The GOP entered 2025 with unified control of the White House and both chambers but produced just 61 bills that cleared both houses—22 of them were disapproval resolutions and two renamed federal facilities. Structural constraints—the Senate’s 60-vote rule, a calendar that funnels priorities into a single reconciliation package, and centralized leadership control—limited broader lawmaking. The resulting lack of daily legislative work has coincided with an unusual wave of retirements and raises the odds that gridlock will persist.
Why Congress Is Passing Fewer Laws — And Why It Matters
Congress has gotten bad at being Congress
This year was expected to be a showcase for unified Republican governance: for the second time in a generation the GOP controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. Instead, legislative output fell sharply, and the data point to a worrying decline in Congress’s core function—passing laws.
According to Congress.gov, just 61 bills cleared both the House and Senate in 2025. Of those, 22 were disapproval resolutionstwo were bills renaming federal facilities
How Leadership, Calendar and Rules Squeezed Output
President Donald Trump spent much of the year advancing his agenda through executive action and left much of the day-to-day legislative work to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune. The Senate spent large blocks of time confirming nominees, while the House frequently recessed early or remained closed during critical stretches of the year.
“The work stacks up in summer and then we leave the month before the budget is supposed to be done,” former Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry told NPR. He added that because most Senate policy needs 60 votes, the majority often relies on the budget and reconciliation process to pass priorities.
That dynamic concentrates power at the top. Much legislation now comes to rank-and-file members already fully formed by leadership, rather than emerging through committee deliberations. Procedural tools like the discharge petition have been used more frequently as a bypass, but they are a limited remedy to the broader erosion of rank-and-file influence.
The Reconciliation Bottleneck
In practice, both parties increasingly hinge major policy on a single annual budget vehicle. This year’s reconciliation measure — President Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Act” — became the central legislative vehicle. It passed in July after months of negotiation and consumed much of the session’s legislative bandwidth, crowding out other measures.
Historical Context
The shortfall in 2025 is stark compared with earlier unified Republican years. In 2017, with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell leading Congress, lawmakers sent 97 bills to President Trump's desk that year; by the end of the 115th Congress, 344 laws had been enacted. In 2003, during the first year of the 108th Congress under President George W. Bush, Republicans sent 198 bills to the president (45 of which renamed federal buildings).
Political Consequences
The limited day-to-day legislative work has consequences for member incentives. With fewer meaningful opportunities to shape law, a record number of lawmakers have announced they will leave before next year’s midterms. That turnover, however, is unlikely by itself to reverse the structural pressures that concentrate power and reduce output.
If the GOP loses the House next year, the prospects for passing bills to the president’s desk would likely shrink further—highlighting a self-reinforcing cycle of declining legislative productivity under both unified and divided government.
Bottom line: The combination of Senate rules, a calendar that funnels priorities into one major bill, and concentrated leadership control has produced a notably thin legislative year despite unified party control. Unless procedural incentives or leadership styles change, the pattern of low output looks set to continue.
