Center for Effective Lawmaking

Meet our Faculty Affiliate: Michael Kistner

Meet our Faculty Affiliate: Michael Kistner The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is pleased to announce Michael Kistner as one of our newest faculty affiliates. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston. He studies representation, policymaking, and the influence of money in American legislatures (both in Congress and the states). In Professor Kistner's award-winning book manuscript Paying for the Party: How Fundraising Demands Lead to Less Productive and Representative Legislatures, Kistner explores the causes and consequences of party-driven fundraising demands. His research has been…

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Meet our Faculty Affiliate: Jaclyn Kaslovsky

Meet our Faculty Affiliate: Jaclyn Kaslovsky The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is thrilled to announce one of our newest faculty affiliates, Jaclyn Kaslovsky. Kaslovsky is an Assistant Professor at the Washington University in St. Louis. She specializes in American politics, focusing on Congress, representation, and women in politics. In her current work, Professor Kaslovsky analyzes how legislators choose to allocate their resources, including their time and staff, and the effect of these choices on the legislator-constituent relationship. Professor Kaslovsky's other projects leverage unique time series and congressional speech datasets…

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Meet our Faculty Affiliate: Andrew Ballard

Meet our Faculty Affiliate: Andrew Ballard The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is excited to announce one of our newest faculty affiliates, Andrew Ballard. Professor Ballard serves as an assistant professor of Political Science at Florida State University. He studies American politics with a particular interest in legislative institutions, political parties, and the interplay between legislators and the public. Some of the overarching topics he investigates are the influence of minority parties over legislation, how party goals drive legislative behavior, why some legislators and citizens are more willing to compromise…

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Effective Lawmaking Behind the Scenes
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Effective Lawmaking Behind the Scenes

Effective Lawmaking Behind the Scenes In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Co-Directors Craig Volden (University of Virginia) and Alan Wiseman (Vanderbilt University), and Faculty Affiliates Mary Kroeger (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Erinn Lauterbach (Villanova University), and Kelsey Shoub (University of Massachusetts-Amherst) demonstrate how behind-the-scenes lawmaking has become much more common in the U.S. Congress in recent years, with numerous bills embedded in must-pass legislation. Building on previous political science research, they offer a methodology to identify all bills that are substantially embedded in all laws in both…

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Legislative Effectiveness: The Elements of Success

Legislative Effectiveness: The Elements of Success The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) co-directors Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman recently wrote an essay titled “Legislative Effectiveness: The Elements of Success” which was published in the Summer 2024 issue of the quarterly political journal Democracy as part of the symposium “Revitalizing Political Leadership.” The article examines the role of state legislatures in developing effective lawmakers at both the state and federal levels, based on the analysis of the CEL’s Legislative Effectiveness Scores (which measure lawmaking effectiveness of members of Congress) and the…

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The CEL’s 2024 Award for Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking

Ju Yeon “Julia” Park (r) being presented with the CEL’s Best Publication award by co-director Craig Volden (l) (Photo by Jenna Huber, Batten School). The CEL's 2024 Award for Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) was pleased to announce the recipient of the 2024 Award for the Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking at our Sixth Annual Research Conference, at the University of Virginia on Monday, June 10, 2024. The recipients of this year’s award are Pamela Ban (UC San Diego), Ju Yeon “Julia” Park (The Ohio…

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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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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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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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2023-2024 Small Grant Awards Announced

2023-2024 Small Grant Awards Announced The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is proud to present its 6th annual small grant awards and recipients. The awards are given to distinguished individuals who are researching topics which connect to the mission of the CEL to advance the generation, communication, and use of new knowledge about the effectiveness of individual lawmakers and legislative institutions. This group will join previous grant recipients who have made insightful contributions to the field and broadened the discussions around the topics within it. We are honored to support…

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