CEL affiliates during a dinner at the end of APSA CEL at APSA 2026 Thursday, September 17, 2026Between September 2-5, the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) attended the annual American Political Science Association (APSA) conference in Boston, Massachusetts. The event brought together political scientists, scholars, and experts from across the discipline to participate and showcase their works to a broad audience, with panels and presentations that included the following from CEL affiliates (and others):The Impact of Public-Facing Personas on Legislative Activity in Congress – SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor (University of Virginia)Predicting…

Meet our Research Affiliates: Jordon Newton and Kisoo Kim The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is excited to announce our newest research affiliate, Dr. Jordon Newton, and the recent move of our current research affiliate, Dr. Kisoo Kim.Jordon Newton is a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University. His research examines how American political institutions shape representation by structuring the behavior of political elites and citizens. His current projects focus on how institutional rules and election laws influence democratic outcomes at the federal and state level, and the ways that local political…

Meet Our Graduate Affiliates: Chloe Lola Browne and Wahinya Njau Tuesday, September 1, 2026The Center for Effective Lawmaking is excited to introduce Chloe Lola Browne and Wahinya Njau as two of our newest Graduate Affiliates.Browne is a doctoral student at the University of Virginia studying American political institutions and research methodology. Her research interests include state politics, policy diffusion, and quantitative methodology. Prior to attending the University of Virginia, Browne was a Policy Fellow with the Correlates of State Policy Project for the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research. She also…

Meet our Faculty Affiliate: Jacob Lollis The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is pleased to announce Jacob Lollis as one of our newest faculty affiliates. Jacob Lollis is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Cincinnati, where he studies American political institutions, with a focus on representation, legislative behavior, and effective lawmaking. His current research examines the consequences of descriptive representation, the dynamics of bipartisanship, and the conditions that facilitate effective lawmaking in the U.S. Congress. Dr. Lollis earned his…

Meet our Faculty Affiliate: Mackenzie Dobson The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) is pleased to announce Mackenzie Dobson as one of our newest faculty affiliates, having recently been one of our graduate research affiliates. Mackenzie R. Dobson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research centers on bipartisan collaboration, effective lawmaking, and political representation in American legislatures. She studies how legislators build relationships across party lines, how those relationships shape policymaking and legislative success across policy areas, and how reform efforts, including those aimed…

Meet our new Advisory Board Member: Eileen Chou Thursday, August 20, 2026The Center for Effective Lawmaking is excited to welcome Eileen Chou to our Board of Advisors.Dr. Chou is the interim dean of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, leading a multidisciplinary faculty of scholars and practitioners committed to creating new knowledge, developing ethical and effective leaders, and advancing solutions to humanity’s greatest policy challenges.An award-winning scholar of organizational behavior, Dr. Chou studies the social, psychological, and organizational mechanisms that shape leadership,…

Policy Agendas, Effective Lawmaking, and Women’s Issues in State Legislatures Tuesday, August 4, 2026State 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 Affiliate),…

CEL on 1440 Explores Wednesday, July 29, 2026Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) Co-Director Craig Volden of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia was a guest on 1440 Explores to discuss why Congress has become dysfunctional and unpopular over the years – and how the reality of passing legislation is far different from the Schoolhouse Rock! “I’m Just a Bill” cartoon.In the video titled “How America Broke Congress,” hosted by 1440 Editor-in-Chief Sony Kassam, Professor Volden gives a brief history of Congress and…

Craig Volden, Alan Wiseman, Johnnie Kaberle, Chris Bertram, Bettina Poirier, Tom Kahn, and Chad Chirico (from left to right). Photo by Andrew Colford. Roadmap to the Budget Process Monday, July 27, 2026On Thursday, July 16, the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) co-hosted a panel discussion on Capitol Hill with American University’s Program on Legislative Negotiation (PLN) and the Partnership for a Secure America (PSA) entitled “Roadmap to the Budget Process.” Panelists highlighted core budget issues and their role in the authorization and appropriation processes. The importance of negotiation in budgetary matters was also a…

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…