The Lugar Center and the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy released new bipartisan index rankings — an attempt to explain lawmakers’ willingness to cross party lines — for 2023.
Overall, bipartisanship remained at historic lows, though it marginally improved from the previous Congress. In the House, bipartisanship varied the most widely.
“Squad” Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-MO), and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), along with Republican Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Eric Burlison (R-MO), were among the worst in bipartisanship — all earned -2 bipartisan scores or worse, which ranks as “very poor” on the index.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) topped the index for the fifth year in a row with a score of about 5.5, more than double third-place finisher Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH). New member Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) made his index debut with a second-place finish, which nearly doubled Pappas’s score at about 4.3.
Most of the House leadership was excluded, except for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who ranked No. 423.
The index is developed to form “an objective measure of how well members of opposite parties work with one another using bill sponsorship and co-sponsorship data.” And it measures “the frequency with which a Member co-sponsors a bill introduced by the opposite party and the frequency with which a Member’s own bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party.”
A score above zero indicates a bipartisan legislator, and a score below zero indicates a lack of bipartisanship.
“Bipartisan cooperation on legislation in 2023 was deficient by historical standards, though there were some marginal improvements in scores from the previous Congress,” Lugar Center Policy Director Dan Diller said. “It is especially disheartening that all eight new Senators who took office in January 2023 ranked in the bottom 30 percent of Senate scores.”
Other notable House members such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) ranked Nos. 425, 410, 399, and 427, respectively, out of 436 eligible members.
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Both parties had an even split in the number of members in the top 30, and Republicans had 17 to Democrats’ 13 in the bottom 30.
“In these deeply divided times, and with an increasing amount of misleading information online, we need tools like the Bipartisan Index more than ever — an evidence-based and nonpartisan approach for measuring how well policymakers work across the aisle to get things done,” Maria Cancian, dean of the McCourt School of Public Policy, said. “And while there is much room for improvement, I am encouraged to see some progress on cross-party collaboration.”