Dumbest Congress Ever? A Look Back At The Shambolic 118th Meeting Of U.S. Lawmakers

WASHINGTON — Even more than usual, the current Congress, which will effectively end this week, seems like the punchline of a joke:

Boy, the 118th was a crazy Congress!

How crazy was it?

It was so crazy, it:

• Set a modern low for number of laws enacted while it was in session;
• Saw a House member expelled for the first time since 2002, in an effort partly led by members of his own party;
• Took 15 rounds of voting to elect a House speaker;
• Ousted said speaker only 10 months later in a historic floor vote, also led by members of his own party;
• Saw the House floor paralyzed for three weeks, the longest stretch in years, as the House Republican majority struggled to find someone to replace him;
• Saw Republicans lead not one but two discharge petitions — longshot moves usually used by the minority party to get a bill to the floor — get the required 218 signatures to bypass their own party’s leadership;
• Saw the ousted former speaker accused of physically elbowing one of the fellow Republicans who’d voted to boot him;
• And saw the new House speaker lean on minority party members’ votes to get crucial bills passed, using the chamber’s rules to bypass disgruntled members of his own party.

Cue “Yakety Sax,” everyone! And that was just in the House.

The Senate, while minimally chaotic by comparison, didn’t exactly cover itself in glory either.

In the Senate:

• A bipartisan compromise over immigration and border security changes, the first attempt at major reforms in 10 years and full of Democratic concessions, was torpedoed by Republicans ahead of the fall presidential campaign;
• A senator offered to fight a witness at a committee hearing until the chairman calmed things down;
• And another senator held up the promotion of scores of