From Statehouses to Scholarship: The Effective Lawmaking in American State Legislatures Second Annual Conference
Nashville, TN – On Friday, February 27th, the Center for Effective Lawmaking hosted its second annual Effective Lawmaking in American State Legislatures conference at Vanderbilt University. As part of the Center for Effective Lawmaking’s mission to generate and advance research in legislative effectiveness in American state legislatures, thirty-one practitioners and researchers from institutions around the country were invited to Vanderbilt University to discuss timely topics in state legislative effectiveness. Topics included:
- The development and impact of party monopolies in state legislatures
- The influence of peers’ votes on other legislators’ roll call decisions
- Policy agendas and effective lawmaking
- The conditions under which bipartisanship contributes to lawmaking success
- How donors value legislators’ access to different procedural powers
- The relationship between media coverage and accountability in state legislatures
Together, these presentations examined both institutional incentives and individual behavior that influenced lawmaking effectiveness, offering new insights into the conditions under which state legislators are able to translate ideas into enacted policy.
“It is impressive to see the tremendous wave of new scholarship arising recently with a focus on effective lawmaking across the American states. Not only will this work move the scholarly literature forward, but the insights found here will be impactful in offering guidance to lawmakers themselves as they strive to address public policy challenges in their states,” commented CEL Co-Director Craig Volden.
Vivian Jones (left), reporter from The Tennessean, and Alan Wiseman (right), co-director of the CEL.
Later in the evening, conference participants attended a dinner where guest speaker Vivian Jones, a state politics reporter from The Tennessean, discussed her observations about state legislative politics over the years.
CEL Co-director Alan Wiseman noted that, “having the opportunity to talk with Ms. Jones about her perspectives on lawmaking in Tennessee and other states helped to provide some valuable context for the research that many of the conference attendees are currently undertaking. I was especially thankful that so many doctoral students were able to see the ways in which engaging with journalists and other practitioners who interact with politics can help to inform our research and teaching.”
As states continue to serve as laboratories of democratic governance, understanding what drives effective lawmaking in different states has never been more important. The conversations in Nashville reflected both the complexity of measuring legislative performance and the promise of new data and methodologies to deepen our understanding of these topics. The Center for Effective Lawmaking remains committed to advancing this research agenda and to convening the scholars and practitioners who shape it.
We are grateful to the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation for the financial support needed to make this conference possible.
