Center for Effective Lawmaking

Center for Effective Lawmaking

University of Virginia
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Vanderbilt University

Meet our new Advisory Board Member: Leigh Ann Caldwell
About the CEL / Board of Advisors / Center Affiliates

Meet our new Advisory Board Member: Leigh Ann Caldwell

Meet our new Advisory Board Member: Leigh Ann Caldwell The Center for Effective Lawmaking is excited to welcome Leigh Ann Caldwell to our Board of Advisors.Ms. Caldwell is the Chief Washington Correspondent for Puck News and is an Emmy Award–winning veteran of various news outlets covering politics and policy on Capitol Hill. Previously, she was a senior reporter at The Washington Post, where she was co-author of The Post’s Early 202 and an anchor for Washington Post Live. Before joining The Post in 2022, she was a correspondent at NBC News. As a…

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July 10, 2025
Legislative Effectiveness, Progressive Ambition, and Electoral Success
Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / State Legislative Effectiveness Scores

Legislative Effectiveness, Progressive Ambition, and Electoral Success

Legislative Effectiveness, Progressive Ambition, and Electoral Success Monday, June 30, 2025In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Co-Directors Craig Volden (University of Virginia) and Alan Wiseman (Vanderbilt University), and Faculty Affiliates Danielle Thomsen (University of California-Irvine) and Sarah Treul (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) examine the question of whether effective state lawmakers are more likely than ineffective state lawmakers to be elected to Congress. The authors draw on the CEL's dataset of State Legislative Effectiveness Scores from 1993 to 2018 to examine the relationship between lawmaker effectiveness and the…

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June 30, 2025
Prior Experience and State Legislative Effectiveness
Blog / Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Effectiveness Scores / Legislative Research

Prior Experience and State Legislative Effectiveness

Prior Experience and State Legislative Effectiveness Tuesday, June 24, 2025How do the prior experiences of lawmakers shape their performance in office? Representatives who have held prior elected office or professional backgrounds in relevant fields—specifically law, government, or politics—seem to have an advantage in winning elections. It is unclear whether those experiences help them become more effective legislators. In this published paper in Legislative Studies Quarterly based on a Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Associate Professor Eric Hansen at Loyola University Chicago and Professor Sarah Treul (and CEL Faculty Affiliate) at the University of North…

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June 24, 2025
Strategies of Control: Members of Congress and Policy Outcomes
Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Strategies of Control: Members of Congress and Policy Outcomes

Strategies of Control: Members of Congress and Policy Outcomes Monday, June 23, 2025 Members of Congress enter their roles with various policies they hope to implement, but passing legislation is difficult. Lawmakers spend their tenure navigating complex procedures and institutional barriers created by the legislative process and the separation of powers. In this published paper in Legislative Studies Quarterly, Assistant Professor Erinn Lauterbach (Villanova University and Center for Effective Lawmaking Faculty Affiliate) and Associate Professor Melinda Ritchie (The Ohio State University) investigate how members of the House of Representatives leverage…

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June 23, 2025
Advancing the Study of Effective Lawmaking: Highlights from CEL’s 7th Annual Research Conference
About the CEL / Center Affiliates / Conference / Events / Faculty Affiliates

Advancing the Study of Effective Lawmaking: Highlights from CEL’s 7th Annual Research Conference

Group photo in the Commons Center (photo by Anne Rayner) Advancing the Study of Effective Lawmaking: Highlights from CEL’s 7th Annual Research Conference Nashville, TN – On Monday, June 2nd, 2025, the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) hosted its 7th annual research conference at Vanderbilt University. The conference brought together researchers and practitioners from around the country to share their latest research findings and to discuss trends in effective lawmaking in congress and state legislatures. The morning opened with remarks from CEL co-director Alan Wiseman, Associate Provost of Strategic Projects…

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June 11, 2025
Recognizing Innovation in Legislative Research: 2025 Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking Award
About the CEL / Center Affiliates / Conference / Events / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Recognizing Innovation in Legislative Research: 2025 Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking Award

Max Goplerud (R) being presented with the CEL’s Best Publication award by co-director Craig Volden (L) (Photo by Anne Rayner). Recognizing Innovation in Legislative Research: 2025 Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking Award​ The Center for Effective Lawmaking is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 Award for Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking, which was presented at our Seventh Annual Research Conference held at Vanderbilt University on Monday, June 2, 2025. This year’s award honors Fang-Yi Chiou (Academia Sinica) and Max Goplerud (University of Texas–Austin) for their article, “Effective Lawmaking…

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June 11, 2025
Measuring Partisanship and Representation in Online Congressional Communication
Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Measuring Partisanship and Representation in Online Congressional Communication

Measuring Partisanship and Representation in Online Congressional Communication Social media and the internet have created new ways for representatives to communicate. How have members of Congress responded to these opportunities? This is the subject of a Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper from Associate Professor (and CEL Faculty Affiliate) Michael Kistner, and Ph.D. candidates Robert Alvarez, Lucas Lothamer, and Maya Fitch (all of the University of Houston), as well as post-doctoral researcher Michael Heseltine of the University of Amsterdam and Associate Professor Elizabeth Simas of Texas A&M University. The…

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June 5, 2025
Getting what you pay for: Resource allocations and legislative success
Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Getting what you pay for: Resource allocations and legislative success

Getting what you pay for: Resource allocations and legislative success Thursday, May 29, 2025Members of Congress run for office with a variety of goals they hope to achieve if elected. How members go about achieving these goals is constrained by numerous institutional factors. Yet there exist two areas in which members are afforded broad discretion: the allocation of their time and budget. In this published paper in Legislative Studies Quarterly, Emily Cottle Ommundsen, Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi (and Center for Effective Lawmaking Faculty Affiliate), assesses the personal qualities…

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May 29, 2025
Pivots or Partisans? Proposal-Making Strategy and Status Quo Selection in Congress (Published Paper)
Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Pivots or Partisans? Proposal-Making Strategy and Status Quo Selection in Congress (Published Paper)

Pivots or Partisans? Proposal-Making Strategy and Status Quo Selection in Congress (Published Paper) Thursday, May 15Lawmakers vary considerably in how effectively they advance their priorities through Congress. However, the actual proposal-writing strategies undergirding these differences have remained largely unexplored, due to measurement and methodological difficulties. These obstacles have included prohibitively small sample sizes, costly data requirements, and strong theoretical assumptions. In this published paper in Quarterly Journal of Political Science and based on a Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Associate Professor Jesse Crosson of Purdue University (and CEL…

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May 15, 2025
Gendered Perceptions of Legislative Influence (Published Paper)
Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research / State Legislatures

Gendered Perceptions of Legislative Influence (Published Paper)

Gendered Perceptions of Legislative Influence (Published Paper) Tuesday, May 13, 2025In this published paper in Perspectives on Politics based on a Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Faculty Affiliate Jaclyn Kaslovsky (Washington University in St. Louis), Tabitha Koch (Rice University), and Michael P. Olson (also of Washington University) examine whether legislative and electoral accomplishments translate into perceived influence differently for women and men. Women legislators often report that they must work harder than men to achieve the same outcomes and recognition. Yet, little previous scholarship has quantitatively examined whether legislative…

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May 12, 2025

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