{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://bacon.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2829", "Bacon Named One of Most Effective Lawmakers in 118th Congress", "2025-12-01", "2025", "2025-12", "Republican", "House", "NE", "Don Bacon", "B001298", "bacon.house.gov", "bacon", "https://bacon.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "Washington \u2013 The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL), a partnership between the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, released its Interest & Legislative Effectiveness Scores for the 118th Congress, ranking Representative Don Bacon (NE-02) as the most effective Republican House Member in the Defense policy area.\n\nThis recognition follows CEL\u2019s announcement earlier this year naming Rep. Bacon one of the top effective legislators overall for the 118th Congress. Rep. Bacon was ranked second overall in the Republican Party for effectiveness, scoring high in defense, Native Americans, banking and commerce, and law, crime and family issue areas.\n\nCEL's Legislative Effectiveness Scores methodology combines fifteen metrics capturing how many bills each member of Congress sponsors in a given issue area, how far those bills advance through the lawmaking process, and the substance of their policy proposals. In the Defense category, Rep. Bacon earned a score of 36.1 compared to 10.6 for his Democrat colleague Mark Takano (CA-39).\n\nYou can view CEL\u2019s complete Interest & Legislative Effectiveness Scores here.\n\n\u201cSince coming to Congress in 2016, I have embraced cooperation and creativity to get things done for Nebraskans and I thank the Center for Effective Lawmaking for this recognition,\u201d said Rep. Bacon. \u201cI am willing to work with anyone who shares my desire to make life better for Americans, and I look forward to continuing that level of effectiveness in the 119th Congress.\u201d\n\nThe Center for Effective Lawmaking said the following in their announcement:\n\n\u201cOur analysis found that Representative Bacon ranked as the most effective Republican House Member in the policy area of Defense in the last Congress. This is in addition to our previous analysis showing him as one of the most effective Republican House Members in the last Congress overall, as well as the most effective Representative in terms of having their sponsored standalone bills substantially incorporated into the laws of other members of Congress. We congratulate the Representative for his hard work and setting an example for promoting the importance of effective lawmaking.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://bacon.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2829"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.4091419763863087, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}