Who ran the most bills in the 2013 Legislature?

Legislators vary widely in how many bills that sponsor in the Utah Legislature. Before we proceed, let’s clarify what “sponsoring” and “floor sponsoring” mean:

• Sponsoring. This means the legislator came up with the idea for the bill and had it initially introduced into his or her chamber.
• Floor sponsoring. After a sponsor gets a bill passed through his or her own chamber, he recruits a floor sponsor to carry it through the other chamber.

For purposes of this post, I’m only looking at sponsorship, not floor sponsorship. Some legislators don’t sponsor any bills; others sponsor an immense number.

Here are some quick tables for the curious. First, we’ll look at which legislators introduced the most bills. Then, we’ll look at which legislators passed the most bills. Then, we’ll look at which legislators were most effective at getting their bills passed(i.e. the percentage of introduced bills that came were passed).

Most bills introduced

The following table lists the top 10 bill sponsors for each chamber in 2013.

Visit my personal website to find bill sponsorship information for all 104 legislators, including for past years.

Most bills passed

Now let’s look at which legislators passed the most bills. By “passed,” I just mean it got through the Legislature; I don’t consider here whether the governor signed it. In the Utah House rankings, there was a seven-way tie for eighth place, including Hall, Ivory, Wilson, Noel, Brown, Bird, and Ray.

Visit my personal website to find bill passage information for all 104 legislators, including for past years.

Effectiveness at passing bills

If you compare the two preceding tables, you’ll notice some major differences. In the House, for example, Rep. Kraig Powell appears at the top of the first table but doesn’t appear at all in the second after passing only 5 of his 16 introduced bills.

Just for fun, let’s look at each legislator’s effectiveness at getting bills passed–that is, the percentage of each legislator’s bills that actually passed. It wouldn’t make much sense to calculate these percentages for legislators who introduced only 1 or 2 bills, since a rate of 100% would be a bit misleading in those cases. I’ll calculate them only for legislators who introduced at least 5 bills. That leaves us with 40 (of 75) Representatives and 24 (of 29) Senators.

The table below gives the top 10 and bottom 10 in the House. Where there are ties–and there is a nine-way tie in the top 10–I sort them by number of bills passed. Are legislators are Republicans unless noted.

Since the Senate has fewer members, I’ll give only the top 5 and bottom 5:

Make of it what you will.

Possibly related posts:

• Analysis of voting patterns in the 2018 Utah Legislature
• Who sponsored the most bills in the 2014 Utah Legislature?
• Who sponsored the most bills in 2012?

Possibly related posts (automatically generated)

• Who sponsored the most bills in the 2014 Utah Legislature? (March 19, 2014)
• Who sponsored the most bills in 2015? (March 17, 2015)
• Who sponsored the most bills in 2012? (March 12, 2012)