01 The Georgia Legislature

Every Seat Holds a Record

The Georgia General Assembly has 236 seats: 180 in the House, 56 in the Senate. Across seven sessions its members introduced 13,241 substantive bills and passed 4,656 into law.

Resolutions are excluded because they do not have to pass both chambers and cannot become law. Resolutions are typically used to congratulate or honor someone.

02 Republican Majority

Republicans Hold a Majority in Both Chambers

Republicans hold 99 of the 180 House seats and 33 of the 56 Senate seats. They set the calendar in both chambers and chair 62 of the 64 standing committees. Which bills get a hearing and which reach a floor vote are majority decisions.

This means that Republicans alone decide which bills are considered. The results reflect the power disparity: 24 of the 25 highest career pass rates among sitting members (minimum ten bills authored) belong to Republicans. The one exception, Mack Jackson (D), is profiled below. Pass rate tells you who runs the building, not who works hardest inside it.

The difference is stark. In 2013-14, 47% of Republican-sponsored bills passed, compared with 21% of Democratic-sponsored bills. Last session, the rates were 42% and 12%, meaning a Republican bill was three and a half times more likely to become law.

Democrats have not given up though. They have responded by filing far more bills, but with little gain: 79 of 376 passed in 2013-14, compared with 89 of 761 last session. That is why this page grades lawmakers on a curve. Each scorecard compares members with others in the same party and chamber, rather than relying only on their raw passage rate.

03 The gap

Some Members Pass 91% of Their Bills. Others Pass One in Fifty.

Take the 189 sitting members who have authored at least ten bills. The median member passes 33%, one bill in three. The range runs from 0% to 91%. Butch Parrish (R) leads: 31 of his 34 bills are now law. At the other end, Sandra Scott (D) has filed 191 bills and passed 4. Most of the 187 that failed never even reached a floor vote. 18 of the 19 lowest rates belong to Democrats, whose bills stop at a committee door the other party controls; the one Republican among them, Charlice Byrd (R), has passed none of her 17.

67 of those 189 members pass fewer than one bill in four. Many of the bills that hold those rates down never reached a floor vote at all; they died at the committee door.

04 The volume game

The Biggest Filers Are Not the Biggest Passers

Among current lawmakers, Ron Stephens, a Republican, and Sandra Scott, a Democrat, are tied for the most bills filed: 191 each. Stephens passed 58. Scott passed four. They produced the same volume but achieved dramatically different results, reflecting the advantage of belonging to the party that controls the chamber.

Does filing more bills lead to passing more? For Republicans, generally yes: they pass 46 of every 100 bills they introduce. Democrats pass just 15, so filing more has not overcome their disadvantage.

Even so, volume is not the same as success. Only two lawmakers rank among both the ten biggest filers and the ten biggest passers. Gerald Greene, a Republican, introduced 92 bills and passed 83, the most of any current member and a 90% success rate. Keep that number in mind for Section 06: most of his successful bills never reach beyond a single county.

05 The minority workhorses

Six Democrats Out-Pass the Typical Republican Anyway

Passing a bill from the minority means persuading the majority to move it, through a committee they chair, onto a calendar they set. Half of the legislature's 132 Republicans have passed fewer than 16 of their own bills. Six Democrats clear that bar from the minority side. Emanuel Jones (D) has passed 32. Put that record inside the Republican caucus and it would rank 25th of 133. Patty Stinson (D) has passed 26 of 52 authored; David Lucas (D) 22 of 44.

06 The Local Heroes

Half of What Passes Is Local Law. These Members Get It Done.

Nearly half of everything the legislature passes, 2,093 of 4,656 bills (45%), is local: homestead exemptions, city charter amendments, and school-board pay. It is unglamorous work, but it needs to be done. Nobody carries more than Gerald Greene (R), who has passed 77 local acts for his corner of southwest Georgia, more than any sitting member. Patty Stinson (D) leads her party with 25. When your county needs the Assembly's signature, these are the members who deliver it.

07 The statewide ledger

Statewide Laws Are Much Harder to Pass

About half of the laws passed by the General Assembly are local acts affecting a particular county or community. The rest set policy for the entire state, and those bills are much harder to turn into law.

Bruce Williamson, a Republican, has passed 42 statewide bills, more than any other sitting legislator. At the opposite end are lawmakers in both parties who have served through seven consecutive sessions without passing a single statewide bill.

08 The co-signers

It's Good to Have Friends

Authoring a bill is not the only way to shape a session. Members also sign onto each other's bills as co-sponsors, a public show of support that helps build the coalitions a bill needs to move. Some legislators do it constantly. John Albers (R) has co-sponsored 727 bills he did not write, more than anyone in either chamber, and his name is on 304 that became law, also the most. Here is who leads each chamber.

In the Senate

Signed onto the Most Bills, and Helped the Most Bills Become Law

In the House

Stephens (R) leads the House on volume with 483 co-sponsorships, and Mary Margaret Oliver (D) leads House Democrats with 351. When it comes to bills that actually passed, Sharon Cooper (R) tops the chamber's Republicans with 180.

Signed onto the Most Bills in the House

Helped the Most Bills Become Law in the House

09 Same bill, different sponsor

Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Legislation

Park Cannon (D) filed a bill to start an HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis pilot program in the 2017-2018 session (HB 755). It died in committee. Sharon Cooper (R) filed a near-identical bill (HB 290, 97% text match) in 2019-2020. It was signed into law. Under one-party control, who files a bill can decide whether it lives.

It is not a one-off. A rewrite of state-employee hearing procedure died with a Democratic author in 2022, then passed the following session under a Republican author with 99% of its text unchanged. The co-sign lists sharpen the point: Park Cannon signed on to the Republican refile of her own HIV bill, the third name on a bill she once led. What changed was whose name came first.

State-employee hearings before an administrative law judge

HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis pilot program