The 113th Congress has concluded its legislative business, and critics chide its members for what they term its meager work product.

We’re not sure you can base a judgment of legislative success only on the number of new laws passed. Unless actively repealing old laws, we prefer the Congress that’s a bit more selective in exercising its power. Relatively few problems cry out for a legislative solution.

Numbers also don’t speak to the sweeping scope of laws that are passed.

Take the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, a 1,603-page “omnibus” bill to fund the government through next September. It does that, and more. A lot more.

Without the bill the government would have shut down. Trading on the fear of legislators who think that’s a bad thing, shrewd horse traders were able to give new life to pet projects ― many that had failed as standalone legislation.

In this process, agriculture made out like a bandit.

Gone, at least until October, are those proposed rules “clarifying” the definition of “waters of the U.S.” farmers feared would give the Environmental Protection Agency expanded powers. So are proposed requirements that would require livestock producers to report methane emissions from manure handling systems.

White potatoes are back on the table for recipients of aid under the Women, Infants and Children program, the Interior Department won’t be able to list the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act, and ranchers with grazing allotments will be able to renew their contracts even as federal agencies work through mandated environmental analyses.

All good stuff. But while we agree with those outcomes, we hardly approve of the process.

Because Congress has failed in recent years to follow the normal appropriations process that calls for spending bills to be vetted and passed by Oct. 1, it faced another self-inflicted budget crisis requiring quick action.

That left the country with another bill passed in haste with little time to discover, let alone debate, the particulars ― another bill that had to be passed to find out what’s in it.

The old saw says it’s best not to watch how laws and sausages are made.

But the comparison is unfair. Congress would never allow sausages to be made the way it makes laws.

The Capital Press, based in Salem, is a sister publication of the Wallowa County Chieftain.