WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is just around the corner the election seasonas a legislator from one of the the most chaotic and unproductive legislative sessions In this day and age, try to convince voters to keep her in office.

Republicans in the House of Representatives led the riot and carefully chose their speaker in a bitter public feud then quickly throw him out of the officesomething never seen before. But that deeply divided Senate was not immune to inaction and marching along a modest agenda.

Overall, the lack of big wins underscores November’s volatile election season Control of Congress a mess.

“The good thing is that Congress didn’t allow much to get passed into law,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke, a former Trump administration Cabinet secretary who is now running for re-election to his House seat in Montana. “But what it also failed to achieve is that it failed to live up to its potential.”

House Republicans not only blocked Democrats’ Biden-Harris priorities, but “in many ways we blocked our own agenda.”

The situation facing lawmakers, particularly House Republicans trying to maintain their narrow majority control, is not academic. Republicans in the House of Representatives must now face the voters who sent them on their way to Washington “Commitment to America” was clearly neglected two years ago.

New Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson remains optimistic that Republicans will not only retain control but also gain more seats to bolster their ranks, but it was a uphill for him in a difficult election year.

“It’s almost impossible,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, adding that he had little patience to listen to the “idiots” he said Johnson would have to contend with while maintaining a narrow four-seat majority lead.

“A group has grown up in the House Republican Party that believes that voting no and getting nothing done is a victory,” Gingrich said Friday at the Capitol. “You have to find a way to break the idea that being a nihilist and not getting anything done is a success. That’s not it.”

Congress has passed fewer substantive bills than usual, leaving this two-year session on track to be one of the least productive sessions ever. The representatives and senators returned to Washington for a short three-week work period in September and essentially completed one of their most important tasks: Federal fundingfor a few more months, until December.

While Congress managed to avoid a federal shutdown – which Johnson said would have been “misbehavior” so close to the November election – it left town in mid-week, several days earlier than planned Hurricane struck to the southern Gulf states. It won’t return until mid-November.

“Can anyone in America name a single thing that House Republicans have done on their own to improve the lives of the American people?” the Democratic leader asked Hakeem Jeffrieswho is expected to become Speaker of the House of Representatives if his party wins a majority. “The answer is no.”

Many lawmakers bristled at being lumped in with what was happening in their House’s GOP majority. January 2023 saw the week-long battle to elect Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives. And the nearly month-long spectacle when a small number of far-right Republicans expelled him from the speaker’s office. And failed bills that never made it out of the House floor.

Those seeking re-election in some of the most competitive House districts offered a glimpse of the conversations they will have with voters.

Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Florida, said he would highlight his work in voter services and his voting record.

“I don’t know if you judge an individual member based on how the body performs as a whole,” said Bean, a freshman. “I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. That’s apples to apricots.”

California Rep. Mike Garcia said the House has been a “firewall” against spending.

“What we were able to stop is very significant,” he said.

“We haven’t necessarily mastered everything,” he added. “But what we’ve done is set a template for what needs to be done to solve these problems, whether it’s the border, the economy, national security, investing in our military, tax cuts, spending cuts.”

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who is in a competitive race in New York, pointed to the work he has done to secure needed infrastructure money for his district, as well as his own various bills. One passed in the House and Senate last week instructs the U.S. Secret Service Protect Donald Trump and other major party presidential candidates held to the same standards as the president.

“So I have a record that I’m definitely proud of,” he said.

Besides, Lawler asked, what about the Senate?

“I mean, the House of Representatives is always the focus,” he said. “But if anyone looked down the hall, what did Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats do? What exactly are they running on?”

The Senate, historically a slower-moving body designed by the Founding Fathers, moved at an even slower pace this year, staying away from Washington on many Mondays and almost all Fridays.

The Senate, narrowly led by Democrats under Majority Leader Schumer, managed to confirm a Number of Biden’s judicial nomineesparticularly women and people of color, to create a judiciary that makes the nation more representative. But the senators failed to achieve many other big priorities.

In fact, it is one of the most discussed bills in the election campaign – that of the Senate bipartisan effort to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and update some immigration laws — failed when Trump withdrew his support.

“This has been a very, very unproductive Congress,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said, citing stalled budget proposals and the reauthorization of a farm bill. There is “a lot of blame.”

Strangely, the Capitol briefly filled up again on Friday as it became empty, marking the 30th anniversary of another Republican milestone – the 1994 Contract with America, the campaign promises that brought Gingrich and his party to power after four decades in the minority .

Two years ago, McCarthy, who had planned to be speaker, gathered House Republicans at a manufacturing plant on Pennsylvania’s Monongahela River to unveil her own “Commitment to America” ​​agenda, a nod to the Gingrich era. Rising stars of the Republican Party, including firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, sat in the front row.

McCarthy, Johnson and many others from today’s House GOP were not present at Friday’s ceremony and reception in the basement of the Capitol.

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who was among them eight Republicans who led the vote to oust McCarthy last year said it was the Republican majority’s greatest achievement in the House: “Not ruining the country any further. We don’t need any more legislation.”

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Associate Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.