Blog – Center for Effective Lawmaking

Introducing our CEL Summer Intern 2021

Introducing our 2021 Summer Intern We are excited once again this year to offer a summer internship program at the Center for Effective Lawmaking.Shanthi Ashok is a rising junior at Oakton High School in Fairfax, Virginia. She is the Founder and President of her school’s People of Color (POC) Coalition, a Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Student Equity Ambassador Leader, and Co-Founder and Co-President of Prep Leaders, an after-school tutoring, leadership, and career readiness program for FCPS elementary and middle schoolers (aiming to bridge academic income-based achievement gaps). Shanthi’s notable…

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July 20, 2021

Health Policy Legislative Effectiveness Scores: Highlights from the 116th Congress

Health Policy Legislative Effectiveness Scores: Highlights from the 116th Congress Which lawmakers are best able to move health policy changes through Congress, and why? In March, the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) released our Legislative Effectiveness Scores (LES) for the recently completed 116th Congress (2019-21). We also scored members of the House and Senate based on their interest in and effectiveness at lawmaking within twenty-one different policy areas, ranging from Agriculture to Immigration to Transportation. In addition to a historical consideration of the data (our scores extend back to 1973),…

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June 29, 2021

Conversations with Lawmakers / Video

Discussing Legislative Effectiveness with Representative Joe Neguse

Discussing Legislative Effectiveness with Representative Joe Neguse Representative Joe Neguse (D, CO-2) was identified by the Center for Effective Lawmaking as one of the top-ten most effective Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House in the 116th Congress. His high Legislative Effectiveness Score (LES) also made him the most effective freshman lawmaker in the 116th Congress; and he was also identified as the most effective Democratic lawmaker on legislation that engaged with Public Lands policies in that Congress. Representative Neguse was elected to his first term in November 2018, becoming the…

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June 17, 2021

Conversations with Lawmakers

Discussing Lawmaking with Former House Parliamentarian Tom Wickham

Discussing Lawmaking with Former House Parliamentarian Tom Wickham Watch as the Co-Directors of the Center for Effective Lawmaking interview Tom Wickham on lawmaking effectiveness, what advice he would give to new members of Congress today, as well as trends and changes he's noticed over the years. Mr. Tom Wickham, former Parliamentarian of the U.S. House of Representatives, serves as senior vice president of State & Local Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Wickham leads the Chamber’s new initiative that monitors state and local policy developments and coordinates state…

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June 2, 2021

Events / Legislative Effectiveness Scores / Video

Measuring Congress: A Discussion with the BPC

Measuring Congress: A Discussion with the BPC On May 21, 2021, the Center for Effective Lawmaking participated in a panel discussion, hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, on modernizing Congress. Joined by experts in the field, CEL Co-Director Craig Volden shared how we can modernize Congress by measuring Congress. The CEL's Legislative Effectiveness Scores can function as a metric to hold Congress accountable. Watch the entire conversation below: https://youtu.be/uxSTbC0OXlc

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May 27, 2021

Legislative Research

Are Bipartisan Lawmakers More Effective?

Are Bipartisan Lawmakers More Effective? The 117th Congress wrestles with the Biden administration agenda and pressing policy challenges during an increasingly polarized time for American politics. The question looming large over all of these discussions is whether bipartisanship is dead.We find that, even in these politically polarized times, being a bipartisan lawmaker yields legislative payoffs.The Center for Effective Lawmaking has published new research drawing on data from the 93rd-114th Congresses (1973-2016). We explore whether attracting a larger proportion of cosponsors from the opposing party helps Senators and Representatives advance their…

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April 22, 2021

Conversations with Lawmakers

Discussing Legislative Effectiveness with Senator Gary Peters

Discussing Legislative Effectiveness with Senator Gary Peters Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat who has served Michigan in the House since 2009, and served in the Senate since 2015, was named the most effective Senator in the 116th Congress. We had the opportunity to interview the Senator about legislative effectiveness, bipartisanship, bridging House-Senate differences, and more. Watch the next interview in our Conversations with Lawmakers series as Professors Craig Volden (UVA) and Alan E. Wiseman (Vanderbilt University), Co-Directors of the Center for Effective Lawmaking, and the Senator discuss a wide array…

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April 15, 2021

Legislative Effectiveness Scores

WATCH: A Discussion on the Most Effective Lawmakers of the 116th Congress

WATCH: A Conversation on the Most Effective Lawmakers of the 116th Congress On March 22, 2021, the Center for Effective Lawmaking's new research was the feature of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy's Batten Hour. In this one-hour public event, Co-Director Craig Volden shared our newest legislative effectiveness scores and CEL Faculty Affiliate and UVA Professor Gerry Warburg shared his thoughts based on years of experience on The Hill.The discussion was lively, interesting and provided great insight as to how the research of the Center for Effective…

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March 31, 2021

Legislative Effectiveness Scores

Highlights from the New 116th Congress Legislative Effectiveness Scores

Highlights from the New 116th Congress Legislative Effectiveness Scores The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is pleased to announce the release of the Legislative Effectiveness Scores (LES) for the recently-completed 116th Congress (2019-21). As in all previous releases, the scores are based on the combination of fifteen metrics regarding the bills that each member of Congress sponsors, how far they move through the lawmaking process, and how substantial their policy proposals are. The scores are normalized to an average value of 1.0 in both the House and the Senate. More…

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March 10, 2021

Events / Legislative Research

Reforming Congress, A Conversation with Sunwater Institute

Reforming Congress, A Conversation with Sunwater Institute The Center for Effective Lawmaking’s Co-Directors, Professor Craig Volden and Professor Alan E. Wiseman, had the opportunity to engage in an in-depth conversation with Matthew Chervenak, Founder & President of the Sunwater Institute, about Congressional reform and what concerns and recommendations we can identify based on the research at the CEL. In a two-part video series, now available online, the dialogue touches on everything from what motivated the CEL Co-Directors to bring rigorous data analysis on lawmaking effectiveness to the field of political…

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February 17, 2021

University of Virginia+Vanderbilt University

University of Virginia
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Vanderbilt University