Professor Lee Headlines Congress Roundtable

At a time when the efficacy and efficiency of Congress is being debated and scrutinized, Professor Frances Lee of the Department of Government and Politics was called upon to address members of Congress and to offer perspectives on the institution at a special event held in the Library of Congress.

Professor Lee recently participated in a roundtable, “The Evolving Congress,” a discussion hosted in conjunction with the publication of a major report of the same name produced by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Both the report and the event were designed to encourage members of Congress to reflect on the contemporary institution in light of history. All members of Congress were invited to the event, and an estimated 45 members attended the discussion.

Professor Lee spoke on the ways the institution and the roles of members of Congress have evolved over the past 50 years. She also focused on key institutional changes in Congress, including the intensification of competition for two-party control of the institution; the extent to which stronger partisanship in Congress is representative of the broader American public; and the ways that congressional gridlock empowers the Courts and the executive branch.

She was joined in the roundtable by Washington Post columnists Michael Gerson and E.J. Dionne, and by John Haskell of CRS, who moderated the discussion.

“It is exceptionally rare for a political scientist who studies Congress to have an opportunity to share insights with an audience of sitting members of Congress,” Professor Lee said. “I hugely enjoyed the opportunity to see how my perspectives on how the institution had changed would resonate with members.”

Professor Lee was invited to speak at the event because of her extensive research and expertise in American governing institutions, especially the U.S. Congress. She teaches courses in American government, the public policy process, legislative politics and political institutions.

She is author of Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate (University of Chicago Press, 2009), and is the coauthor of Sizing Up The Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation (University of Chicago Press 1999). She also is coauthor of a comprehensive textbook on the U.S. Congress, Congress and Its Members (Sage / CQ Press). Professor Lee’s research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics and in Legislative Studies Quarterly. She serves as co-editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly, a scholarly journal specializing in legislatures.

Professor Lee’s work has received national recognition, including the American Political Science Association’s E. E. Schattschneider Award for the best dissertation in American Politics in 1997; the APSA's Richard F. Fenno Award for the best book on legislative politics in 2009; and the D. B. Hardeman Award presented by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Award for the best book on a congressional topic in 1999.

Photo courtesy of Glen Fuhrmeister.

Published on Mon, May 4, 2015 - 4:15PM