Thanks to a last-minute scramble to pass some bills, the 113th Congress
managed to dodge the title of "least productive." That title will stay with the 112th Congress:
GovTrack's Josh Tauberer says that the House and Senate ran up the tally in the final days of the year: "In the first 23 months of the 113th Congress (2013-2014), Congress had sent just 201 bills to the President. Then in the first 16 days of December Congress passed another 96 bills."
That puts the 113th at 297, ahead of the 284 bills passed by the 112th. Some of the last-minute bills were even for things other than naming buildings and giving symbolic honors to dead people. Those include the Death in Custody Reporting Act, requiring police agencies that get federal money to report the deaths of people in police custody, including race and gender information, and the Achieving A Better Life Experience Act, allowing people with disabilities to have tax-advantaged savings accounts. But there was also a lot of resume-padding along the lines of issuing coins to commemorate a child care agency and a Congressional Gold Medal for golfing legend Jack Nicklaus. You know, the important work of governing.
Now, of course, we head into two years when almost anything Congress passes will be terrible, so here's hoping the 114th Congress gets that "least productive" trophy.