Roger Wicker

Mississippi's U.S. Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith have passed 18 of the more than 900 bills they have sponsored or originally cosponsored.

Experts suggest the content of a bill and its public perception are more important for a legislator's success than the total number of bills passed.

Sen. Wicker has passed 73 total bills in 18 years, while Sen. Hyde-Smith has passed six in about eight years.

A legislator's priorities can also be passed as parts of larger bills, which are not always tracked under their name.

Mississippi's delegates in the U.S. Senate can feel a world — or at least a time zone — away from the people they represent.

The pair, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, combine for more than 26 years of service in the U.S. Senate, a number that is almost unrivaled in the Southeastern region of the nation. More important than the time they spend in Washington, though, is what they do with that time.

The Clarion Ledger analyzed the number of bills that Wicker and Hyde-Smith have passed during their tenures. That includes two categories: bills that each legislator sponsored and bills that each legislator originally cosponsored.

A sponsored bill is simple enough. It is a bill authored by a lawmaker and their staff focused on their priorities, whether that is a community in their state or an economic priority area set to benefit their constituents.

An original cosponsor tag is a little different. Several senators can introduce a measure together, but only one can be the sponsor. This title is typically, but not always, given to the legislator who did the most work in writing or researching the bill.

Senators can choose to sign on as a cosponsor at any point in the lawmaking process, according to a 2025 congressional report, but only those who are affiliated with the bill when it's introduced are considered original cosponsor. A legislator's name being cited as a cosponsor can indicate that they played some role in the bill writing or research process, but it is not guaranteed.

"Supporters of a bill often seek cosponsors to demonstrate its level of support among Senators," explained Mark Oleszek, a political science professor, in a report for the Congressional Research Service. "Decisions to cosponsor legislation can be made for a variety of reasons, some of which might be unrelated to the text of the bill itself."

Those two types of legislation are the only ones recorded by Congress, meaning that the Clarion Ledger's analysis does not include every bill that one of Mississippi's legislators has had a hand in passing. Hyde-Smith and Wicker have had priorities passed as components of larger bills that they did not author or cosponsor, but those are not included because there is no way to track them.

How many bills have Mississippi's senators passed?

Wicker and Hyde-Smith have sponsored more than 900 bills in Congress combined, and the pair have passed 18 of them into law, around a 2% success rate.

That number may sound shockingly low, but Kara Spencer, a campaign consultant who has worked on what she described as "long-shot runs" for federal office, said the content and marketability of the bill matter more than the total number.

"You can 100% win a seat in Congress with a 2% passage rate," Spencer said. "You can probably win a seat in Congress with a single passed bill, as long as it's the right one."

Very few people pay attention to the number of bills that their representatives are passing, she said, and the politics of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are usually outside of the public's focus unless a particular bill gets significant national attention.

"That's why it really matters which bill people see you supporting or trashing," Spencer said. "If you can hitch your wagon to a bill that people rallied behind, even if you only start supporting it way after it was proposed, and even if it doesn't pass, people will affiliate you with that bill. That's another voter in your corner."

The names at the top of the bill, Spencer said, don't always tell the full story.

"Sometimes there's a senator who is a key player in a bill, who really fights for their state to get some extra money or fixes a bunch of horrible roads," she said, "and that person just doesn't get the credit they deserve. Especially in a huge budget bill or a kind of odds-and-ends bill with a whole lot of information, people get left off the cosponsor list."

The best way to measure how effective a legislator has been, Spencer said, is whether they get reelected. Given that Hyde-Smith and Wicker have combined for six successful election bids, she said, Mississippi voters seem to approve.

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How do Wicker and Hyde-Smith compare to their colleagues?

Mississippi's U.S. Senate delegates are each somewhat similar to one of their counterparts in a neighboring state.

All 10 senators representing Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama are Republicans who have benefitted from a party trifecta since last year: a Republican president and majority in both the House and Senate.

Wicker, the longest-serving member of the group, has also passed the most bills. He has passed 73 total bills in 18 years, and he has averaged one sponsored bill every year.

Hyde-Smith, who sits around the middle of the group when it comes to tenure, has lower numbers. She has passed six total bills in approximately eight years, tying her with U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who has served in the Senate for roughly five years.

All six of Hyde-Smith's passed bills, according to her profile on the Senate website, have been bills on which she was an original cosponsor. None of the bills she has sponsored have passed, according to the website.

Christopher Gallegos, Hyde-Smith's communications director, echoed Spencer's comments about legislator priorities sometimes passing without crediting that lawmaker.

"…Individual bills introduced by lawmakers are often ultimately enacted as part of larger legislative packages," he wrote in an April 29 email. "This has been the case of several Hyde-Smith bills, ranging from the first bill she introduced as a new Senator (duck hunting) to her 2025 Restoring Rural Health Act (to help Franklin County Hospital) that became law earlier this year."

It is impossible to get a complete view of every lawmaker's success in Congress, but Spencer said that the number of bills that a legislator can pass with their name attached is often indicative of the support they have among their colleagues and how closely their priorities align with that of the leadership.