interstices

Dueling opinion pieces are circulating in the news media concerning the success or failure of the recent session of the Idaho Legislature, one from the minority Democrats and most recently one from the Governor and Republican legislative leaders.  Each version of reality is different, but both rely on lists of what issues were addressed (Republicans) or were not addressed (Democrats).  And neither op-eds compare this year’s session to earlier years to provide a judgement of just how productive the session was this year.

A more objective approach is to develop a productivity rate for each session for comparison.  For this coefficient the number of bills introduced and/or passed is divided by the number of days for each session.

The chart above presents data for Idaho Legislature sessions for the past fifty years with three ways to measure productivity of each session.  The blue line assigns equal value to each bill and resolution introduced and each bill and resolution enacted.  The black line gives relatively greater weight to bills that become law while the red line also does that while including a factor with a negative value for vetoes by the Governor.

By all three measures the 2009 session was the least productive over the past fifty years.  Lack of productivity becomes more pronounced when sessions get longer and the rate of bills introduced and/or enacted per session day declines.  There are other ways to judge success or failure of a session, and it’s important to note that each year is different and has its unique challenges. But for a objective assessment of how productive the legislative sessions have been over the years it’s best to look at what can be consistently measured.