Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) was recently named the most effective lawmaker in the 112th Congress based on the results of the Legislative Effectiveness Project.
Created by Craig Volden from the University of Virginia and Alan E. Wiseman from Vanderbilt University, the project assigns legislative effectiveness scores to each member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the early 1970s by using 15 indicators that capture the representatives’ ability to advance an agenda through the legislative process and into law.
In a dataset that includes only updated legislative effectiveness scores for the most-recently completed Congress, Smith’s score of 16.3 put him ahead of John Mica (R-Fla.) with 14.4, Dave Camp (R-Mich.) with 11.2, Eric Cantor (R-Va.) with 8.6 and Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) with 7.3 in the top five most effective lawmakers out of the 449 congressional representatives ranked.
Full results are available at www.thelawmakers.org and in Volden and Wiseman’s accompanying book, “Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress: The Lawmakers.”
In an outline of their findings, the authors said scores reveal obvious trends, such as committee chairs are more effective than those without institutional positions. Being part of the majority party and seniority also boost scores.
Smith was selected to chair the Science, Space, and Technology Committee at the beginning of the 113th Congress. He also serves on the Judiciary Committee and Homeland Security Committee, and is a former Chairman of the Judiciary and Ethics Committees, and a former member of the Budget Committee.
Other notable findings from the authors: On average, women are more effective legislators than men when other relevant factors are taken into account; women in the minority party of the House reach across party lines and advance their priorities at a far greater rate than men; and members in very safe seats seem less motivated to engage in active lawmaking.