Center for Effective Lawmaking

Center for Effective Lawmaking

University of Virginia
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Vanderbilt University

CEL presentation to the LEGIS Congressional Fellows
Events / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

CEL presentation to the LEGIS Congressional Fellows

CEL presentation to the LEGIS Congressional Fellows On February 23, 2024, the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) gave our annual presentation to the LEGIS Congressional Fellowship program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. The LEGIS program is composed of a bipartisan group of professionals from government agencies selected by offices in both chambers of Congress to learn about the lawmaking process and serve as subject-matter policy experts for legislators. As in previous years, co-directors Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman (of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy…

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February 28, 2024
The Conditional Lawmaking Benefits of Party Faction Membership in Congress
Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

The Conditional Lawmaking Benefits of Party Faction Membership in Congress

The Conditional Lawmaking Benefits of Party Faction Membership in Congress In this new Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) paper published in Political Research Quarterly, CEL co-directors Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University respectively, alongside Lafayette College’s Andrew Clark (also a CEL Faculty Affiliate), examine how joining a party faction can impact a lawmaker’s effectiveness. Party faction membership has been shown to increase lawmakers' electoral success, but this paper investigates if the benefits persist once those lawmakers enter Congress. The authors’ research tests three…

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February 14, 2024
Polarization and Lawmaking Effectiveness in the United States Congress
Center Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Polarization and Lawmaking Effectiveness in the United States Congress

Polarization and Lawmaking Effectiveness in the United States Congress Political scientists have emphasized the rightward ideological movement of congressional Republicans across recent decades, relative to a more limited leftward shift by Democrats. However, new research from Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) co-directors Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman (of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, respectively), and CEL Graduate Affiliate Patrick Buhr (also of Vanderbilt) argue that this asymmetric polarization has not translated into an equally conservative shift in lawmaking. Drawing on data on the lawmaking effectiveness of Representatives and…

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February 7, 2024
I’m Coming Out! How Voter Discrimination Produces Effective LGBTQ Lawmakers
Center Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

I’m Coming Out! How Voter Discrimination Produces Effective LGBTQ Lawmakers

I’m Coming Out! How Voter Discrimination Produces Effective LGBTQ Lawmakers In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, the University of Virginia's Jacob Lollis and Mackenzie Dobson (CEL Graduate Affiliate) look into the effectiveness of LGBTQ lawmakers. The authors expand on earlier research that connects voter discrimination to effective lawmaking and argue that the prejudice that LGBTQ legislators face from voters enables them to be effective lawmakers. To test this, Lollis and Dobson take data on state legislators’ sexual identity and compare it to data on state legislative effectiveness…

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October 31, 2023
Pivots or Partisans?: Proposal-Making Strategy and Status Quo Selection in Congress
Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Pivots or Partisans?: Proposal-Making Strategy and Status Quo Selection in Congress

Pivots or Partisans? Proposal-Making Strategy and Status Quo Selection in Congress Lawmakers 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 Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, political scientists Jesse Crosson (CEL Faculty Affiliate), Alexander Furnas, and Geoffrey Lorenz (CEL Faculty Affiliate) address these obstacles and analyze the proposal strategies of effective…

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September 27, 2023
How Modern Lawmakers Advertise Their Legislative Effectiveness to Constituents
Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

How Modern Lawmakers Advertise Their Legislative Effectiveness to Constituents

How Modern Lawmakers Advertise Their Legislative Effectiveness to Constituents In a complex information environment, members of Congress must communicate to their constituents their value as a representative. Specifically, they aim to convince voters that they are effective representatives and therefore ought to be reelected. Modern scholarship has focused largely on legislators’ effectiveness as lawmakers in areas like bill introduction, sponsorship, and shepherding of legislation through congressional procedures. But legislators do more than traditional lawmaking activities; they also engage in representational acts of advocacy and district-focused activity. This expanded notion of…

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August 7, 2023
Expertise Acquisition in Congress
Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Expertise Acquisition in Congress

Expertise Acquisition in Congress Staff members are an essential part of a well-functioning Congress, as is the expertise they acquire and use to do their jobs. It is therefore important to understand what factors contribute to or detract from staff investing in acquiring expertise and learning new skills. To examine these ideas, Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) Faculty Affiliate Christian Fong and his co-authors Kenneth Lowande and Adam Rauh – all of the University of Michigan – advance a theory of skill acquisition, rooted in the field of labor economics, and apply it to the problem of congressional oversight of the executive branch.…

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July 25, 2023
Just How Unorthodox? Assessing Lawmaking on Omnibus Spending Bills
Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Just How Unorthodox? Assessing Lawmaking on Omnibus Spending Bills

Just How Unorthodox? Assessing Lawmaking on Omnibus Spending Bills Scholars commonly observe that lawmaking in Congress has transitioned from the textbook system of “regular order” in which power was decentralized in committees and lawmaking followed a formal process to one of “unorthodox lawmaking” characterized by the centralization of power in party leaders and a lack of formal process. It is debated whether this change marks a decline in Congress’s lawmaking capacity, or is a procedural adaptation that has allowed Congress to remain productive despite high levels of partisanship. In this…

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June 21, 2023
The Legislative Success of “Giant Killers”
Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

The Legislative Success of “Giant Killers”

The Legislative Success of “Giant Killers” Incumbent members of Congress are difficult to defeat in elections: since the early 1970s, fewer than 10 percent of all those who have run against them have been successful. In this paper, 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 rare challengers who knock off incumbents they nickname “Giant Killers” and find that they have greater than expected legislative success after…

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June 20, 2023
The CEL’s 2023 Award for Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking
Conference / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

The CEL’s 2023 Award for Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking

The CEL's 2023 Award for Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) was excited to announce the recipient of the 2023 Award for the Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking at our Fifth Annual Research Conference, at Vanderbilt University on June 5, 2023. The recipient of this year’s award is Todd Makse of Florida International University, for his 2022 article in Political Research Quarterly titled “Instant Credibility: The Conditional Role of Professional Background in Policymaking Success.”In this work, Makse posits the hypothesis that lawmakers can gain credibility…

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June 15, 2023

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