Colin Achilles – Center for Effective Lawmaking

Cover Bills

Cover Bills Tuesday, April 21, 2026Legislators sometimes vote on bills that fail but, in the process, allow lawmakers to take an extreme position before ultimately voting to compromise. These proposals are commonly known as cover bills. Through two survey experiments featured in a newly published paper in Legislative Studies Quarterly, Assistant Professor and Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) Faculty Affiliate Christian Fong and PhD candidate Nicolas Florez (both of the University of Michigan) show that primary voters are more supportive of a compromiser if that legislator first votes for a cover…

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April 21, 2026

Events / Legislative Research / State Legislatures

Building Effective Legislation in the Commonwealth

Building Effective Legislation in the Commonwealth On Friday, March 27, 2026, the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) co-hosted a seminar along with the Virginia chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN) titled “Building Effective Legislation in the Commonwealth.” Scholars from the University of Virginia (UVA) and across the state enjoyed a day of discussion and skill-building, focused on how to strengthen their policy engagement and impact. The event was held at Garrett Hall, which houses the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at UVA.The seminar opened with an introduction…

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April 7, 2026

About the CEL

2025: A Year in Review

2025: A Year in Review As 2025 draws to a close, we at the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) wanted to take the time to reflect on our accomplishments this year. These included, but were not limited, to the following:Updating our Legislative Effectiveness Scores for the 118th Congress (including for issue areas) and sharing our congressional New Member Guide with every newly elected member of the House and Senate, as well as at regularly held briefings and sessions with congressional staff.Announcing the release of our State Legislative Effectiveness Scores, with individual reports on California, Georgia, Illinois, Montana,…

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December 19, 2025

Board of Advisors / Center Affiliates / Events / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research / Video

The Money Signal—How Fundraising Matters in American Politics

(l-r) Kevin Kosar, Molly Reynolds, Danielle Thomsen, and Daniel Stid. The Money Signal—How Fundraising Matters in American Politics Thursday, December 11, 2025On Thursday, December 4, 2025, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held a panel discussion to mark the publication of a book written by Danielle M. Thomsen, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine and Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) faculty affiliate and advisory board member. Titled “The Money Signal—How Fundraising Matters in American Politics,” the book examines how congressional fundraising has changed over the years and…

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December 11, 2025

About the CEL

Center for Effective Lawmaking 2025 Annual Report

Center for Effective Lawmaking 2025 Annual Report The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is celebrating another successful year with the release of our annual report. Founded in 2017 as a joint venture between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, the Center’s trusted methodology and analyses have been cited in hundreds of news articles and widely used by lawmakers and their staffs, scholars, and many others around the country who care about effective lawmaking.Highlights over the last year include:Updating our Legislative Effectiveness Scores for…

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November 24, 2025

About the CEL / Interest & Legislative Effectiveness Scores / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Effectiveness Scores / Legislative Research

Highlights from the New 118th Congress Interest & Legislative Effectiveness Scores

Highlights from the New 118th Congress Interest & Legislative Effectiveness Scores By Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman, Co-Directors, Center for Effective LawmakingWednesday, November 19, 2025The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is pleased to announce the release of the Interest & Legislative Effectiveness Scores (ILES) in each of 21 different issue areas for the 118th Congress (2023-25). These categories are based on issue area codes from the Comparative Agendas Project with bill issue codings drawn from www.congress.gov. The methodology that we employed to construct these issue-based scores is the same as…

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November 19, 2025

Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

The Legislative Success of “Giant Killers” in the U.S. House

The Legislative Success of “Giant Killers” in the U.S. House Monday, November 3, 2025In modern congressional elections, fewer than 10% of candidates who run against sitting members of Congress win and yet they comprise as much as 30% of the House in any given congress. In this forthcoming paper in Political Science Quarterly, Sean Theriault, Professor at The University of Texas at Austin and Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) Faculty Affiliate, along with Jared Hrebenar and Isabel Reyna, examine the legislative effectiveness of those relatively rare challengers who knock off incumbents.…

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November 3, 2025

Center Affiliates / Events / Faculty Affiliates

CEL at APSA 2025

CEL at APSA 2025 Tuesday, October 21, 2025Between September 11-14, the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) attended the annual American Political Science Association (APSA) conference in Vancouver, Canada titled “Reimagining Politics, Power, and Peoplehood in Crisis Times”. The event allowed for more than 5,000 political scientists, scholars, and experts across the discipline to participate and showcase their works to the broader audience, with panels and presentations that included the following from CEL affiliates (and others):Accountability in Darkness: The Effects of Local Media Closures on Legislators – Kisoo Kim (University of Virginia)Congressional…

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October 21, 2025

About the CEL / Board of Advisors

Meet our new Advisory Board Member: Jill Tolles

Meet our new Advisory Board Member: Jill Tolles Monday, October 13, 2025The Center for Effective Lawmaking is excited to welcome Jill Tolles to our Board of Advisors.Tolles is the Executive Director of the Kenny Guinn Center for Policy Priorities. She has taught at the University of Nevada since 2005, where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Communication Studies. She is also on the faculty of the National Judicial College, where she teaches courtroom management, collaborative decision-making, and procedural fairness to judges from around the nation and the world.Prior to…

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October 13, 2025

Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

The (Sometimes Untraceable) Origins of Policy Ideas in Congress: An Analysis of Seven Landmark Laws

The (Sometimes Untraceable) Origins of Policy Ideas in Congress: An Analysis of Seven Landmark Laws Research on lawmaking suggests legislative enactments are constructed in various ways. Although multiple approaches are documented in the literature, political scientists do not conclusively know which are used more often. In this paper published in Legislative Studies Quarterly – which was supported by a small grant award from the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) – Jeremy Gelman, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Reno, examines how laws are created by studying seven modern…

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October 7, 2025