In this Feb. 11, 2011 file photo, Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.), left, accompanied by Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.), speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Andrews announced Tuesday that he is resigning from Congress after 23 years. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) 
 
 In his 23 years in Congress, Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D-N.J.) has written 646 different pieces of legislation. That is a vast array of bills, covering a vast number of subjects: children’s pajamas, relations with Taiwan, commemorative coins and trade duties on licorice. 
 
 But all of Andrews’s bills had one thing in common. 
 
 They didn’t become law. 
 
 Only four of Andrews’s hundreds of bills have ever passed the House of Representatives. But none of them passed the Senate, so none made it to the president’s desk. 
 
 Even in Congress, where the vast majority of bills fail, that is an unusually awful batting average. By those numbers, Andrews would be America’s least successful lawmaker of the past two decades. 
 
 Andrews, 56, said Tuesday he would resign in two weeks, taking a position at the law firm Dilworth Paxson. In an interview Tuesday, he insisted that these statistics don’t capture his true record in Congress. 
 
 The reason, he said, is that the classic idea of how lawmaking works — an idea becomes a bill, the bill gets a debate, and the debate ends with a vote — does not mean much on today’s Capitol Hill. 
 
 “ ‘I’m Just a Bill on Capitol Hill’ is not the way this works. Freestanding bills almost never happen,” Andrews said, referencing the “Schoolhouse Rock” cartoon about how a bill sings and dances its way through Congress. 
 
 Instead, lawmaking is now done with massive pieces of legislation crammed full of ideas that might have little to do with one another. What looks like failure, Andrews said, is actually his success at working the new system. 
 
 “You should ask yourself how many of the ideas that were a seed planted in the bill that germinated in a larger bill. That’s the way this really works,” he said. In all, he estimated, about 110 of his ideas have become law after being stuck into somebody else’s bill. 
 
 Andrews has spent the past two decades as a semi-liberal backbencher with no real leadership roles in the House. Andrews’s legislative clout was reduced sharply when Republicans took the House in 2011, and also by lingering allegations that he used campaign funds to pay for personal and family trips. 
 
 But a look at Andrews’s bills shows that his lawmaking ambitions have been enormous, even when his power was not. 
 
 Since Andrews arrived in Congress, no other representative has introduced more bills. In second place is Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), followed by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and former congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.). 
 
 But all of those other lawmakers have managed to pass something into law sometime in their career. Maloney has had nine bills signed into law. Young has had 76. Rangel has had 38. And even Paul had one, a minor bill to convey a piece of federal property in Galveston, Tex. 
 
 Andrews has not. The closest he has come has been to watch a senator introduce a bill similar to one of his and then see that Senate bill become law. That’s happened twice, according to Joshua Tauberer, whose site govtrack.us allows users to track and compare vast amounts of data on Congress. 
 
 Although it was the companion bills to Andrews’s that were enacted, Tauberer said, he should get some credit for their success. 
 
 “Only one of the two companion bills will actually become law, but the work to get either enacted may have been shared by the two sponsors equally,” Tauberer said. “It’s helpful to keep companion bills in mind when quantifying legislative activity.” 
 
 In one case, in 1992, both Andrews and Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced bills to name a federal courthouse in Camden, N.J. Lautenberg’s version was the one the president signed. 
 
 Also, in 1999, both Andrews and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) introduced bills that changed the rules governing benefit plans run by churches. It was Sessions’s bill that, after significant amendments, became law. 
 
 The many other bills submitted by Andrews have, over the years, included 11 related to Taiwan, often seeking to show U.S. support for that country in its disputes with China. He has sponsored five bills to mint a commemorative coin in honor of Korean immigrants. And he has introduced at least 30 bills that would lower duties on chemicals used in manufacturing — everything from licorice extract to methoxycarbonyl-terminated perfluorinated polyoxymethylene-polyoxyethylene. 
 
 And he struck out every time. 
 
 At least on paper. 
 
 “People think . . . well, you introduce a bill, and then you walk around and try to get people to co-sponsor it” and then it passes, Andrews said. “You know, that happens about as often as a black swan.” 
 
 Instead, Andrews says, he introduces bills so that he has legislative language ready for an opening. That opening, usually, is what Hill staffers call a “moving vehicle” — a giant piece of legislation that, unlike most of Congress’s inert bills, actually has a chance of passage. 
 
 “What happens in 90 percent of the [cases] is that certain bills move because they have to,” Andrews said — often because some important deadline is about to expire. “And those bills carry with them hundreds of ideas, or thousands of ideas that people have worked on over the years.” 
 
 Andrews said he has learned how to get his ideas on board by stockpiling legislative language that can be easily picked up and inserted into larger legislation. 
 
 As evidence of his success, he cited changes to the military health-care program Tricare and rules about insurance coverage of orthotic devices. Some other ideas have changed government policy without being passed in any form: In 2012, Andrews trumpeted a decision by mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to require prompt decisions on short sales. Andrews’s actual bill to require that change had died on Capitol Hill. ||||| House Republicans on Thursday proposed the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax code in three decades, a plan that would sharply cut tax rates for corporations and individuals while eliminating many popular deductions that Americans have long enjoyed. 
 
 At its core, the legislation would deliver the kind of tax relief to companies — $1 trillion over 10 years — that Republicans say will spark economic growth and encourage businesses to create more jobs and invest heavily in the United States. 
 
 Far less clear is the bill's impact on middle- and working-class households. The trade-off between reducing tax rates but curtailing deductions — such as the amount that homeowners can write off for their mortgage interest payments — means the impact will vary widely from one family to another. 
 
 Many Americans who need to take out big loans to buy homes in expensive areas such as New York, Boston and San Francisco could see their taxes go up. The Washington region would be a prime example of the trade-offs. High salaries here at lower tax rates would deliver savings off Internal Revenue Service bills. But high home prices mean home buyers take out big loans. The D.C. region is home to six of the 10 counties where residents take the highest average mortgage deduction. 
 
 The GOP bill would also scale back the amount Americans can deduct from their federal bill because of taxes paid to state and local governments. That could punish those who live in states with high income taxes — states that generally are governed by Democrats. 
 
 The uneven effects of the legislation — and the possibility that some middle-class Americans could see their tax bills increase — promise to complicate the Republican effort to unify behind the bill. Several powerful lobbying organizations, some long aligned with the GOP, vowed Thursday to fight the proposal. 
 
 But for Republicans, the tax push represents possibly their last opportunity to pass a major piece of legislation before campaign season begins for next November's elections, when their majorities in the House and Senate will be challenged. 
 
 President Trump has put changing the tax code at the top of his domestic agenda, and the party holds enough seats in the House and Senate to pass the bill into law without support from a single Democratic lawmaker. But to succeed, GOP lawmakers will have to avoid the internal divisions that have undermined other major legislative efforts, including multiple failed attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 
 
 Trump praised House lawmakers for introducing the bill and predicted that some iteration of the tax cut plan will be signed into law by year's end. 
 
 "We are giving them a big, beautiful Christmas present in the form of a tremendous tax cut," he said in brief remarks from the White House. 
 
 The bill, unveiled by GOP leaders Thursday morning at an elaborate news conference in the Capitol, would slash the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, the most significant in a series of benefits the bill contains for businesses. In addition to the $1 trillion in total tax cuts over 10 years for businesses, the proposal would mean $300 billion in tax cuts for households and families, as well as $200 billion in tax cuts — almost all of which will benefit the wealthiest families — by repealing the estate tax, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. 
 
 The legislation is the result of months of negotiation among Trump administration officials and many Republican lawmakers, discussions that continued right up to the hours before the bill's release. 
 
 On Wednesday evening, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) suggested the party might wobble on Trump's promise to permanently cut the business tax rate, instead having the rate expire after eight years as part of an effort to facilitate the bill's passage in the Senate. But in a late change, Republicans extended the cut in the business tax rate, in part by scaling back the scope of a new "Family Flexibility Credit" for parents and non-child dependents that the bill would create, said several people involved in the discussions who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. 
 
 In the version of the bill introduced Thursday, the credit would be worth $300 annually and would be eliminated in five years. 
 
 For individuals and families, income-tax rates would go down. Currently, families pay a tax rate of 39.6 percent on income above $470,700. The House Republican bill would apply that tax rate only to income above $1 million for families. Rates further down the income spectrum would be cut as well. 
 
 "It's an awesome tax cut," said Rep. Bill Flores (R-Tex.). "I mean, it rebuilds working-class America — great for jobs, great for the economy. It's going to be huge." 
 
 The bill would seek to balance revenue lost to the rate cuts, however, by scrapping numerous tax breaks, some of which are used by tens of millions of Americans and have large-scale support. 
 
 The change to the mortgage interest deduction drew immediate attention Thursday. Under current tax law, Americans can deduct interest payments made on their first $1 million worth of home loans. The bill would allow existing mortgages to keep the current rules, but for new mortgages, home buyers would be able to deduct interest payments made only on their first $500,000 worth of loans. 
 
 The proposal to scale back the ability of Americans to deduct state and local tax payments from their federal bill was particularly contentious during negotiations. 
 
 Republicans initially proposed eliminating that deduction entirely, but after a revolt by GOP lawmakers from New York, New Jersey and other high-tax states, the bill introduced Thursday contained a compromise. The bill would allow people to deduct their local property taxes from their taxable income, but only up to the first $10,000. 
 
 And Americans would no longer be able to deduct their medical expenses or property and casualty losses, according to a document outlining the plan. Tax credits for electric cars would be eliminated. Americans would no longer be able to deduct moving expenses or alimony payments. Large college endowments would pay taxes on their income in a way that treats them more like private foundations. 
 
 Some deductions would be expanded. The bill would nearly double the standard deduction that many Americans claim on their taxes, raising it from $12,700 to $24,000 per family. But this benefit would be partially offset by the elimination of the personal exemption that many Americans can claim, which can be large for families with multiple children. 
 
 The bill would also increase the child tax credit from $1,000 per child to $1,600. That credit would phase out once a family earns more than $230,000 a year, more than double the current $110,000 threshold. 
 
 The bill would add up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the national deficit, a move that contrasts with Republicans' efforts under President Barack Obama to block legislation that could have expanded the deficit. 
 
 With legislation introduced, the GOP tax effort moves into a new and perilous phase, with party leaders working to unify their caucus behind the measure while individual lawmakers seek changes that match their ideologies or the preferences of their constituents and donors — all while Democrats pound the measure and attempt to rally the public against it. 
 
 Party leaders are setting an ambitious timeline, with the House and Senate hoping to pass legislation before Thanksgiving. A Senate bill has not been introduced. 
 
 The GOP effort will also be tested by what House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) warned would be an "army of lobbyists" that would push Congress to make changes on behalf of their client industries and interest groups. 
 
 At least one major industry group, the National Association of Home Builders, announced days before the bill was released that the group would not support it, and others joined the attack within minutes of the measure's unveiling. The National Federation of Independent Businesses said it was also not backing the effort, saying the legislation "leaves too many small businesses behind." 
 
 Other business groups lauded the bill and are expected to try to help it win passage. 
 
 "In terms of a legislative text that addresses the core issues that must be addressed if we are going to grow our economy faster and raise wages for families, this is a home run," said Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 Among lobbying groups, the change to the mortgage interest deduction has proved particularly contentious. 
 
 Some budget experts have said this change is necessary because otherwise the tax code essentially subsidizes the purchase of large homes in the wealthiest parts of the country. But housing groups have long fought off such a change, as the median home price in numerous parts of the country can be very high. 
 
 Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders, said his group would fight the bill "tooth and nail," claiming that it could lead to a decline in home prices and a housing recession. 
 
 "This now is a direct assault on the American dream of homeownership," he said in an interview. 
 
 Republicans said these changes are necessary to allow them to lower tax rates for all taxpayers. But many Democrats signaled opposition, vowing to fight its passage even while in the political minority. 
 
 "This bill is like a dead fish," said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "The more it's in sunlight, the more it stinks, and that's what's going to happen." 
 
 The bill would not make changes to popular retirement plans such as 401(k)s, though. It also would not attempt to repeal provisions of the Affordable Care Act, though Republicans have said they might try to change the bill later for these purposes. 
 
 The legislative fight over the tax bill has become the Trump administration's biggest political goal after failed attempts to repeal the ACA. Trump wants the legislation to pass the House and the Senate by the end of the year, though they must resolve numerous differences. 
 
 Other changes in the bill would be far-reaching. It would, for example, make changes to college savings programs and have new requirements for tax-exempt organizations such as churches and charities. 
 
 Republican supporters of the measure said Americans will see a number of changes if the tax plan is signed into law, but they argued that the final result would be a major tax cut. 
 
 "They're interested in tax relief," said Rep. Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.). "They're not particularly interested in the formula by which that relief gets to them." 
 
 Kathy Orton contributed to this report. ||||| President Obama delivered an impassioned and urgent plea in West Hartford, Conn., Monday evening for swift action, asking a state still shaken by the Newtown school massacre why there isn’t more support in Congress for gun control legislation. (The Washington Post) 
 
 President Obama delivered an impassioned and urgent plea in West Hartford, Conn., Monday evening for swift action, asking a state still shaken by the Newtown school massacre why there isn’t more support in Congress for gun control legislation. (The Washington Post) 
 
 New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, one of the nation’s most committed and deep-pocketed gun-control proponents, is ratcheting up pressure on lawmakers by launching a new system to grade them based on their votes and statements on gun issues. 
 
 Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the nonprofit group financed by Bloomberg (I), will unveil a scoring system Tuesday to award lawmakers grades of A through F, much like the National Rifle Association, which has derived much of its power by deploying letter rankings against politicians at election time. The group’s strategists briefed The Washington Post on the plans ahead of Tuesday’s announcement. 
 
 “For decades, the NRA has done an admirable job of tracking to minute detail how members of Congress stand on gun bills. We’ve simply decided to do the same,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which is chaired by Bloomberg and is made up of more than 900 mayors from across the country. 
 
 This is Bloomberg’s latest move to establish his organization as a counterweight to the influential NRA and to create legislative momentum on Capitol Hill around President Obama’s proposals to toughen the nation’s gun laws. 
 
 Mayors Against Illegal Guns will start airing a 60-second ad on Tuesday featuring Neil Heslin, whose son, Jesse Lewis, was killed in December’s elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn. The group is spending more than $1 million to air the ad on cable news in Washington and on television stations in 10 targeted states, officials said. 
 
 View Graphic How the NRA exerts influence over Congress 
 
 The group is targeting Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Daniel Coats (R-Ind.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.). 
 
 The group also this week will begin airing a new television ad statewide in Pennsylvania focused on Toomey, who quietly has been negotiating on a compromise on expanding background checks with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). The ad highlights Toomey’s past statements in support of the idea and urges Pennsylvanians to call his office to “demand action” when a background-check bill comes up for a vote in coming days. 
 
 The group’s new ratings system would produce a scorecard for senators and representatives that could serve as a guide for voters as well as campaign donors heading into the 2014 midterm elections and in future campaign cycles. 
 
 Glaze outlined a sophisticated algorithm that would weigh lawmakers’ votes on gun bills as well as their public statements and other actions to issue overall letter grades. 
 
 “Not every member can vote for every bill, but if not, there are other things they can and should be doing, and we will have our eye out for those as well,” Glaze said. 
 
 A good grade could reward a vulnerable lawmaker for backing tougher gun laws, the thinking goes, while a poor grade would publicly shame a politician who votes against popular ideas such as universal background checks. 
 
 Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor, has said he would tap his personal fortune to finance television ad campaigns defending lawmakers who vote for gun-control measures and attacking those who do not. 
 
 Earlier this year, Bloomberg spent more than $2 million on an ad blitz for a special primary election in an Illinois congressional district to deny the seat to NRA-backed former congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, a Democrat. 
 
 The Mayors Against Illegal Guns scoring system was developed in part because major political donors who support gun control have been seeking guidance about how to direct their contributions in upcoming election cycles, Glaze said. 
 
 Some influential Democratic benefactors, including businessman Kenneth Lerer and technology entrepreneur David Bohnett, have warned publicly that they will not write another check to Senate Democrats who do not vote to expand background checks. 
 
 “The appetite for information about where members are is very high,” Glaze said. Of the scorecard, he added: “We don’t intend that this will be a tree falling in the forest. We intend for people to have all the information they need to make sound voting and political-contribution decisions.” 
 
 The grading system is most directly a threat to Democrats from conservative states such as Arkansas, Montana and North Carolina who could feel compelled to vote against some gun measures because of the large number of gun owners in their states yet rely on donations from liberal donors in places such as California and New York to fuel their campaigns. 
 
 It is too soon to know whether Bloomberg’s new and untested scorecard will have the same impact as the NRA’s. For decades, Republicans as well as Democrats from more conservative states — including Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) — have campaigned on their “A” ratings from the NRA. 
 
 “The reason NRA scorecards are effective is that they have the weight of approximately 5 million dues-paying members and tens of millions of other supporters behind them,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said. In a dig at Bloomberg, he added, “We’ll take that over the purse of one billionaire any day of the week and twice on Sunday.” 
 
 Mayors Against Illegal Guns has been airing television ads in 10 key states for two weeks, and the results are uncertain. The group is trying to pressure lawmakers to vote for expanding background checks, but a deal in the Senate has proved elusive and many of the targeted senators have been circumspect about their positions. 
 
 “It is close to impossible to get a senator who is the subject of an ad to tell you whether it helps or it hurts,” Glaze said. “I think the proof will be in what the Senate ends up producing.” 
 
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– New Jersey Democrat Rob Andrews made a surprise announcement today that he'll be giving up his House seat as of Feb. 18 to join a Philadelphia law firm, reports Philly.com. And while it's big news in Jersey, Andrews isn't exactly a household name nationally. Still, the Washington Post observes that he's got a legislative track record remarkable in its own way: Over 23 years, not one of the 646 pieces of legislation Andrews authored has become law. All the more impressive is that no representative has introduced more bills than him in that span. Sure, most bills fail in Congress, but "by those numbers, Andrews would be America’s least successful lawmaker of the past two decades," writes David Fahrenthold. Andrews, described as a "semi-liberal back-bencher," defends himself by saying that modern lawmaking these days is done through massive pieces of legislation, not through individual bills. By his own reckoning, Andrews estimates that 110 of his ideas have become law in that fashion. If he wants to eliminate the goose egg, however, maybe he can rename a post office in his final two weeks?