CEL on The Smerconish Podcast

Monday, September 15, 2025

Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) Co-Director Alan Wiseman of Vanderbilt University was a recent guest on The Smerconish Podcast to talk with host Michael Smerconish about the published paper “On the Decline of Elite-Educated Republicans in Congress” and the educational divide in American politics. Professor Wiseman coauthored the paper with CEL Co-Director Craig Volden of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia and Associate Professor Jonathan Wai of the University of Arkansas, and it was published in the academic journal Perspectives on Politics.

Professor Wiseman explains how both parties in Congress once shared a common bond: many lawmakers, regardless of ideology, came from elite universities. Today, however, that landscape has dramatically shifted. While Democrats have largely maintained their ties to Ivy League and other selective institutions, Republicans have moved sharply away from them. During the course of the program, he discusses how the research paper behind the findings was constructed, how this 50-year transformation has reshaped Congress in terms of voting patterns and elections, and what it reveals about polarization.

Professor Wiseman and the CEL are pleased to have had this opportunity to discuss the paper and how it ties to larger trends in American politics.

To listen to the podcast, go here.

To learn more about the paper itself, go here.