Colorado's Joe Neguse leads US House with most bills signed into law last Congress

Joe Neguse is on a roll.

Fresh off his election to the House Democrats' No. 5 elected leadership position — making the Lafayette Democrat the chamber's highest-ranking Colorado lawmaker in more than 80 years — Neguse learned this week that he had more bills signed into law than any other House member in the last Congress, as calculated by GovTrack.US, an independent legislative tracking website.

In the just-concluded 117th Congress, which ran from 2021-2022, the 38-year old attorney and former University of Colorado regent introduced 13 bills that made it to President Joe Biden's desk for a signature — in only his second term.

That compares to the 11 enacted bills in the last Congress for the list's No. 2 House member, U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, with Neguse's fellow Coloradan U.S. Rep. Jason Crow in a three-way tie for third place with nine bills authored by the Centennial Democrat that were signed into law.

The vast majority of the House's 435 members notched just one or two enacted laws, while nearly one-third of the chamber's occupants didn't manage to get any legislation across the finish line in the last two years.

Not every legislative success shows up on the tracking site's results, which count when lawmakers are primary sponsors of enacted legislation or of legislation largely incorporated in other bills that become law. Some lawmakers, for instance, make their marks by adding amendments to larger bills, which isn't reflected.

The other members of Colorado's House delegation fall far behind Neguse and Crow in the just-released GovTrack.US standings. Ken Buck, a Windsor Republican, and Ed Perlmutter, an Arvada Democrat who didn't seek reelection, each scored a single bill signed into law. The other Coloradans — Democrat Diana DeGette of Denver and Republicans Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs and Lauren Boebert of Silt — finished the 117th Congress with zero bills enacted.

Neguse, who won reelection in November to a third term representing Colorado's 2nd Congressional District by an overwhelming 40-point margin, is no stranger to the upper regions of Capital Hill's ubiquitous legislative rankings.

In his freshman term in the previous 116th Congress, from 2019-2020, Neguse was far and away the most effective lawmaker in the state's delegation, according to the nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking, with nine bills signed into law. He was also ranked as the most bipartisan member of the delegation for the same period by the nonpartisan Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Last year, he was one of six recipients of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Legislative Action awards, bestowed for working across party lines in a divided Washington.

The son of Eritrean immigrants, Neguse served as executive director of Colorado's Department of Regulatory Agencies before winning election in 2018 to represent the Boulder- and Larimer-county based seat. After last year's redistricting, the 2nd CD traded much of the less densely populated parts of Jefferson County for more mountain counties, extending along the Interstate 70 ski corridor and encompassing much of northwestern Colorado, including all or parts of Clear Creek, Gilpin, Grand, Summit, Eagle, Routt, and Jackson counties.

Among the 13 bills Neguse shepherded into law in the 117th Congress, bipartisan legislation — sponsored with Buck and Colorado's two U.S. senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper — established Camp Amache, the site of a World War II-era Japanese American internment center in southeast Colorado, as part of the National Park System.

Other enacted Neguse bills addressed cybersecurity for state and local governments and added protections from cyber attacks for domestic supply chains. Bills aimed at helping small businesses adjusted bankruptcy law and reformed federal contracting procedures, while another bill beefed up government ethics and oversight provisions.

A bill sponsored along with Hickenlooper and Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney added protections for threatened and endangered fish species in the Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins.

Another Neguse-led bill renamed a Boulder post office to honor Boulder police officer Eric Talley, who was killed while protecting shoppers during a 2021 mass shooting at the town's Table Mesa King Soopers.

"I'm very proud of the work that we've done, but more proud than the volume of bills, I'm proud of what those bills mean and the impact that they'll have on the lives of Coloradans," Neguse told Colorado Politics. "The vast majority of these pieces of legislation were bipartisan in nature. They're bills that were focused on helping small businesses, ensuring that we expand opportunities for entrepreneurs in Fort Collins and in Longmont and elsewhere, or built and improved wildfire mitigation and resiliency, which has been a real priority of mine since the day I was sworn into the Congress."

Neguse attributes his legislative success to the relationships he cultivates with fellow lawmakers — including across the aisle and in the Senate — and an ongoing dialogue with constituents, as well as a willingness to build sometimes unlikely alliances.

"To me, that means rolling up our sleeves, listening — including to folks who might have a different world view than your own — and working to try to forge consensus on some of the consequential challenge that we face, as a country and as a state," he said.

"To be honest, what kind of gives me the most pride of the bills that we pursued in this last Congress that ultimately were signed by the President is many of the ideas behind the bills originated here in Colorado," Neguse added. "They came from conversations that I had at town halls, which we hold quite frequently in my district — about supply chain challenges, for example, that we're facing, or wildfire resiliency issues that have been a real challenge. I'm thrilled that we were able to be a vehicle to enact some of these changes at the federal level, but our work has only begun."

Neguse acknowledged that his batting average under the current Republican House majority might not equal what he achieved in the last Congress, when Democrats held the gavel, but insisted that he's undaunted.

"We've had success in both sessions of Congress, with a Republican president, from 2019 to 2021, and a Democratic president from 2021 to 2023, and I anticipate that this next Congress will be no different," he said. "Of course, there are big disagreements when it comes to significant challenges that face our country, but that doesn't mean that we can't find ways to forge common ground — far from it, I think, you have that obligation to our constituents."

Neguse noted that some of the bills he's sponsored sprung from relationships begun when he served as a House impeachment manager for former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial in early 2021.

"We also worked really hard to build partnerships with senators across the aisle," Neguse said. "Some of those senators happen to be senators that I met during the course of the impeachment trial in front of the Senate. It gave me the opportunity to meet senators whom I had not interacted with previously. And we look for opportunities where other folks might not, in terms of Republican or Democratic senators who would be willing to partner with us on a policy issue that we think is going to matter to Colorado. So we've had some success in that regard and are proud of that. But, you know, we're gonna roll up our sleeves and try to get to No. 1 this next year."