About News Volden: Committee Chairs Continue Their Lawmaking Decline Mar 25, 2021 Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman Volden: Committee Chairs Continue Their Lawmaking Decline Photo Courtesy of The Hill. (Greg Nash)Committee chairs have long been considered power brokers for lawmaking. But in the recently completed 116th Congress, their lawmaking effectiveness continued a downward slide. How do you measure lawmaking effectiveness? At the Center for Effective Lawmaking, we developed a scoring system that combines fifteen metrics, capturing how many public bills each member of Congress introduces, how far those bills advance through the lawmaking process and how substantively significant they are. We use these scores to rank every member — relative to one another, relative to benchmarks and within 21 issue areas — in their lawmaking success. Read full article in The Hill Craig Volden Craig Volden is a professor of public policy and politics, with appointments in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics. He studies legislative politics and the interaction among political institutions, including within American federalism. Read full bio Related Content Craig Volden Spatial Models of Legislative Effectiveness Research Spatial models of policymaking have evolved from the median voter theorem through the inclusion of institutional considerations such as political parties, committees, and various voting and amendment rules. Such models, however, implicitly assume that no policy is more effective than another at solving public policy problems and that all proposers are equally capable of advancing proposals. Party Calls and Reelection in the US Senate Research Minozzi and Volden advance the idea that a substantial portion of partisan voting activity in Congress is a simple call to unity that is especially easily embraced by ideological extremists. If correct, Minozzi and Volden’s findings should extend from the House to the Senate, despite differences in institutional structures and in tools at the disposal of party leaders across the two chambers. Why Do Bad Policies So Often Spread But Good Ones Don’t? News In their new book "Why bad policies spread (and good one’s don’t)," Batten's Craig Volden and Charles R. Shipan draw from a wide range of policy domains to examine whether states learn from another to improve the spread of good or effective policies, which policies spread for which reasons and which conditions lead to good or bad policies to spread, among other core questions. Faculty Spotlight: Improving the Way We Make Laws, with Science News Batten Professor Craig Volden no longer designs spacecraft—instead, he’s engineering a metric to combat political gridlock. Stay Up To Date with the Latest Batten News and Events Subscribe
Craig Volden Craig Volden is a professor of public policy and politics, with appointments in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics. He studies legislative politics and the interaction among political institutions, including within American federalism. Read full bio
Spatial Models of Legislative Effectiveness Research Spatial models of policymaking have evolved from the median voter theorem through the inclusion of institutional considerations such as political parties, committees, and various voting and amendment rules. Such models, however, implicitly assume that no policy is more effective than another at solving public policy problems and that all proposers are equally capable of advancing proposals.
Party Calls and Reelection in the US Senate Research Minozzi and Volden advance the idea that a substantial portion of partisan voting activity in Congress is a simple call to unity that is especially easily embraced by ideological extremists. If correct, Minozzi and Volden’s findings should extend from the House to the Senate, despite differences in institutional structures and in tools at the disposal of party leaders across the two chambers.
Why Do Bad Policies So Often Spread But Good Ones Don’t? News In their new book "Why bad policies spread (and good one’s don’t)," Batten's Craig Volden and Charles R. Shipan draw from a wide range of policy domains to examine whether states learn from another to improve the spread of good or effective policies, which policies spread for which reasons and which conditions lead to good or bad policies to spread, among other core questions.
Faculty Spotlight: Improving the Way We Make Laws, with Science News Batten Professor Craig Volden no longer designs spacecraft—instead, he’s engineering a metric to combat political gridlock.