The vast majority of the current Congress are incumbents. Of the 100 senators in the 119th Congress, 14 are new to the Senate. Of those, seven had previously served in the House, making essentially 93 congressional incumbents and seven newbies. Of the 435 House seats, there are four vacancies and 356 incumbents. Of the 75 newly elected representatives, four had previously served in the House, and three were once staffers. More than 83% of congressional seats are filled essentially by people who have been there before.

This is important to note because the 118th Congress was probably one of the least productive ever. I discussed its meager output here. By the end of the two-year session, of 16,565 pieces of proposed legislation, 274 became law. That’s a paltry 1.65%. Thirteen were vetoed; none of those were overridden. Vice President Harris broke seven ties in the Senate.

Of the 274 laws, all but 21 were single-issue laws and most of those were quite short. The others were mostly funding bills. Nineteen bills dealt with the military or veterans; eight addressed tribal issues. Fifty-four were funding, reauthorizations, or extensions of funding. Ninety-two dealt with some other policy issues. Three were appointments. More than one-third were commemorative bills. They named various post offices and other federal buildings, issued medals and commemorative coins, and designated the bald eagle as America’s national bird.