Congress Classroom · student handout · six finished Congresses counted September 15, 2026, the one still sitting October 26, 2026

One in how many?

Name Period

Words this lesson uses

Congress (a numbered one). The two years a set of legislators serves, numbered in order. Every measure not finished when a Congress ends dies with it.

Measure. Anything Congress votes on: a bill or one of the three kinds of resolution.

Bill. A proposed law. H.R. in the House, S. in the Senate. If it passes both chambers in the same words and the President signs it, it becomes law.

Denominator. The bottom of a fraction: what you are dividing by. A rate is only as honest as what went into it.

Public law. A bill that completed every step and was signed, or passed over a veto. It gets a number like 118-23: the Congress, then its order within it.

Reading 1. Count them.

Your guess, from before you saw this sheet, out of every 100:

Below is every bill that could become law from six finished Congresses. "Reported" means a committee sent it on. "Passed own chamber" means the House passed a House bill, or the Senate a Senate bill. Fill in the last column: divide Introduced by Became law and round to a whole number.

Congress	Years	Introduced	Reported	Passed own chamber	Became law
113th	2013 to 2014	9,082	900	761	296
114th	2015 to 2016	10,223	1,223	979	329
115th	2017 to 2018	11,413	1,443	1,294	443
116th	2019 to 2020	14,340	1,038	1,085	344
117th	2021 to 2022	15,231	969	1,006	365
118th	2023 to 2024	16,565	1,451	962	274
All six		76,854			2,051

1. Which column changes the most from the first Congress to the last? Which changes the least?

2. Was your guess closer to the right number or to the wrong one? What would you tell someone who said "Congress passes almost nothing"?

Reading 2. The Congress sitting right now has no rate yet.

A bill dies when its Congress ends. Until then it is alive. Here is the current Congress, counted the same way, as of October 26, 2026.

Congress	Introduced so far	Reported	Passed own chamber	Law so far
119th, in progress	17,016	1,232	980	138

3. Divide Introduced by Law for this row. Why is it not fair to compare that number with the finished Congresses? Use the phrase "a bill dies when".

4. Most bills are introduced in a Congress's first year, and each one can still become law until the Congress ends. If you took this photograph a year from now, which column would grow more? Why?

Assignment. Check a claim.

Find a sentence in a news story, textbook or website that says how many bills become law. Copy it and where it came from.
Which Congresses does it cover? If it does not say, write "does not say".
Did it count only bills, or every measure including resolutions? (Resolutions are about one in seven of everything introduced and can never become law.)
Is the claim inside the range you found in the table? If not, which mistake explains it: the wrong denominator, or an unfinished Congress?
Write one paragraph: the claim, its source, what it counted, and whether you would repeat it.

Exit ticket

Your table gives a different "one law for every ___ bills" in every row. Why is there no single right number to put on all six?