Predicting Partnerships: Congressional Issue Agreement and Legislative Collaboration

Thursday, October 29, 2026

Congress is a collaborative institution. But how do members identify legislative partners? Past research has emphasized social ties and common traits as links by which members establish relationships. But a new Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper by Colin Case, Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa, and Emily Cottle Ommundsen, Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi (and CEL Faculty Affiliate), suggests a key connection remains overlooked: policy-level agreement. Shared policy goals provide a basis for connection that is often unexplained by existing understandings of partnerships, including partnerships transcending party lines. Using data from congressional campaign websites and legislative coauthorships, the authors uncover the extent to which positions members take during their campaign predict their likelihood of collaborating with colleagues who express similar preferences on the same issue. They find, even across party lines, that members are more likely to collaborate on an issue with a member who expressed a similar policy goal, regardless of other issue-level preferences. This project provides a policy-level explanation for how members identify legislative collaborators and explains partnerships that otherwise remain surprising — particularly those bridging the ideological divide.

The research for this working paper was supported by a CEL small grant award.

To learn more, read the full report here.

“A Close-Up Shot of People Shaking Hands” by Gustavo Fring is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.