ATLANTA — In her first Congress, Rep. Lucy McBath proved an active participant in the lawmaking process as the primary sponsor of four bills that became law.
The only freshman representative to be elected from Georgia in 2018, her bills became law more frequently than a number of her more seasoned congressional colleagues from the Peach State.
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It was also more than the three bills her two predecessors, former Republican Reps. Karen Handel and Tom Price, turned into law going back to 2005, according to figures from the legislative tracking site GovTrack.
The site credits a bill with becoming law when it is
- enacted itself
- has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted
- if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted
In Rep. McBath's case, she was the primary sponsor of H.R. 7259 and H.R. 2938, which were signed directly into law by President Donald Trump. In two other cases, she sponsored H.R. 3986 and H.R. 5202 which were incorporated into larger bills - including the coronavirus relief CARES Act - that became law.
The bills spanned a range of issues, focused on child care, veterans and innovation.
Her earliest bill, the HAVEN Act, was introduced in May 2019 and signed into law by President Trump in August 2019. It made exempt some benefits from monthly income calculations, including Social Security, paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. The calculation is important for people whose wages are garnished in processes like bankruptcy.
Subsequent bills, the Protecting Critical Services for Mothers and Babies Act (passed as part of the CARES Act) and Child Care Protection Improvement Act (which was folded into a Senate bill in 2020 and passed) targeted children's welfare.
The former bill allows charities whose primary purpose is "providing services with respect to mothers and children" to operate their pension plans under rules that govern cooperative and small employers, while the latter bill established a "task force to improve child care protections provided through interstate criminal background checks."
McBath's final bill, signed into law just last week by the president, gives more flexibility to people who receive awards under the Patents for Humanity Program.
While the 6th District representative's legislative output of four bills might not seem like an avalanche of lawmaking, consider that the new dean of the Georgia delegation, 2nd District Democrat Rep. Sanford Bishop, has passed 11 bills in nearly three decades.
Rep. David Scott (elected in 2002), has passed five, two of them naming post offices. Rep. Hank Johnson (elected in 2006), has passed seven, two of them post offices.
Republican Reps. Austin Scott (2010), Jody Hice (2014), Barry Loudermilk (2014), Rick Allen (2014) and Drew Ferguson (2016), have passed five between them.
Rep. McBath comfortably won re-election in November, so she'll have another two years to add to her legislative record.