Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) pushed back on Sunday against House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) rosy assessment of Congress’s productivity, warning that the body of lawmakers has become “a mere observer of the constitutional system.”
DeSantis made the statement in response to data from the Washington Post showing that Congress sent roughly 40 bills to President Donald Trump’s desk in 2025, setting a modern record for the lowest legislative output in the first year of a new presidency.
“Legislative productivity should not simply be a measure of the number of bills passed, as Congress is apt to create more problems through legislation than it solves,” the governor wrote in a post to X.
“That said, the paltry production by the current Congress is noteworthy because so much meat is still left on the bone,” he said. “Congress is content to be a mere observer of the constitutional system rather than a player inside of it.”
Former President Joe Biden signed 81 bills into law by the end of his first year in office. Trump signed 97 into law by the end of 2017. Former President Barack Obama signed 125 into law by the end of 2009, according to Punchbowl News.
While DeSantis’s words mark a rebuke to leaders in the Senate and House, Johnson recently hailed 2025 as “one of the most productive first years of any Congress in our lifetimes.”
“House Republicans passed 441 bills,” Johnson wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed over the weekend. “We voted to codify 70 of President Trump’s America First executive orders, clawed back billions in wasteful spending through rescissions, and repealed 23 harmful Biden-era regulations with the Congressional Review Act.”
In his Sunday opinion piece, the speaker highlighted the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which he said contained the largest middle- and working-class tax cut in U.S. history. And he blamed sweeping congressional dysfunction this year, particularly the longest government shutdown on record, on Democrats.
“As their record-breaking shutdown made clear, today’s Democratic leadership is interested not in finding solutions but in preserving issues for November,” Johnson said. “Even with the slimmest of congressional majorities and historic obstruction from Democrats, President Trump and Republicans have kept our promises, restored order, and laid the groundwork for an extraordinary new year.”
Despite the speaker’s optimistic outlook, a host of lawmakers have turned in resignations during the most recent political cycle, expressing concern over the growing partisanship they say is stymying legislative progress.
Many of the 46 retiring legislators are running for governor or other state offices, saying they expect to have a wider impact in those positions than in Congress.
“The level of partisanship, rancor, vitriolic debate, demonizing the other side of the aisle, not willing to work across the aisle to get good things done for the American people, and just the overall toxic environment. And then we are chained to the floor here on votes that will never become law in a lot of cases,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who is leaving Washington after two decades in the House, told CNN earlier this month.
“I just think that I’ll have more impact as a chief executive versus being a legislator,” said Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), who is running for governor of Wisconsin. “The basic question is, where can I do the most good for the people in the state of Wisconsin? And I believe that it is as governor.”
RISE IN CENSURES HIGHLIGHT HYPERPARTISANSHIP IN HOUSE: ‘GOD-AWFUL MESS’
In the past, Johnson has also expressed frustration about the gridlock he says is consuming Congress.
“The members are so frustrated by what this has become — and I mean across the Republican conference, and I think on the Democrat side as well,” the speaker said in November. “I’m more frustrated than anyone about how this has devolved. I think we’ve got to protect the institution.”