We often write about certain legislators as being “powerful.” It’s practically required that we refer to the chairs of the General Assembly’s budget-related committees as powerful, as in “the powerful Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas.”
With Lucas, her power is on display for all to see. She single-handedly killed former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposal for a sports arena in Alexandria, and while she didn’t prevail in her desire to abolish Virginia’s tax incentives for data centers, she did succeed in putting that issue into a public forum — and helped secure a tax on the electricity that the facilities consume.
If you want to see the influence of other legislators, sometimes all you have to do is look at the state budget. The funding in the current budget for developing a healthcare workforce in the Roanoke Valley by exploring a healthcare-focused high school can be traced to Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County. He encountered the graduates of a similar high school in Houston when he was there for medical treatment several years ago; as a member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of an even more select group of budget negotiators, he was in a position to make that happen.
Likewise, the money for the proposed inland port in Washington County might not have happened if not for state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee and is, like Austin, one of the final budget negotiators.
What, though, about the legislators who don’t sit on the “money committees,” as they’re called? Power and influence come in many forms — and it doesn’t always include making headlines, either. There are many legislators who work quietly, behind the scenes, and sometimes accomplish more than those who are pumping out content for social media. We can measure the effectiveness of baseball players in mathematical ways — batting averages for the hitters, earned run averages for the pitchers. Is it possible to do the same with legislators?
Probably not. There’s too much of the human factor involved, and that’s hard to quantify. That hasn’t stopped some from trying, though. In the 1980s and ’90s, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot newspaper surveyed legislators and other denizens of Capitol Square (lobbyists, state officials and journalists) to compile an annual ranking of which legislators were the most effective. It seemed a generally accurate list, although Republicans never liked it because they were in the minority then and minority members always get ranked lower because, well, they’re in the minority. There were also some concerns that some legislators hadn’t answered truthfully, that they were intentionally ranking some members of the other party lower in hopes that a poor score would hurt them come reelection time. Republicans eventually stopped participating, and that killed the project.
Now comes the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint venture between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University. The center has been producing scores on legislative effectiveness at the federal level, and now has them for members of Congress back to the 1994-95 session. This year, for the first time, it’s produced legislative effectiveness ratings for state legislators — starting with Virginia and New Jersey. (The reports also go back to 1994-95).
At this point, everybody wants to know the scores, right? OK, fine, the highest score went to Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington County, and the lowest went to — well, that’s complicated.
Now let’s talk about how the data gets there — what it tells us and what it can’t.
The center has a whole page on its methodology. Warning: It includes the word “coefficient” and uses “5-gram Jaccard similarity comparisons.” (No, that’s not a line from “Breaking Bad.”)
If you want to know the actual formula, here it is:
What? You didn’t pay attention in calculus, either? Here’s a much shorter version. The center uses 15 metrics that “collectively capture the proven ability of a legislator to advance … agenda items through the legislative process and into law.” This doesn’t just mean getting his or her own bills passed, but how much that legislator contributed to getting other bills passed. The formula also distinguishes between types of bills, since not all bills are equal — which is why you just can’t look at the number of bills a legislator introduces. If you’re really into the methodology, you can read it all here.
Now, before we get to the numbers, keep in mind that a member of the majority party always has an advantage over a member of the minority party — that was the objection Republicans had to the Virginian-Pilot rankings back in the ’90s, and they were not wrong. Regardless of which party holds the majority, when you find a minority member with a high effectiveness score, then you’ve really found something because they’re working with an institutional handicap.
This data is also for the 2024-25 legislative session, not the current one (it takes time to do all this math). That means some of the most effective legislators are no longer in the General Assembly for reasons we’ll soon get to. The report also points out that some party leaders don’t score well. For instance, House Speaker Don Scott gets a big fat zero — because speakers traditionally don’t introduce any bills. They’re powerful enough that they don’t have to; that makes them hard to score under this formula. Trust me, Scott is influential, just not in ways this scorecard can capture. Likewise, the lowest-scoring House Republican was then-House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert. Same thing, just the other side of the aisle. If you’re House minority leader, your job is to help your party members look good, not score points yourself.
You’ll see that some Republicans typically score lower than Democrats, but remember what I said about minority members laboring with a disadvantage in a partisan environment. Nonetheless, politics being what they are, I suspect some of these scores will find their way into campaign literature next year — likely on the other side. On the other hand, some low-ranking Republicans may find these scores to be a badge of honor — a sign that they’re fighting the Democrats at every turn and aren’t about to introduce bills that the other party would even think of supporting. A low-scoring Republican in a swing district probably won’t find it wise to make that argument, but a low-scoring Republican in a bright red district sure could. Ultimately, in our system, it’s up to voters to decide which qualities they prize — although, in our system, that also means that voters taking part in party primaries sometimes count more than ones taking part in general elections.
So, let’s get onto the scores, shall we?
These were the top 10 House Democrats.
These were the top 10 House Republicans:
These were the top 10 Senate Democrats:
And now, the top 10 Senate Republicans:
Some observations before we move on: If you follow the General Assembly (and if you’ve read this far, you probably do), you’ll recognize many of these names because they’re the legislators involved in a lot of the key action. You’ll also see that many of the Democrats are committee chairs. It’s hard to overstate how important a committee chairmanship is — and, by definition, those only go to members of the majority party.
You’ll also notice that some of these legislators are no longer there. Two of the top 10 Senate Democrats moved up: Ghazala Hashmi is now lieutenant governor, Adam Ebbin is now with the governor’s administration. Two of the top 10 House Republicans have moved out: Carrie Coyner lost her reelection bid, Jonathan “Jed” Arnold didn’t seek reelection due to his wife’s illness.
Coyner’s loss does underscore an inconvenient political fact: Voters don’t always appreciate an effective legislator if they’d prefer them to be voting the other way on those issues. Arnold’s departure is completely understandable but also reminds us that legislators have family responsibilities besides their civic ones. The center said that Arnold had a remarkably high score for a freshman member, so losing him was akin to Republicans losing a “rookie of the year” in sports.
Perhaps the biggest surprise: Lucas scores poorly. She’s the third-lowest-scoring Democrat and ranks below five Republicans. I suspect this is a function of the formula: Her power hasn’t been in getting bills passed; it’s been in stopping bills (Alexandria sports arena) or influencing the debate (data center taxation). There may not be a baseball equivalent to this, but to switch sports analogies, she might be comparable to the basketball player or hockey player who may not score a lot of goals but whose presence on the court or the ice changes the dynamics of the game. Those are qualities that every sports fan understands, but they’re hard to translate into statistics.
The center does make this fascinating observation: “In terms of party influence, the recent partisan battles over redistricting and other matters often yield the impression of significant partisan divides across the Commonwealth. In contrast, our data show that the Virginia General Assembly achieves a greater balance in lawmaking effectiveness across parties than is found in most states across the country. While the [scores] of minority-party lawmakers across the country on the whole averages about 0.60, the average scores in 2024-2025 for minority-party Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates were somewhat higher at 0.65 and in the Senate at an average value of 0.76.”
The center also looked at how many successful bills come from each party. In the Senate, 39.1% came from Republicans, while in the House, 29.4% did. The center thought that was an unusually high number for a minority party, concluding that these figures are “indicative that both parties were active and effective in the lawmaking process, striking a balance rarely found in states across the country.”
You can find all the scores here.
Kiggans tops the congressional rankings
The center’s congressional rankings are a mirror image of the General Assembly ones — because Congress is controlled by Republicans. The rankings are for the 118th Congress, which ran 2023-24, so not the current one. In those rankings, the most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation was Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, who faces a tough reelection bid this fall. The second most effective legislator was Rep. Bob Good, R-Prince Edward County, who lost the Republican primary in 2024 to John McGuire.
In the 117th Congress that preceded it (2021-2022), Democrats were in charge. The most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation then was Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Fairfax County, who also ranked as the most effective member in all of Congress, while Democrat Abigail Spanberger ranked second. Perhaps you’ve heard of her.
As for last place, in the 118th Congress it was Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport. In the previous Congress, where Democrats held a majority, Scott was a committee chairman and ranked third, which again shows the partisan nature of Congress and the importance of being in the majority.
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