Scott Powers
Democratic U.S. Rep. Darren Soto of Celebration is tops of his freshman class when it comes to getting bills proposed and laws approved, according to a new report from an analytics company that tracks Congress.
In the term that began in Janaury, 2017, Soto sponsored and introduced 29 bills, and two of them were enacted into law. No one did better. Puerto Rico U.S. Rep. Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon, a non-voting member, introduced 31 bills, but she did not get any passed. That’s according to data analyzed and released by Quorum, a software company whose products include analytics for in-depth analysis of legislative trends in Congress.
Freshmen of the House of Representatives averaged just under 14 bills introduced during the 2017-’18 term, the 115th Congress, according to Quorum.
In its report released Tuesday, the company highlighted the 13 freshmen who succeeded in getting at least one of their introduced bills adopted into law. Soto got listed at the top of the class, well ahead of U.S. Rep. John Faso, a New York Republican, who was cited with 21 introduce bills and two approved. No one else had more than one bill adopted into law.
The list of 13 included three other Florida members of Congress in addition to Soto: Democrat Al Lawson Tallahassee, Republican Brian Mast of Palm Bay, and Democrat Stephanie Murphy of Winter Park.
The report does not attempt to measure or reflect the significance of the bills introduced or pushed into law by the freshmen lawmakers.
Soto’s two bills included one to rename the Kissimmee Post office as the “Borinqueneers Post Office Building” and the Billfish and Shark Conservation Bill, which, which deals with restrictions on marlin and billfish fishing and protections against shark finning.
