciation among my constituency, and I think Coloradans writ large, for protecting our public lands. And it has been a priority of mine since I first was elected to Congress,” Neguse said. “We work tenaciously to try to find places where we can ultimately make progress, get bills enacted into law, notwithstanding the political winds in Washington.
The center examined bills in 21 different policy areas from agriculture and government operations to macroeconomics and technology. It based scores on metrics, such as how far bills got in the legislative process and how substantive or ceremonial the bills were.
Alan Wiseman, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Economy at Vanderbilt University and co-director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking, said they started looking at effectiveness through an interest lens to try and see “how specialized members are. How diffuse their policy agendas might be, and then how that relates to their lawmaking effectiveness.”
“The issue scores, on their face, are a very, very clear indicator of how active and how successful a given member of the House and Senate is in advancing bills within a certain policy area,” Wiseman said, adding it allows constituents to infer if a member is advancing issues important to them.
Neguse was the only Coloradan to make it to the top of the issues list.
He also topped the overall effectiveness list coming in second out of all of the Democrats in the 2023-24 legislative sessions, with six pieces of legislation making it into law either as a standalone bill or incorporated into larger packages.
GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert ranked second out of the Colorado delegation. She said she was honored to be ranked as one of Colorado’s most effective lawmakers, noting that in the last Congress she got, “eight bills through the House, and — despite a Democrat Senate and President — got three signed into law, each one putting Colorado first.”
She said she’s hopeful that she will have even more legislative success in this Congress.
Rounding out the list for the Colorado delegation were Rep. Jason Crow, former Rep. Yadira Caraveo, former Rep. Doug Lamborn, Rep. Brittany Pettersen, Rep. Diana DeGette, former Rep. Ken Buck, who retired early, and former Rep. Greg Lopez, who served only six months.
Colorado’s senators were in the middle of the pack in their chamber. Sen. John Hickenlooper was 15 out of 51 Democratic senators, while Sen. Michael Bennet was 32 out of 51.
Co-director Wiseman, however, stressed that their list focuses on one aspect of a congress member’s job: the writing and passing of laws. Other lawmakers may focus on different aspects of the job, such as the oversight role or committee work or constituent work.
“Success or the virtues of success are very much in the eye of the beholder,” Wiseman said. “It's up to constituents to decide how happy or unhappy they might be with their legislators' activities, but at the very least this provides them with an objective indicator of who is most or least active in certain issue areas.”
