Meet our Research Affiliate: Connor Halloran Phillips
The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is excited to announce one of our newest research affiliates, Connor Halloran Phillips. He is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Political Science and Center for Effective Lawmaking at Vanderbilt University. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Democratic Politics. His research examines interest groups, parties, legislatures, and elections in the US with a focus on how federalism shapes phenomena such as partisan polarization and voter participation. In his current work, he leverages interest groups’ campaign contributions and ratings of state legislators to understand the strategies groups adopt in engaging with politics and to assess their role in promoting polarization at the state level. His other projects explore the impact of state and local electoral rules on voters’ choices regarding party registration and turnout as well as the relationship between growing extremism in state legislatures and the ideological positions of candidates for Congress. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University in 2023 and his B.A. in Political Science from Duke University in 2017.
We are excited to bring Dr. Phillips’ research to the CEL and look forward to his assistance in advancing the understanding of legislative effectiveness.
