John Curtis named one of the most effective lawmakers in Congress during last session

WASHINGTON — Utah Sen. John Curtis was one of the most effective legislators in Congress last year, according to a new report from the Center for Effective Lawmaking.

The report — which covers the congressional session from 2023 to early 2025, when Curtis was a member of the House of Representatives — ranks members of Congress based on how many pieces of legislation they advance and how substantive those proposals are, and then compares them to an expected baseline score based on seniority and party membership. Curtis ranked as the fifth most effective Republican in the House, moving up four spots after ranking ninth two years earlier.

“This recognition is really a tribute to my incredible staff. Behind every policy win is a team of dedicated public servants who care deeply about solving problems the right way,” Curtis told KSL.com in a statement. “Utahns expect real results. And now, as a senator, I remain committed to finding consensus and building allies and alliances to continue delivering for the Beehive State.”

The Center for Effective Lawmaking is a collaboration between the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University and has data on lawmaker effectiveness dating back to the early 1970s. It rates each member of Congress with an effectiveness score, the average of which is 1.

Curtis earned a score of nearly 4.3 after passing eight so-called “significant” bills and having five of them signed into law. Three of the four lawmakers who scored higher than him chaired important committees last session, meaning Curtis significantly outperformed expectations as a rank-and-file member of the GOP conference.

One of the academics who worked on the biennial report noted that the GOP’s slim majority in the House and a couple of fights over who should be House speaker made it a difficult environment for lawmaking in general. Representatives passed only 27 bills that were signed into law in 2023, and although the number of proposals generally increases in the second year of a congressional session, it was still the lowest number since at least 1989.

“Over a two-year period when party conflicts outside of Washington, D.C., spilled over into the House and Senate, and when the House struggled to conduct its day-to-day business due to leadership challenges, numerous legislators in both parties … continued to engage with the hard work of lawmaking and successfully advance their sponsored bills through the legislative process to enact new public policies,” said Alan Wiseman, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University and co-director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking.

Craig Volden, Wiseman’s counterpart and a professor of public policy and politics at University of Virginia Batten, said the most effective lawmakers are those with “a willingness to seek out coalition partners, often across party lines.”

In a call with reporters Tuesday, Wiseman said that senators — who serve six-year terms — often perform better in years when they are facing reelection, according to a 2018 study he and Volden published in The Journal of Politics.

“One of the findings that we established in that peer-reviewed article was that it’s unambiguously the case that, controlling for other things, members of the U.S. Senate are more effective lawmakers, according to our metric during those congresses that they’re in cycle,” he said.

Curtis, who passed 27 bills during his seven years in the House, had his final House bills signed into law by former President Joe Biden in January. These bills included proposals focused on protecting the Great Salt Lake and salinity in the Colorado River.

Corey Norman, Curtis’ chief of staff, attributed the success to striving for impacts, not headlines.

“Sen. Curtis runs his office the same way he approaches legislation — with discipline, integrity and purpose,” Norman said. “Our team doesn’t chase headlines; we chase impact. This ranking reflects the kind of culture we’ve built and the kind of leadership Utah sends to Washington.”

Curtis was the only member of Utah’s congressional delegation to exceed his baseline expectations during the last Congress, though nearly all others were rated as having met expectations. Here’s how the rest of the delegation fared, according to the report:

• Sen. Mike Lee ranked 14th out of the 49 GOP senators, with a score of 1.16. He passed three “substantive” bills, but none of them were signed into law. Lee ranked eighth in the previous report, which covered the two years prior to his 2022 reelection.
• Former Sen. Mitt Romney came in at No. 29, with a score of 0.58. He passed two “substantive” bills, both of which became law.
• Rep. Celeste Maloy was No. 73 out of 228 Republicans in the House, with a score of 1.75. She passed three “substantive” bills during her year in Congress, two of which became law.
• Rep. Blake Moore scored as the 81st House Republican, with a score of 1.6, passing three “substantive” bills and having one signed into law.
• Rep. Burgess Owens earned a 1.24 score, good for No. 110 in the conference. He had one “commemorative” bill and one “substantial” bill pass. Both became law.
• Former Rep. Chris Stewart — who resigned partway through his term and was replaced by Maloy — was near the bottom of the pack with a score of 0.11. He introduced several bills, but none advanced through a House committee.