Legislatures and Representation in the U.S. States Co-Sponsored by University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
The Conference On May 24-25, 2002, the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and State Politics and Policy Quarterly will co-sponsor a conference on the study of legislatures and representation in the U.S. states. The conference, to be held at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, welcomes participation by all social scientists interested in state politics and policy, especially members of the organized section on State Politics and Policy-Making of the American Political Science Association. A stipend will be awarded to paper-givers to cover a major portion of their expenses for the conference. The focus of this conference will be on studying general questions related to legislatures and representation broadly speaking in the context of the U.S. states. Thus, any research question relating to political behavior and policy-making by state legislatures would be appropriate for a paper proposal. Topics that connect state legislatures with other state institutions would also be welcome. Since state legislatures are a central institution in state policy-making, topics that focus on the various aspects of state policy-making are particularly welcome. Call for Papers The conference sponsors will give preference to including proposals for the conference on any of the following suggested topics: · What are the impacts of legislative policy on other governmental institutions such as the executive, bureaucracy and the courts? We know precious little about the intended and unintended impacts of public policies on other institutions. The states provide a natural laboratory to assess this difficult question. The recent trend toward policy devolution in the U.S. has enhanced both the substantive importance of this question and methodological advantages of the states in addressing it. Devolution has led to more variation among the states on the independent variable (policy), greater normative concerns of policy equity, and a greater variety of policy tools being tried and in need of assessment. · Do legislative institutions matter? The states spent the last third of the 20th century reforming their legislative institutions in a variety of ways. There has been copious polemic argument about the wisdom of these reforms, but little hard evidence about their impacts. Paralleling this series of reforms has been the redevelopment of theoretical interest in the impact on institutions on the political process. The recent legislative institutional reforms in the states provide a unique arena both to test theoretical expectations and to assess the substantive implications of these reforms. · How well does state legislative policy reflect public opinion in a democratic society? This central question of democratic theory has proven particularly difficult to answer empirically, primarily due to difficulties in assessing public opinion and locating variation in it among comparable polities. But better measures of public opinion and values in the states and increasing policy variation among them have led to a spate of recent work using the states to make headway on this question. We may be on the verge of being able to unravel the subtleties of the representation process using the state politics venue. · Can one cure the numerous pathologies of the representation process? Scholars who study the representation process in the states have identified a number of pathologies that undermine the respect of the public for the state legislative institution. Contesting for state legislative seats is declining and marginal constituencies are vanishing. Similar concerns are concerned about the regulation of campaign finance practices, the regulation of ethics, and the regulation of lobbyists. What can be done to cure these pathologies and to restore the confidence of the public in the state legislative representation process. · Where should the field of state legislatures and representation go from here? The study of state legislatures and representation has been a mainstay of the discipline historically, and after perhaps a lag in interest in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the 1990’s saw a renewed interest in studying legislative politics and representation using the states. The substantive importance of the states has been enhanced, as have the methodological tools with which we can study them. The beginning of a new decade may be an advantageous time to pause and reflect on where we have been and where we are going, in the specific sub-field of legislative behavior and representation. Proposals Proposals should outline the research questions to be addressed by the paper, explain their importance, and lay out the proposed method of answering each question, and should be no more than two pages. The conference organizers are happy to field any inquiries prior to the submission of a proposal. All proposals must be received by OCTOBER 1, 2001 to receive full consideration. Send proposals and inquiries to: Ronald E. Weber
Dirksen Congressional Center Makes Research Awards Each year, The Dirksen Congressional Center awards research grants to scholars in an effort to fund thoughtful, original study into congressional leadership and the U.S. Congress. Since 1978, the Congressional Research Awards (formerly the Congressional Research Grants) program has paid out nearly $450,000 to support over 250 projects. The Caterpillar Foundation, Peoria, Illinois, has provided generous financial support in recent years. Applications are accepted at any time, but the deadline is February 1 for the annual selections, which are announced in March. Detailed information regarding the grants program and the application process can be found on the Dirksen Center's website at http://www.pekin.net/dirksen/ This year's awardees include: Michale
J. Allen, Northwestern University
Ross
K. Baker, Rutgers University
William
T. Bianco, Pennsylvania State University
James
Scott, University of Nebraska
Charles
Finocchiaro, Michigan State University
Sean
Kelly, Niagara University
Jay
Goodliffe, Brigham Young University
Joshua
Gordon, University of Florida
Douglas
Harris, University of Texas at Dallas
Karen
Hofer Luecke, George Mason University
Paul
Manna, University of Wisconsin
Bruce
Oppenheimer, Vanderbilt University
Rose
Razaghian, Columbia University
Tracy
Sulkin, University of Washington
Jennifer
Nicoll Victor, Washington University - St. Louis
The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma seeks applicants for its Visiting Scholars Program, which provides financial assistance to researchers working at the Center's archives. Awards of $500 - $1000 are normally granted as reimbursement for travel and lodging. The Center's holdings include the papers of many former members of Congress, such as Robert S. Kerr, Fred Harris, and Speaker Carl Albert of Oklahoma; Helen Gahagan Douglas and Jeffery Cohelan of California; and Neil Gallagher of New Jersey. Besides the history of Congress, congressional leadership, national and Oklahoma politics, and election campaigns, the collections also document government policy affecting agriculture, Native Americans, energy, foreign affairs, the environment, the economy, and other areas. Topics that can be studied include the Great Depression, flood control, soil conservation, and tribal affairs. At least one collection provides insight on women in American politics. Most materials date from the 1920s to the 1970s, although there is one nineteenth century collection. The Center's archives are described on their website at http://www.ou.edu/special/albertctr/archives/ and in the publication titled A Guide to the Carl Albert Center Congressional Archives by Judy Day et.al. (Norman, Okla.: The Carl Albert Center, 1995), available at many U.S. academic libraries. Additional information can be obtained from the Center. The Visiting Scholars Program is open to any applicant. Emphasis is given to those pursuing postdoctoral research in history, political science, and other fields. Graduate students involved in research for publication, thesis, or dissertation are encouraged to apply. Interested undergraduates and lay researchers are also invited to apply. The Center evaluates each research proposal based upon its merits, and funding for a variety of topics is expected. No standardized form is needed for
application. Instead, a series of documents should be sent to the Center,
including:
For more information, please contact
Archivist, Carl Albert Center, 630 Parrington Oval, Room 101, University
of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019.
News from the Congressional Papers Roundtable February 2001 The University of Connecticut is pleased to announce the donation of Congressman Sam Gejdenson's papers to the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University. Gejdenson's papers will be added to the Dodd Center's collection of Congressional papers that include the papers of Thomas J. Dodd, Barbara Kennelly, Prescott Bush, Francis Maloney, Bruce Morrison and William Ratchford, among others. Gejdenson, known as a passionate advocate for children, senior citizens, and working families, fought to bring modern technology to schools and to make college more affordable. He also worked to enhance retirement security, to create jobs in the United States by promoting the export of American-made goods and services, and to protect the environment for the enjoyment of future generations. Mr. Gejdenson represented the Second District of Connecticut from 1981 until 2001. The collection consists of 182 cubic feet of materials pertaining to his Congressional career and includes correspondence, reports, news clippings, press releases, speeches, committee and issue files, and audiovisual materials. A public announcement will be made when the collection is opened for research. Gejdenson, the first child of Holocaust survivors elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, was born in 1948 in an American displaced persons camp in Eschwege, Germany. He received an A.S. degree from Mitchell College in New London, Connecticut in 1968 and is a graduate of the University of Connecticut with a B.A. awarded in 1970. In 1974, he was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives, serving two terms before accepting a post in the administration of Connecticut Governor Ella T. Grasso. In the 104th and 105th Congresses, Gejdenson served as Co-Chairman of the Democratic Task Force on Retirement Security. In the 106th Congress, Representative Gejdenson served as the Ranking Democrat on the Committee on International Relations. Gejdenson was a member of the Committee since coming to Congress in 1981. His other committee appointments included the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, Joint Library Committee, Committee on House Administration and several task forces. For more information about the Sam Gejdenson Papers, or other political collections at the Dodd Center, contact Betsy Pittman at Betsy.Pittman@uconn.edu or (860) 486-4507. The Historical Society of Delaware is proud to announce that it has been named the archival repository for the records of Senator William V. Roth's 34-year career in Congress. Approximately 1,100 cubic feet of manuscripts, photographs, electronic records, and memorabilia have arrived at the Society. The collection is not yet open for research. The University of Delaware Press has published Honest John Williams: U.S. Senator from Delaware by Carol E. Hoffecker. (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000). Hoffecker, eminent Delaware historian and Richards Professor of History at the University of Delaware, made extensive use of the congressional papers of John J. Williams and his colleague J. Allen Frear, Jr., both of which are processed and available for research at the University of Delaware Library. Williams served four terms in the Senate, 1947-1970, deciding not to seek a fifth term based on his belief in the principle of mandatory retirement at age 65 for members of Congress. Williams was a highly independent Republican who championed financial accountability and integrity in government. He pursued numerous cases of corruption and government waste, bringing before the Congress and the public eye the tax scandals in the Bureau of Internal Revenue in the Truman administration and the Bobby Baker case of influence peddling in the Senate in the mid-1960s. Williams served on both the Finance and the Foreign Affairs committees. In the ten years that the Williams papers have been available for research, a growing number of students and faculty on campus have used the collection to research popular issues of the 1950s and '60s, such as desegregation or the Vietnam War, as well as Delaware state issues. Off-campus researchers have used the papers for biographies of state and national politicians and Delaware political histories. Several researchers have made comparative use of Senator Williams's papers with related files from the papers of Senator J. Allen Frear, Jr., whose two terms, 1949-1961, overlapped with Williams's career. Hoffecker, in particular, made effective use of the two collections in explaining the complicated story of the Supreme Court-ordered divestment of the DuPont-GM companies and how each Senator dealt with the issues involved. The Claude Pepper Foundation approved and funded the first year of the POLARIS (Pepper Online Archival Retrieval and Information System) project, Phase 2, for the Claude Pepper Library, Florida State University. Funding will be sought for the second year of Phase 2 and subsequent phases of this project. In Phase 1, which ended in December 2000, the Pepper Library web site, online finding aid, and the POLARIS search engine were created, enabling researchers to examine the Pepper Collection's finding aid and retrieve information about the holdings. The POLARIS search engine queries the online finding aid and returns results at the folder list level. In Phase 2, selected original documents will be digitized and indexed. These papers will include correspondence, speeches, campaign materials, legislation, and committee files. The topics include Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, Social Security, health care, and World War II, among others. Several photographs and portions of audiovisual recordings from Pepper's U.S. Senate years will also be digitized in this phase. These materials will be made available for viewing on the Pepper Library web site, http://pepper.cpb.fsu.edu/library. The Joint Archives of Holland, Hope College, announced the official opening of the Congressman Guy A. Vander Jagt papers in November. The materials cover not only Vander Jagt's 26 years in Congress, but the decade before as well. His activities from 1957 until his election to the House included serving as news director of WWTV in Cadillac, practicing law at Warner, Norcross & Judd in Grand Rapids, and serving in Michigan's state senate during 1965-66. A complete press release is available at http://www.hope.edu/pr/releases/showpr.cgi?page=old/vanderjagtpapers.20Nov2000. Project archivist Jean Bischoff joined the Robert J. Dole Papers Project at the University of Kansas in January on a three year appointment. Jean received an M.L.I.S. from the University of South Carolina at Columbia and a B.A. from the American University in Washington, D.C. Bischoff brings to the Dole Papers team an academic concentration in archival administration and archive practicum, including project assistance on an NHPRC grant for photograph preservation and assistance with the archival programming at the South Carolina Holocaust Survivors Project. Her academic preparation also included the processing of Senator Bradley P. Morah's papers at the University of South Carolina. The Dole Papers comprise the historical materials from Dole's thirty-five years of service in the U.S. House and Senate. Holdings include records of Dole's thirteen political campaigns, Dole's Senate Republican Leadership papers, and materials from Senator Dole's post-Senate activities, his work for the WWII Memorial Campaign and his chairmanship of the International Commission on Missing Persons in the Former Yugoslavia. Significant work has been accomplished on the processing of the John Glenn Archives at The Ohio State University during the past year. The audiovisual portion of the collection is now sufficiently arranged to respond to reference requests and the majority of the artifacts within the collection are cataloged. Other processed portions of the collection include the media relations and constituent services series, along with the legislative staff and voting record sub-series within the legislative series. Work has commenced on the committee files and campaign records. In addition, a volunteer and student are undertaking a preliminary sort, prior to sampling, of the tens of thousands of fan mail letters Glenn received following his historic flight aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft in 1962. Just recently, the collection grew with the acquisition of an additional 110 cubic feet of records and audiovisual materials previously stored in Senator Glenn's home. The bulk of these items date prior to Glenn's Senate years (1974-1999) and include records pertaining to his unsuccessful senate campaigns in 1964 and 1970, his other political activities during this time period, and his corporate, military, and NASA careers. The University's John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy moved to an expanded location on campus in Stillman Hall last fall. The new location features a variety of artifacts and photographs from the archives highlighting Senator Glenn's public service accomplishments. Mark Sanford (R-SC) was elected to Congress as part of the historic class of 1994. Honoring his commitment to be a citizen-legislator and serve no more than three terms, the popular Sanford retired from Congress at the expiration on his term in January 2001. Sanford [b. 1960] has a lifelong interest in history and in 1999 pledged his papers to Modern Political Collections, the South Caroliniana Library, The University of South Carolina. The Sanford Papers Project has been a model project to date. Library staff met with Sanford and key members of his staff throughout 1999 and 2000 discussing the records the Library wanted for the collection. Sanford's staff was provided with the brochure Closing A Congressional Office: A Guide To The Disposition of Official Papers and Records, prepared by Cynthia Miller, to help guide them in determining what records held historic value and what could be discarded. In addition to his congressional papers, Sanford donated campaign records and other personal papers, including fascinating correspondence from 1993 to 1994 documenting the decision-making process behind his long shot bid for the House. More than 106 linear feet of material has been received to date, almost all of it in excellent order. Sanford also is contributing to the Modern Political Collections Endowment, helping to underwrite the work on his collection. Sanford is frequently mentioned as a possible 2002 gubernatorial candidate. Whatever his plans, the Library is excited about documenting Sanford's future activities and career. Modern Political Collections also received a significant addition to the papers of former South Carolina governor Richard W. Riley, as he closed out his eight-year tenure as U.S. Secretary of Education. Former Representative Owen Pickett, who represented the Second Congressional District of Virginia, including Virginia Beach and part of Norfolk, has donated his political papers to The Library of Virginia. Pickett, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986, retired at the end of the last term of Congress. A native of Hanover County, he graduated from Virginia Tech and the University of Richmond School of Law, and also served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1972 to 1986. His papers include material from his service in the Virginia state legislature and as chairman of the State Democratic Party from 1980 to 1982. The majority of the collection, however, relates to his career in the U.S. House of Representatives, and includes legislative files, press files, requests, invitations, subject files, news releases, and other material. Upon its arrival at the Library, the collection will be closed for processing by Private Papers staff. Manuscripts, Special Collections, University Archives of the University of Washington Libraries has been receiving the papers of former Senator Slade Gorton. Over 221 cubic feet have been accessioned from the Senator's legislative aides and from his state offices. They primarily document many natural resource issues, including salmon recovery and the Hanford nuclear reservation, although such national issues as prescription drugs and international trade are represented. Expected from storage in Suitland are 496 cubic feet of correspondence and related series. These files join 529 cubic feet of senatorial papers from Gorton's first term in the Senate, 1981-87. After serving in the Washington State Legislature, 1958-1968, and as State Attorney General, 1968-1980, Gorton defeated Sen. Warren G. Magnuson in 1980. He in turn lost to Brock Adams in 1986 but defeated former Congressman and Governor Mike Lowry in 1988 and returned to the Senate. Sen. Gorton's papers are currently closed under terms of a deed executed in 1990. Narrative sections of the finding aid to the Henry M. Jackson Papers are now online at www.lib.washington.edu/specialcoll/manuscripts/finding_aids/jackson/Freelance archivist Midori Okazaki revised the existing finding aids for web presentation with support of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, Seattle. As the papers of the late Sen. Jackson are the largest (ca. 1235 cu. ft.) personal papers accession in the Libraries' collection and are the subject of frequent inquiries, the narrative is expected to expedite reference service. Microfiche copies of nearly the entire finding aid have been available for purchase since 1987. The Center for Pacific Northwest
Studies at Western Washington University has accessioned the Jack Metcalf
papers. Representative Metcalf represented the 2nd Congressional District
in Washington State.
Internet Resources of Interest The First Federal Congress Project (FCCP) operates as a research center on the most important and productive Congress in U.S. history. Located at The George Washington University and funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the project's main function is to publish the Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, 1789-1791. In 1999 the FFCP created a project website, which includes an online exhibit, and in 2000 a teacher's guide to using the exhibit as a teaching tool was added to the site (http://www.gwu.edu/~ffcp). The exhibit covers fourteen topics. Together they cover all of the major issues confronted by this seminal Congress, which fleshed out the Constitution, provided stability for the new government, and dealt with extremely difficult issues, such as the location of the federal capital and the assumption of the states' Revolutionary War debts that threatened to split the fragile Union. Around a dozen documents, portraits, maps, or other items from the documentary record, illustrate each topic. The topics are introduced by quotes from the Constitution and introductory paragraphs. Each illustration also has a caption that provides a short description and context. This website was developed with the financial support of The MARPAT Foundation and its creators invite to use it and give us your comments. The Genesis of the Republican
Party is an online exhibit from the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Curated by Phillip Lapsansky, the exhibit provides a concise introduction
to the history of the Republican Party along with many descriptive illustrations.
It is available at http://www.librarycompany.org/Republican/exhibition/ExhibitionIntrodefault.htm
Congressional Papers
Roundtable Newsletter
February 2001. Reprinted with permission. |