Cover Bills Tuesday, April 21, 2026Legislators sometimes vote on bills that fail but, in the process, allow lawmakers to take an extreme position before ultimately voting to compromise. These proposals are commonly known as cover bills. Through two survey experiments featured in a newly published paper in Legislative Studies Quarterly, Assistant Professor and Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) Faculty Affiliate Christian Fong and PhD candidate Nicolas Florez (both of the University of Michigan) show that primary voters are more supportive of a compromiser if that legislator first votes for a…

Building Effective Legislation in the Commonwealth On Friday, March 27, 2026, the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) co-hosted a seminar along with the Virginia chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN) titled “Building Effective Legislation in the Commonwealth.” Scholars from the University of Virginia (UVA) and across the state enjoyed a day of discussion and skill-building, focused on how to strengthen their policy engagement and impact. The event was held at Garrett Hall, which houses the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at UVA.The seminar opened with an…

Shuwanza Goff and Craig Volden (from left to right). CEL EVENT: A View from the Executive and Legislative Branches Monday, February 16, 2026On Monday, February 9, the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) held a presentation entitled “A View from the Executive and Legislative Branches” as part of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy’s Batten Hour series. The panel discussion featured Shuwanza Goff, a veteran congressional staffer and former director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs under President Joe Biden who now serves on the CEL…

Legislative Effectiveness and Informal Institutions: Evidence from Latin America Tuesday, January 6, 2026 In fragmented presidential systems, there is discussion about why some legislators are more effective than others. In an article published in Latin American Politics and Society, Beatriz Rey examines Brazil’s highly fractionalized party system to understand how lawmakers advance legislation when parties fail to provide sufficient coordination. The study argues that legislative member organizations (LMOs) supply policy expertise and political information that parties often lack, enabling legislators to sponsor and shepherd bills more effectively. Rey tests this argument…

2025: A Year in Review As 2025 draws to a close, we at the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) wanted to take the time to reflect on our accomplishments this year. These included, but were not limited, to the following:Updating our Legislative Effectiveness Scores for the 118th Congress (including for issue areas) and sharing our congressional New Member Guide with every newly elected member of the House and Senate, as well as at regularly held briefings and sessions with congressional staff.Announcing the release of our State Legislative Effectiveness Scores, with…

(l-r) Kevin Kosar, Molly Reynolds, Danielle Thomsen, and Daniel Stid. The Money Signal—How Fundraising Matters in American Politics Thursday, December 11, 2025On Thursday, December 4, 2025, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held a panel discussion to mark the publication of a book written by Danielle M. Thomsen, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine and Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) faculty affiliate and advisory board member. Titled “The Money Signal—How Fundraising Matters in American Politics,” the book examines how congressional fundraising has changed over the years and…

Center for Effective Lawmaking 2025 Annual Report The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is celebrating another successful year with the release of our annual report. Founded in 2017 as a joint venture between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, the Center’s trusted methodology and analyses have been cited in hundreds of news articles and widely used by lawmakers and their staffs, scholars, and many others around the country who care about effective lawmaking.Highlights over the last year include:Updating our Legislative Effectiveness…