With no shortage of bad news to keep us down, it’s refreshing to have something unassailably positive to mention like Friday’s brief story from Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog acknowledging the continuing success of Colorado’s highest-ranking U.S. House Democrat, Assistant Minority Leader Joe Neguse of Boulder–who continued to deliver results in the form of signed legislation even in a House controlled by the other party for the last two years:
According to GovTrack.US, an independent legislative tracking service, Neguse sponsored eight bills that made it to Joe Biden’s desk and got the president’s signature in the 118th Congress, in session from 2023-2024, finishing just behind Nebraska Republican Don Bacon, who wrote nine bills that became law.
Two years ago, Neguse topped the ranking for most bills enacted in the previous, 117th Congress, which ran from 2021-2022, with 13 laws to his name. In that roundup, he was followed by Bacon, who was credited with 11.
In the report covering the most recently concluded Congress, GovTrack also listed Neguse in the top spot among House members in two categories — working with the other chamber and writing bipartisan bills. The former measures how many bills a legislator introduced in tandem with a companion bill in the other chamber, and the latter counts the number of bills introduced with a cosponsor from across the aisle.
Rep. Neguse’s swift rise to Democratic House leadership and success at getting legislation signed into law in adverse political climates has led to a wide-open range of higher offices to consider, including a short-list possible run for governor in 2026–the only complicating factor being whether Neguse in his leadership role in the House is a better utilization of his considerable skills.
Neguse’s enduring effectiveness as a lawmaker is…refreshing in comparison to how certain other members of Colorado’s congressional delegation make the news. Neguse is a success story that transcends the daily polls, and offers light at the end of the tunnel for Democrats looking for a way forward.
That felt good to read, didn’t it?
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Actually, I'd prefer Bennett for governor. If Dems take back the house, it would be great having Neguse in leadership.
Whoever takes the helm for the Democrats needs to be prepared to engage in winning a race war. I grew up in the racist South. There was plenty of denial when anyone was accused of racism after the 1960s. It was not cool outside of a few , fairly quiet, pockets of hate that remained in the deep south, to be seen as a racist.
My…how times have changed. The big, fat, white man in the oval office is bringing it. If you are black, brown, female, or if your sympathies lie with anyone the MAGAts consider "woke", you are their enemy and they will treat you as such. Ronald Reagan was an early MAGAt. When government became "the problem", everything the government had done for the previous 50 years was the target.
"Fuck the New Deal", said the Free Market warriors. They had met ultimate failure in the "South American Core", but learned in Poland they couldn't do their social engineering bullshit in a democracy. So now, with the help of hate groups like the Heritage Foundation, the NRA, the entire evangelical Christian Church, and myriad local and regional white supremacists, they have nstalled a fascist government, which by definition is a racist form of government. "Woke" is simply a handy way to lump any who threaten their ideology into the undesirable others…the different colored ones.
What the article doesn't mention is that both Neguse and Bacon are centrists.
I was curious, so I looked up how many total bills were signed for the entire 118th Congress. Turns out this Congress was darned close to worthless when it came to passing legislation, per this story from Axios. If you're out there guessing that some of the bills passed in 2023-24 were "monumental," like officially naming structures or extending deadline dates for existing laws, you'd be on to something.
Interesting. But it's important to note that Trump and his stooges not only don't need laws, they do not need or want laws to be enforced. Their word is the new law. They've taken power away from a Congress entirely willing to give it away, and they're in the process of taking power away from the judicial system.
I fully agree with what you said on principle, realist. But Congress is still running bills, and I sort of expect the 119th Congress to pass more than the 118th because of the GOP trifecta. Some of the GOP bills so far are as you might expect – no federal moratoriums on fracking, no transgender in women's sports, forest "thinning," liberalizing deportations, etc.