Legislative Effectiveness – Center for Effective Lawmaking

The Legislative Effectiveness of Congressional Oversight Reports

The Legislative Effectiveness of Congressional Oversight Reports Wednesday, October 14, 2026In this published article in Legislative Studies Quarterly, Sean Theriault, Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) Faculty Affiliate, examines the linkage between House and Senate oversight committee reports and subsequent legislative efforts in the same policy areas from the 106th through the 116th Congresses (1999-2020). He finds that policy topics appearing in the reports prompt the referral of bills related to such topics to the oversight committees. Topics covered in majority staff…

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October 14, 2026

Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research

Bipartisan Political Brands

Bipartisan Political Brands Wednesday, September 30, 2026 Can efforts to cultivate a bipartisan political brand meaningfully shape how lawmakers are perceived, or are such signals dismissed in an increasingly polarized political environment? In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Faculty Affiliate Andrew J. Clarke, an associate professor of Government and Law at Lafayette College, and Christopher M. Byrnes, a Lafayette College alum, examine whether affiliation with the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus can influence perceptions of legislators’ ideology. Through a descriptive analysis of newly collected Problem Solvers Caucus membership…

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September 30, 2026

Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Effectiveness Scores / Legislative Research

Electable Effectiveness: How the Public Interprets Different Measures of Legislator Effectiveness

Electable Effectiveness: How the Public Interprets Different Measures of Legislator Effectiveness Thursday, September 24, 2026What does it mean to be an effective legislator in the eyes of constituents, and what kind of effectiveness do voters prefer? In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Peter T. McLaughlin, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, examines how legislative, distributive, and bipartisan effectiveness in the US Congress correlate with constituent support. Through a forced choice conjoint survey design to measure public preferences on the three forms of…

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September 24, 2026

Conversations with Lawmakers

Discussing Effective Lawmaking with Alaska Congressman Nick Begich

Discussing Effective Lawmaking with Alaska Congressman Nick Begich Congressman Nick Begich represents Alaska’s at-large congressional district. Before entering Congress, he built a career as a technology entrepreneur and business executive while serving in numerous civic and policy leadership roles in Alaska. His work in Congress has focused on energy development, transportation, Alaska Native issues, election administration, and emerging technologies.Congressman Nick Begich was born and raised in Anchorage, AK, until he moved to Florida to attend high school. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Baylor University in Texas and…

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September 8, 2026

Conversations with Lawmakers / State Legislatures

Discussing Effective Lawmaking with Arkansas Representative Andrew Collins

Discussing Effective Lawmaking with Arkansas Representative Andrew Collins Representative Andrew Collins is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, and has served in the Arkansas State House of Representatives since 2019, where he currently represents District 73, which runs from Pinnacle to Riverside and encompasses much of North and West Little Rock.Representative Collins earned a bachelor’s degree in history and public policy studies from Duke University. After graduating, he began his career with the AmeriCorps VISTA program, before earning his law degree from Columbia University Law School. He later returned to…

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August 18, 2026

Policy Agendas, Effective Lawmaking, and Women’s Issues in State Legislatures

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Center Affiliates / Faculty Affiliates / Interest & Legislative Effectiveness Scores / Legislative Anaylsis / Legislative Research / Policy Scores / State Legislative Effectiveness Scores / State Legislatures

Policy Agendas, Effective Lawmaking, and Women’s Issues in State Legislatures

Policy Agendas, Effective Lawmaking, and Women’s Issues in State Legislatures Tuesday, August 4, 2026 State legislatures introduce roughly 100,000 bills a year, far outpacing Congress, yet scholars have long lacked a reliable way to sort that volume into policy areas, making it hard to ask basic questions about which issues get attention, which stall, and who succeeds where. In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, the authors take on that challenge directly. It was written by Andrew M.O. Ballard, Associate Professor at Florida State University (and CEL Faculty…

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August 3, 2026

Conversations with Lawmakers / State Legislatures

Discussing Effective Lawmaking With Alabama Senator Arthur Orr

Discussing Effective Lawmaking With Alabama Senator Arthur Orr Senator Arthur Orr is a sixth-generation Alabamian, who grew up in Danville, Alabama, where he worked on the Alabama Sheriff’s Boys Ranch. He attended Wake Forest University, and as a student he served as chairman of the university Honor Council, received several academic honors, and held numerous leadership positions throughout the university. This pattern of leadership continued when he attended law school at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he earned leadership and academic honors while teaching freshman English and volunteering…

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August 3, 2026

Blog / Legislative Research / State Legislatures

How Do Women and Men Respond to More Women in the Legislature? A Study of Bill Introductions and Effectiveness

Wednesday, July 8, 2026 In this newly published paper in Political Research Quarterly, Emma Schroeder (Texas Christian University) examines how increasing numbers of women in state legislatures influence the legislative behavior of women and men, using bill introduction data and legislative effectiveness scores from 49 U.S. state legislatures. She finds that in upper chambers with more women, women serve as the primary sponsors of fewer bills than men. However, when both primary sponsorship and cosponsorship are considered, women contribute to more bills than men in both chambers. This relationship varies…

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July 8, 2026

The CEL’s 2026 Award for Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking

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About the CEL / Center Affiliates / Conference / Faculty Affiliates / Legislative Anaylsis

The CEL’s 2026 Award for Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking

The CEL's 2026 Award for Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking Wednesday, July 1, 2026The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2026 Award for the Best Publication on Effective Lawmaking. The recipients of this year’s award are Charles R. Hunt (Boise State University) and Kristina C. Miler (University of Maryland and CEL Faculty Affiliate) for their article in the Journal of Politics, “How Modern Lawmakers Advertise Their Legislative Effectiveness to Constituents.”In the paper, the authors explain how in a complex information environment, members of…

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July 1, 2026

State Highlights / State Legislative Effectiveness Scores / State Legislatures

Announcing the Release of the 2024-2025 Virginia General Assembly’s and the 221st New Jersey Legislature’s (2024-2025) State Legislative Effectiveness Scores (SLES)

Announcing the Release of the 2024-2025 Virginia General Assembly’s and the 221st New Jersey Legislature’s (2024-2025) State Legislative Effectiveness Scores (SLES) The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is proud to announce the release of our State Legislative Effectiveness Scores (SLES) for the 2024-2025 Virginia General Assembly and the 221st New Jersey Legislature legislative sessions. This initiative is part of our broader effort to measure the lawmaking effectiveness of individual legislators in all 99 state legislative chambers in the United States. These scores capture lawmaking effectiveness by tracking the number of…

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June 25, 2026