Activity During Lame Duck Sessions, 1974-2012 During 200 Bills passed but vetoed by president .74 '80 '82 '94 199 '00 '02 '04 '06 'OB '10 112 Note: The 1994 and 1998 lame duck sessions had strictly
Our analysis found that lame duck sessions are shouldering more of the legislative workload than they used to. The last Congress’ lame duck, which stretched from November 2012 past New Year’s Day 2013, passed only 87 public laws, but that was 30.7% of the Congress’ entire two-year output and 31.3% of its substantive output (that is, excluding post-office renamings, National “fill-in-the-blank” Week designations and other purely ceremonial legislation). In 2010, the 99 public laws passed during the 111th Congress’ lame duck session accounted for 25.8% of all that Congress’ laws (and 29.2% of its substantive laws).
Activity During Lame Duck Sessions,  | 1974-2012 During  | 200  | Bills passed but vetoed by president  | 14  | Private laws enacted  | Public laws enacted  | 24 60  | 150  | 149  | 130  | 10  | 115  | 1  | 100  | 106  | 99  | 87  | 84 84  | 62  | 50  | 0 0  | 8 1  | 0 0 0  | 12  | .74 '80 '82 '94 199 '00 '02 '04 '06 'OB '10 112  | Note: The 1994 and 1998 lame duck sessions had strictly  | limited agendas. Public laws are specific generally applicable  | statutes; agendas. private laws relate to specific generally individuals or  | entities  | Source: Library of Congress THOMAS website; Pew Research  | Center ana lysis  | PEW RESEARCH CENTER 