Congress has many roles in the U.S. political system, including aiding constituents, approving presidential nominees and overseeing the executive branch. Its main job, however, is passing laws – something congresspeople have done a lot less of in recent years.

The 119th Congress has enacted 121 laws since it convened in January 2025. That’s the second fewest of any Congress in the past four decades, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Only the 118th Congress had enacted fewer laws (106) by this point in its two-year term.

This analysis looks at how many laws the current Congress has passed compared with prior Congresses.

Pew Research Center does research to inform the public, journalists and decision-makers. This analysis is the latest in a series that helps put current political conditions into broader context.

We examined each law enacted by the past 20 Congresses using Congress.gov, an online repository of legislative information maintained by Library of Congress.

In this analysis, “laws” refers to “public laws” – that is, laws of general applicability as opposed to “private laws” that benefit specific people. The vast majority of the laws Congress passes are public laws. We didn’t examine the relative handful of private laws. Nor did we analyze bills that passed Congress but were vetoed by the president and so never became law.

” Ceremonial laws are intended primarily to honor or recognize an individual, group or cause, such as by renaming federal buildings and other public facilities; authorizing commemorative coins or Congressional Gold Medals; permitting outside groups to erect memorials on federal land; and appointing citizen regents to the Smithsonian Institution’s board – typically a noncontroversial practice until recently.

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