Avid readers of this blog will surely remember our analysis of the 118th Congress - A Study in Legislative Theater. It was a Congress mired in controversy and gridlock, that managed to pass a measly 3.3% of bills that were introduced. Well, the 119th Congress kicked off in January with a shiny new(ish) president, and a shiny new trifecta alongside a sympathetic Supreme Court majority. Surely this was the year that Congress would be reborn! Rise to the lofty heights the American people deserve! let's take a look.
2025 In Numbers
In 2025, lawmakers introduced 11,815 bills—enough to beat a small dinosaur to death with if printed. (Not that the dinosaurs in Congress would condone such self destructive behavior). But output is not the same as outcomes, so the obvious question is: how many of these actually made it from proposal to law?
Based on our analysis, Congress finished the year with 274 successful bills*, a success rate of roughly 2.3 percent. Well done people, you managed to be even worse than last time. In any other workplace, a two-percent productivity rate would trigger a performance-improvement plan; in Congress, it’s an annual tradition.
The Bills
This stakeholder page lists the bills. Click the bill number to read the bill.
A large share of these enacted items fall into the ceremonial category—commendations, recognitions, or symbolic designations. Examples abound. SRes19, SRes6, and SRes130 recognize various people for public service; these are meaningful to their recipients, of course, but they do not change how any American files taxes, drives to work, or interacts with federal agencies. SRes475 designates November 1, 2025, as "National Bison Day". Everyone loves a good bison, and it's nice to see our hairy friends getting their own day, but again not really going to address the affordability crisis. Out of 271 successful measures, 164 match this ceremonial pattern.
That leaves 107 bills that have some substantive effect. These include program adjustments, federal reforms, appropriations provisions, and statutory extensions. Among them are a handful that generated national discussion. the Epstein Files Transparency Act (HR4405) responds to longstanding public demands for disclosure - at the time of writing we still haven't seen any files, so it remains to be seen how important this bill will prove to be. HR1, branded this year as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), certainly attracted vast attention and pronouncements of doom - as its provisions start to kick in over coming months and years we'll all see whether it's as impactful as some claim. Other substantive enactments include the Laken Riley Act (S5), an early success of the new Congress, which mandated the detention of non-citizens accused of crimes such as theft. Then there are helpful bills such as the Veteran Fraud Reimbursement Act of 2025 (HR1912) or the Fairness for Servicemembers and their Families Act of 2025 (HR970), both seeking to improve the lives of servicemembers and veterans. Many others fall into quieter categories: statutory re-authorizations, minor technical amendments, and 20 congressional disapproval joint resolutions—important to specialists but rarely household names.
For perspective, this means less than one percent of all introduced bills had any material impact on public policy. If Congress were a manufacturing plant, this would be the kind of yield that suggests either a very picky quality-control department or a machine that jams constantly.
What Were BillTrack50 Users Reading?
Public interest, meanwhile, tends to cluster around an entirely different set of bills. The fifty most-read congressional proposals on BillTrack50 paint a vivid picture of 2025’s political anxieties. These range from high-salience immigration measures like the Laken Riley Act and the Jeremy and Angel Seay and Sergeant Brandon Mendoza Protect Our Communities from DUIs Act of 2025 (which would allow the deportation of non-citizens convicted of DWIs) to cultural-flashpoint legislation such as HR722 (the Life at Conception Act) or HR498 (the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 - stopping trans women from participating in women's sports). Fiscal and regulatory proposals also rank prominently, including HR561 and HR405 which reorganize overtime pay taxation.
Notably, 41 of the top 50 most-read bills were Republican-sponsored, 8 bipartisan, and just one Democratic (the Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act). This imbalance owes more to attention dynamics than to legislative outcomes - the Republicans, being very much in the driving seat, were of course going to attract more attention to their legislative efforts. Bills tend to spike in traffic when amplified by national news coverage, political influencers, or advocacy campaigns urging supporters to “track this bill now.”
But what were the most popular heroes or villains of the 119th Congress so far, as chosen by BillTrack50 users' eyeballs? The clear winner was HR22 - the SAVE Act Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act - which would require documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Read this blog post for more details. Followed by the frankly bonkers NOSHA Act Nullify Occupational Safety and Health Administration Act (blog post here) which would abolish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Coming in at number 3 is the Jeremy and Angel Seay and Sergeant Brandon Mendoza Protect Our Communities from DUIs Act of 2025.
Despite their visibility, most of the top-tracking bills stalled out with dozens never advanced beyond committee. None of our top 10 have been enacted to date. A few of the top 50 crossed over to the opposite chamber but only 9 have been enacted. The bills the public watches most closely are often precisely the ones least positioned for bipartisan agreement which would be enough to beat the filibuster. The ones that did pass were very high stakes bills such as the OBBB, Laken Riley, the Rescissions Act (read the blog post here) or those rare bipartisan attempts such as the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act.
The Bison Are the Main Winners here...
Standing back, the picture of 2025 is one of predictable, familiar contrasts: a Congress that introduces tens of thousands of ideas, ceremonially honors hundreds of worthy groups, and manages to pass just a slim handful of tangible policies. Meanwhile, the American public tracks—and debates—bills that almost never pass, creating a legislative ecosystem where attention and outcomes rarely intersect. If anyone was hoping that change was finally coming to Congress following the 2024 elections, they will have to keep waiting.
Whether that reflects structural gridlock, political strategy, or a congressional culture that prizes messaging over movement is open to interpretation. But the numbers speak plainly: Congress continues to be prolific in proposals and selective in achievements, leaving most bills—and most public hopes for them—somewhere in procedural limbo.
Still, Americans keep reading, tracking, and seeking to understand what happens on Capitol Hill. If nothing else, 2025 proved that public engagement remains high even when legislative progress does not. And the bison got their day, which we can certainly all applaud.
* A 'successful' bill is defined as a bill that was either signed and enacted or passed at the time of writing (December 12), making the assumption that the president will sign any bills that are presented to him. He has yet to veto any bills this session.
About BillTrack50 – BillTrack50 offers free tools for citizens to easily research legislators and bills across all 50 states and Congress. BillTrack50 also offers professional tools to help organizations with ongoing legislative and regulatory tracking, as well as easy ways to share information both internally and with the public.