Center for Effective Lawmaking

Learn About Effective Lawmaking

Learn About Effective Lawmaking: Introducing Our New Short Course For the first time, the Center for Effective Lawmaking is offering you the opportunity to learn about effective lawmaking from your own home! In eight short video modules, our Co-Director, Professor Craig Volden at the University of Virginia, walks participants through how we measure effective lawmaking, what we include (and don't) in our metrics, and some of our unique findings. Professor Volden also discusses how the Center for Effective Lawmaking has moved to impactful engagement and our exciting plans for future…

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Turning Legislative Effectiveness into Electoral Success

Turning Legislative Effectiveness into Legislative Success The Center for Effective Lawmaking (“CEL”) conducted an in-depth study to explore whether lawmakers in Congress are rewarded in primary elections for their effectiveness. Do effective members win at a greater rate during this time of the electoral cycle? Can they ward off challengers? The answer, for the first time, is clear. And it has obvious impacts on how lawmakers considering reelection should use their time in Congress. Looking at congressional primaries data from 1980-2016 allowed CEL researchers to remove partisan cues and focus…

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Watch: Jamelle Bouie on Super Tuesday, Presidential Elections and Debates

On Monday, March 2, the Center for Effective Lawmaking hosted New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie at the University of Virginia. Watch the conversation between Bouie and Center Co-Director Craig Volden as they discuss the 2020 presidential primaries. View it on Vimeo here.

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How Effective are Party Faction Members in Congress?

How Effective are Party Faction Members in Congress? There is much discussion given today’s political climate about the rise and strength of political factions. As those who are like-minded bind more closely to push through legislation and change, the inclination is to believe that working together in a cohesive faction will wield power to move legislative changes through Congress and the larger the faction the more powerful it is. But is this true? At the Center for Effective Lawmaking, we took an in-depth look at ideological caucuses. Factions (formally referred…

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Watch: Former Congresswoman Barbara Comstock on Effective Lawmaking

On December 2, the Center for Effective Lawmaking was honored to host Former Congresswoman Barbara Comstock (R-VA) at the University of Virginia. Mrs. Comstock's LES for the 115th Congress was a very high 3.706, ranking her 10th of her party (read more about the findings and analysis from the 115th Congress here). As speaker for the Batten Hour, she spoke at length on building coalitions and how we can increase diversity in representation. Watch the entire Batten Hour presentation here:

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Do Constituents Know (or Care) about the Lawmaking Effectiveness of their Representatives?

Do Constituents Know (or Care) about the Lawmaking Effectiveness of their Representatives? With Election Day quickly approaching, voters everywhere are readying themselves to cast their vote for their candidate of choice. While voters consider a wide array of factors when determining who to vote for, we sought to explore whether a representative’s lawmaking effectiveness might influence a voter’s evaluation of his/her potential choices? Substantial evidence exists that members of the U.S. Congress vary in their lawmaking effectiveness; and many classic studies of congress point to examples of Representatives and Senators…

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Small Grant Awards 2019-2020 Announced

2019-2020 Small Grant Awards Announced It is with honor and excitement that we announce our 2nd annual small grant awards and recipients. Last year was the inaugural year of the program, and the body of academic research produced was impressive and critical to the field. We know that this year's group of awardees will deliver the same high caliber scholarly work.The CEL’s funding and support for research grants is consistent with its commitment to advancing the generation, communication, and use of new knowledge about the effectiveness of individual lawmakers and…

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New Research About Women’s Advancement in Politics

New Research on Women's Advancement in Politics and the Gender Gap New research coming from our 2018-2019 small grant program has huge implications regarding the prospects for career advancement among female congressional staff. CEL affiliates and grant awardees Melinda N. Ritchie and Hye Young You find that female staff members experience slower rates of promotion and lower levels of compensation than male staff members at the same rank, and that this gender gap is most substantial for positions that present the greatest structural challenges for women. These differences appear to…

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2018-2019 Annual Report Now Available

The Center for Effective Lawmaking 2018-2019 Annual Report Welcome to the 2019 edition of the Center for Effective Lawmaking Annual Report.  This overview report represents our annual means of spreading the word about the accomplishments, broad goals, and future plans for the Center.   In a time when observers of politics have been quick to lament political polarization in the United States, and express frustration about the inability of our lawmaking institutions to engage with pressing policy problems, we strive to draw on our skills as social scientists and academic scholars…

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