The following excerpts come from a survey of scholars who earned Congressional Research Awards in 2004. The central question posed to them was this: How can the research supported by this grant be used by scholars or the general public to improve their understanding of Congress?

Gretchen Brandt, "Issue Avoidance Among Members of the U.S. House of Representatives"

This study provides several contributions to the study of congressional representation, thereby potentially helping both scholars and the general public to improve their understanding of Congress. First: Are members of the U.S. House of Representatives ambiguous when talking about issues with their constituents? After interviewing 30 members of Congress and 15 challengers who lost their races, I found that members tend not to be ambivalent about issue positions. Members tended to be less ambiguous than losing challengers. Members feel safer than challengers, and as a result responded over and over that they vote according to what they believe, and if there are subconstituencies to have to deal with later (who disagree with their vote), they will simply explain why they voted the way that they did. Members feel safe (even members who have only served two or three terms) and certain that if they explain their behavior, their supporters will not withdraw loyalty, and that there is no reason to be ambiguous with those who disagree, because they will never agree with the member anyway (a pro-choice Democratic member in a pro-life district, for example).

Second, this study contributes to our understanding of subconstituencies. Few scholars have attempted to tackle this challenging aspect of representation. There has been some advancement in our understanding of the influence of subconstituencies on the behavior of legislators (Bishin 2000), however many facets still remain that have yet to be explored. One of the greatest difficulties in studying and detecting subconstituencies is whether to look for the presence of political, ethnic, socio-economic, heterogeneity, or what. I have learned from my interviews that members view the homo or heterogeneity of their districts in terms of how politically diverse the district is, regardless of other types of diversity which may also be present in the district. This is not to say that these members do not acknowledge various groups in their district (several members mentioned groups in the district, but then added that they do not vote; yet they still bothered to mention them). I simply asked the members during interviews, "Would you consider your district to have several active and electorally important groups with divergent positions on issues, or is your district pretty homogeneous?" None of the members I interviewed hesitated at all in responding to this question, whether the answer was homo or heterogenous. The most important point to take away from the study's examination of subconstituencies is that members view them strictly in terms of party. I asked the question, "What groups are in your district?" and after listing a group, members consistently followed with a determination of whether the group supports the Democratic or the Republican party. From this information members would then infer whether the members of a group (or subconstituency) would likely vote for him in the next election or not.

Finally, it is likely the case that district characteristics influence the content of how candidates present themselves to voters. Information from the interviews I conducted with House members indicates that members from homogeneous districts are more likely to talk about issues than members from heterogeneous districts. Thus, I find the opposite of Fenno's assertions back in 1978. Perhaps the temporal difference (1978 compared with 2004) has something to do with the disparate findings. Fenno's description of a "person-oriented" member indeed does still exist (I interviewed a member who fit this description in great detail). However, many other members appear to be more issue-oriented than Fenno's label as "I am one of you." As a result, it is not surprising that in 2004 many members from homogeneous districts emphasize issues more than their own personal characteristics.

Kathleen Donahue, "Balancing Acts: Congressional Power, Executive Privilege, and the Public's Right to Know

This project suggests that what the public knows depends not only on a vigilant press but also a vigilant Congress. As both Democratic and Republican administrations in the post-World-War-II period came to equate security with secrecy, the challenge for members of the press was not so much disseminating information as gaining legal access to it. Freedom of Information legislation was a necessary first step. But the very fact that Congress found it necessary to revise the laws not once but several times suggests that legislation alone is not enough. Only when Congress was an active participant in the process, demanding and fighting for access to information was the executive branch most forthcoming.

This project not only calls into question traditional assumptions about how best to guarantee the public's right to know. It also suggests that the conflict over access to information plays a role in maintaining the balance among the branches of government. On numerous occasions, Congress demanded access to government information because it could use that information to check the power of the executive branch. And on as many occasions, the executive branch tried to limit the access to information because public knowledge would undercut its power. Indeed, the history of the political battles over the public's right to know suggests that it is not only national security that requires finding the right balance between freedom of information and secrecy. So too does the balance of power between Congress and the Executive.

Finally, this study highlights a potential flaw in the system that emerged after the Second World War to safeguard the public's right to know. As Congress became an increasingly important player in this system, it became increasingly evident that Congress's interests in information and those of ordinary citizens did not necessarily coincide. For Congress, government information was desirable because it could be used to tip the balance of power away from the executive and toward the legislative branch. For ordinary citizens, by contrast, information was essential for the effective performance of their civic duties. Following the second World War, however, a system emerged in which what the public got to know came increasingly to depend on a Congress whose interests in securing information often differed from those of the public.

Last year I received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to continue work on this project.

R. Sam Garrett, "Campaigns, Crises and Communication: Decision-Making in Congressional Campaigns"

This Ph.D. dissertation focuses on crisis-management in House and Senate campaigns. Despite renewed interest in congressional campaign strategy, existing scholarship is often constrained in two ways: by limiting campaign decision-making to artificial choices which do not adequately reflect political reality and by failing to address how campaign strategy affects crisis-management. Existing work leaves a theoretical gap which includes little or no analysis of the political professionals involved in making strategic campaign decisions, nor of how those decisions affect crisis-management. Yet, these questions have fundamental implications for campaign leadership and relationships between congressional candidates and political professionals. The answers are vitally important in improving understanding of how campaigns affect congressional candidates in their quests for office. Although focusing broadly on "political professionals," such as regular campaign staff and party officials, this project is especially concerned with political consultants because they have become strategic leaders in campaign decision-making. The project, therefore, considers the strategic leadership team which emerges during campaign crises. In doing so, the project supports two of the Dirksen Center's major interests: research on congressional leadership and on congressional elections.

The Dirksen Center's generous funding has been vital in facilitating original, in-depth research filling important gaps in the literature on congressional campaigns and professional politics, especially campaign consulting. The Center's funding has directly contributed to professional transcription for dozens of original interviews with senior political consultants, party officials, Members of Congress and congressional staff. The entire interview pool now stands at more than 100 in-depth interviews. Dirksen funding has also been used to support technical expenses, such as audio tape and recording equipment. The grant has also contributed to conference travel.

The project presents a broad overview of crisis-management in congressional campaigns. Several portions of the inquiry are particularly relevant to the Dirksen Center's interests in improving the scholarly and popular understanding of Congress. Among other findings, the data reveal a new perspective on how political professionals understand campaign crises and how crises affect professional relationships inside campaigns. Importantly for the Dirksen Center's interests, data from this project provide some of the most detailed descriptive analysis available on how political consultants feel about their roles in campaign leadership. This includes dissertation chapters on campaign organizations and strategy and tactics employed during campaign crises. The interview data provide a new perspective on how consultants view other campaign insiders, including "regular" campaign staff and candidates and their families. The project, therefore, directly enhances scholarly knowledge-based on practitioner expertise-about the evolving strategic roles between political professionals and candidates for Congress and their families.

Research from this project has been distributed in several formats, including to both academic and professional audiences. To date, findings from this project have been presented at four academic conferences, including one with substantial attendance from political consultants. Material from the project was also presented to three groups of party officials, elected officials and journalists participating in U.S. State Department International Visitors Program lectures. A manuscript from this project is under final review at the Journal of Political Marketing. A related book chapter will be published in an edited volume on party conventions later this year. Without solicitation, two major presses have expressed interest in publishing the dissertation.

Philip Habel, "The How and Why of Policy Change, 1952-2001"

Normative democratic theorists and leading empiricists have posited a strong linkage between the will of the citizenry and policy. Indeed the extent to which the public influences policy-makers is of fundamental concern to students of democratic governance (Dahl 1963, 1991). However, the degree of public influence remains empirically dubious. Arguments that political institutions are clearly responsive to both short term variation and long term trends in public opinion are prominent in the discipline (Page and Shapiro 1983 and 1992; Stimson, Mackuen and Erikson 1995 and 2002). These authors have demonstrated that opinion and policy move together in predictable fashion and are in congruence with one another, leading researchers to conclude opinion influences institutional actors (Page and Shapiro 1983).

While there appears to be ample evidence that public opinion and policy move conjointly, the nature of the causal relationship between opinion and policy is less certain. Scholars since the early 1960s have asserted that strategic politicians may be responsible for moving the public towards their preferred position in order to further their own policy goals (Key 1966). Authors who have demonstrated that policy and public opinion/mood covary have failed to distinguish whether opinion or politicians are chiefly responsible for policy movement, leaving the direction of causality uncertain.

Further difficulty in discerning the linkage between policy and opinion has been due to an overly simplified and/or contracted approach. Numerous studies have focused on cross-sectional or limited longitudinal analyses which are inherently flawed when causality is of principle concern (Monroe 1979, 1983; Wright, Erikson, and McIver 1987, 1989). Even when dynamic models have been employed, scholars have neglected the role of the media in the formation and development of citizen preferences and in the movement of policy (Mutz 1998, Edwards and Wood 1999, Kellstedt 2003).

In order to explain the movement of policy across time, I employ a longitudinal and dynamic approach incorporating the role Congress, the president, public opinion and the media with annual data from 1952 through 2001. I turn to vector autoregression, specifically Granger causality tests, which allow one to determine whether or not values of one series are instrumental in the movement of another. I model policy using a median value of Congressional interest group ratings compiled by the Americans for Democratic Action, a standard measure of ideology widely employed in the discipline (Groseclose, Synder, and Levitt 1999). Public opinion is approximated using James Stimson's public mood, an aggregate measure of the public's preference for liberal or conservative policy (Stimson 1991, 1999). Through the generous support of the Dirksen Center, I have developed a similar metric for the president, an additional policy indicator, and for the media. With Dirksen Center funding, I have collected positions from the editorial pages of two major national newspapers across time, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, in order to develop an ADA score for these media outlets. The results of the Granger causality tests indicate that institutional actors, both members of Congress and the president, play an important role in the movement of public opinion, whereas public opinion does not predict the ideological movement of Congress or the president. Further, changes in the ideological composition of Congress predict media preference change across time. These results indicate that policy makers, particularly Congress, lead both the media and the public, a result that directly challenges a number of important empirical works.

Jason Kassel, "Narrating Congressional Time: Geography, Architecture, and Congressional Institutionalization"

I look at how the development of office space connected with the development of congressional administration over a national government. Office space, I argue, has consistently been important to congressmen because it provided them a means to enhance their individual and institutional authority. Over time, they appropriated funds to transform the Capitol building into an optimally strategic structure that would provide them with an arena in which they could operate effectively. Specifically, I show that congressional committees and party leaders appeared early on as strategic actors interested in controlling architectural decisions affecting the design of the US Capitol. To measure this contestation I present votes on congressional appropriations bills and discourse analysis of elite correspondence. I use the trail of documents and floor votes to provide an observable measure of congressional institutionalization.

These findings are presented as a unique measure of institutionalization. Over time, and through a process of institutional learning, Congress took control of the Capitol. In addition, the successful capture of this institutional space enabled Congress to further enhance its power during the early years of American political development. Simply put, legislating itself the act of meeting, deliberating and deciding - required a strategic space. Without successfully controlling the development of this space, legislators would not have been in a position to proceed with the process of developing the nation.

Scholars will be interested in this research because of its unique contribution to the institutionalization literature and its perspective on congressional history. The development of a dynamic and fully functioning office environment is an aspect of the 21st century Congress that is taken for granted with little theoretical explanation. The general public will find this research interesting because it provides an intuitive but original means of understanding governmental power. Most people seem to grasp immediately the relationship between office growth and an enhanced sense of responsibility. Because this form of reasoning is quite popular within the field of business administration, people seem to find the research interesting and enlightening.

D. Roderick Kiewiet and Kevin A. Roust, "Read the Fine Print: The Importance of Small Details in the Rules"

Our research, examining in detail the special rules used by the House, has provided a variety of insights into how the House actually works. The House Rules Committee classifies its rules into four major categories: Open, Modified Open, Structured, and Closed. This classification system is then generally used by congressional scholars to explain which bills are passed and who chooses policy. What we have found, however, is that this classification scheme is not particularly useful in gauging the amount of restrictions placed on amendment activity, and thus tells us little about the degree to which the majority party in the House dominates the legislative process.

It appears that rules should be classified not only according to the number of amendments allowed, but also according to the number of amendments in the nature of a substitute (substitute bills) that are allowed. A rule which permits many small amendments, but no substitute, provides the House far less opportunity to change the bill than a rule that provides for one substitute but no other amendments. Because of this, it is also very important to understand who writes the bill that the House considers. Rules identify which bill is considered the "original text", and this can be the original bill. But it can also be a substitute offered by the committee that considered the bill, or a substitute sponsored by the Rules Committee. A rule that provides for the Rules Committee substitute to be the original text and then allows only small amendments will result in a bill that is almost exactly what the Rules Committee would want. A rule that permits a substitute to be offered, however, is much more likely to lead to a bill that reflects the values of the House as a whole.

Timothy Nokken, "Analyzing Minority Party Floor Motions Across Congressional Partisan Eras"

My research project seeks to understand how the majority party in the House of Representatives constructs the legislative agenda over a wide swath of American history. The recent past has witnessed increased partisan tensions in the House stemming from extremely high levels of ideological polarization. That ideological polarization has led to increasingly strong House party leadership. Important, also, is that fact that the levels of polarization and, therefore, strength of party leadership, vary greatly over time ranging from the strong Speakerships of Thomas Reed and Joe Cannon, to seemingly weaker Speakers like Sam Rayburn. The primary source of these Speakers' powers stemmed not from their personal leadership skills, per se, but from the ideological cohesion within their party (Cooper and Brady, 1981). One way to gauge just how strong the majority party leadership is at shaping the agenda is to understand how it treats the proposals of minority members. During periods of strong congressional leadership, one would expect the minority to be allowed to introduce fewer proposals, and that their success rate would be low. During the times of ideologically diverse parties, one should observe a relatively higher number of minority party proposals and a higher number of successful proposals. The data set I constructed allows me to address these questions. It allows me to assess how strong party leadership influences the partisan agenda because I incorporate a lengthy time series marked by dramatic variations in the nature of majority party government in the House. My data set includes the Speakerships of the aforementioned Reed, Cannon, and Rayburn, and also includes recent Speakerships such as those of O'Neil, Wright, and Gingrich that marked a resurgence of majority party leadership influence.

On the academic side, my work fits squarely into the debate regarding the abilities of political parties to shape the behavior of their members. In a manner similar to Cox and McCubbins (2005), I contend that the majority party's ability to construct the agenda, cherry-picking the legislation it wishes to bring to the floor, is a tremendous resource in leading their rank-in-file members. I also believe my work contributes to the understanding of Congress for the interested observers outside of academia. One aspect I think the research will shed light on is the ability of members from both parties to form bipartisan coalitions on significant pieces of legislation. During times of low polarization, the ability of moderate members from both parties to offer proposals is greatly enhanced because members from both parties would be likely to support the legislation and because the majority party leadership may not possess the power to keep such proposals off the agenda. When the parties are highly polarized, there are not moderate members, hence, virtually no chance of bipartisan coalitions forming. On the rare instance such a coalition forms, the majority party leadership possess the tools to keep such proposals bottled up and unlikely to pass. Simply, my research illustrates how polarization and majority party strength reduce the likelihood for broad, bipartisan coalition formation.

Clayton D. Peoples, "Understanding Congressional Roll Call Voting: The Impact of Legislator Social Relations"

Roll call voting is the critical, final step whereby members of Congress decide on the laws that govern our lives. Thus, understanding the social mechanisms underlying roll call voting speaks directly to issues of power and influence. Most research on Congress and roll call voting tends to ignore the potential influence of social factors on voting. Yet research shows that the legislature is a social arena where relationships are forged, and the process of policymaking is itself very social. This suggests that models of roll call voting should take into account the social interdependence of legislators and examine how social factors-particularly legislator's joint connections to individuals/entities external and internal to Congress, or their social relations-influence voting. Particularly important among these individuals/entities are special interest groups who seek to gain access and potentially influence via campaign contributions.

What role do special interests play in policymaking? The media and the public believe special interests play a significant role. Social science is less certain, though. Social scientists have debated the role of special interests in policymaking for decades with little consensus. Three main competing theories emerge from these debates: state-centered theory, pluralism, and elite-power theory. In my dissertation, I directly test hypotheses derived from these theories.

Using longitudinal data, I statistically analyze the influence of special interests on policymaking by examining how political action committee (PAC) campaign contributions influence legislators' roll call votes over a twenty-year period in the U.S. House, 1985-2004, controlling for factors considered important in roll call voting. Converting my variables into separate legislator-by-legislator matrixes to explicitly account for the social interdependence of legislators, thus modeling the relations among and between them, I employ an innovative statistical method (Quadratic Assignment Procedure, or 'QAP,' regression) that has a proven record of eliminating the problems associated with relational data.

My findings show a statistically significant impact of PAC contributions on roll call voting, net of other factors-including party. This significant impact is consistent across all twenty years. Further, the findings show that big business contributions have a significant effect on roll call voting while labor contributions are less significant, particularly in recent years. These findings support the predictions of elite-power theory but fail to support state-centered and pluralist theories, thereby helping resolve the long-standing debates among social scientists on the role of special interests in policymaking. In addition to resolving these debates, my research has public- and policy-relevant implications. In particular, my findings confirm the concerns of the media and the public about the role of contributions on roll call voting. As such, the findings imply that under our current campaign finance system the voices of the people may be muffled by the calls of special interests, suggesting reform may be needed.

Jennifer Schenk, "How Candidates for Congress Claim to be Representative of Constituents"

This study combines theoretical considerations about representation and gender, analyses of candidate communications, and experimental research with potential voters. It first identifies common representational appeals in the campaign materials of candidates to Congress, focusing on identifying patterns that may vary with the gender of the candidate. It then tests the effects of particular appeals for male and female candidates on potential voters. It increases the knowledge of how potential voters respond to common campaign appeals by candidates by disaggregating how those responses may vary with both the gender of the candidate and the gender of the voter. Specifically, it attempts to address the effectiveness of appeals to voters based on different types of representation offered to constituents-substantive representation, which does not require any physical or experiential resemblance between voter and representative, and descriptive representation, which necessitates a shared identity between voter and representative. The theoretical premises of the study are designed to account for two different trends identified in empirical research on women candidates-1. that women are at an apparent disadvantage in elections due to their gender, and 2. that there are situations in which women candidates are actually benefited by their gender in elections, due to their outsider status or perceived stereotypical strengths. The premises of this study offer a consistent explanation for why both may be the case-descriptive representation is considered to have some merits, but ultimately is not considered as desirable as substantive representation, which need not bother itself with thorny issues of identity and shared experience. The fact that descriptive representation may be linked in the minds of voters to women candidates may explain more of the nuances about how gender is a factor in elections to Congress. This research has far-reaching implications, in that it identifies how voters respond to candidates of both genders who invoke particular types of representational appeals in their campaign materials. These results further our general knowledge about gender and politics, and can be instructive to Congressional candidates as they craft their campaign materials.

Paul A. Schlomer, "Representing the Mediated Public: Analyzing the Role of Local News Media on Congressional Decision-Making"

Decision making in the United States Congress has always been fertile ground for political science research. It seems that when more is found out about why members of Congress do certain things in their positions as public representatives, more is left uncertain about their motivations. It is easy to assume that the larger goals of re-election, increased personal power, or policy change motivate the behavior of elected representatives (Fenno 1973; Mayhew 1974). However, the difficulty lies in deciphering when each is presiding factor in the decision making calculus of the Member of Congress.

The research supported by the Dirksen Congressional Research Award is trying to provide insight into how and when re-election concerns become dominant in the minds of members of Congress. The representational environment in Congress is filled with uncertainty, especially that of how each policy issue and decision will be viewed by a members' constituency. How does a representative know when his/her constituency cares about any specific issue? And if they care, what opinion do they have on the topic? Most previous studies cite some connection to the district based on historical ties or understanding of the constituency demographics. However, in the fluid, ever-changing environment of Congressional politics, it is difficult for representatives to know how to best represent their districts. Arnold (1990) argued that members of Congress are often taking action to mollify potentially attentive publics.

My research argues that Congressional representatives, especially in the House, are prone to searching for cues that will give insight into district public opinion. The best cue that House members tend to use is coverage of policy issues in their district's local news media. Their constituents receive most of their political information from the news media. Therefore, it follows that these media can cue legislators into what might become important policy topics within the constituency. Most legislators have staff monitor local newspapers for pertinent stories every day. Representatives can use this information to their advantage when deciding when and how to act on particular policy issues.

The relevance of this research to the general public is in the conclusion that the news media have a strong effect on what decisions national legislators make. Most research on the news media focus on the impact of news on public opinion. This research takes the next step of looking at how the news media affect Congressional perceptions of local districts. This has dramatic implications for both how the role of the news media is viewed by scholars and for how the representational relationship between legislator and constituent is mediated by external actors.