The business meeting of the Legislative Studies Section was held in Boston during the annual convention of the American Political Science Association.  The LSS meeting was convened on Friday, August 30, 2002 at 5:30 p.m. by Chair David Mayhew of Yale University.

The session began with officers' reports.  Chair Mayhew announced that all the appointments to the prize committees for this conference had been easily made.  Even though there were fourteen positions to be filled, no one said no.  The chair offered the floor to outgoing program chair Professor Gary Moncrief of Boise State University for announcements.  Moncrief indicated that the legislative studies division needs volunteers to serve as chairs and discussants, especially as discussants for the poster sessions.  He further noted that serving as a poster discussant does not count against the limit on APSA conference participation.  The Chair then introduced next yearÕs division chair, Professor Nicol Rae, chair of the Political Science Department at Florida International University. 

LSS Secretary-Treasurer Frances Lee announced that the membership of the section is holding steady in the 600 range.  Accordingly, the section is financially "in the black," and there is no reason to anticipate any problems paying the bills in the future.  In addition, the section was able to sponsor a reception in honor of its 25th anniversary immediately following the business meeting. 

Following announcements, the session continued with the presentation of awards.  Professor Charles M. Cameron of Columbia University, on behalf of the committee that also included Roger H. Davidson of University of Maryland and Michael Malbin of University of Albany, SUNY, presented the Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics.  The Fenno prize went to Professor Eric Schickler of the University of California at Berkeley for his book Disjointed Pluralism:  Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (Princeton University Press).  In his remarks, Cameron indicated that the committee was unanimous in its selection and encouraged everyone who had not already done so to read the book.

Professor C. Lawrence Evans, on behalf of the committee that also included John M. Carey of Washington University and Patricia Hurley of Texas A&M University. conferred the Congressional Quarterly Press Award for the best paper presented in the legislative studies division at the 2001 meeting of the APSA The CQ Award went to Kathryn L. Pearson of University of California, Berkeley for her paper entitled Legislating in Women's Interests?  Congresswomen in the 106th Congress.

Professor Diana Evans of Trinity College, on behalf of the committee that also included John B. Gilmour of the College of William and Mary and Thomas F. Remington of Emory University, presented the Carl Albert Dissertation Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the area of legislative studies.  Deborah Jordan Brooks of the Gallup Organization received the award for her dissertation entitled "When Candidates Attack:  The Effects of Negative Campaigning on Voter Turnout in Senate Elections."

The Jewell-Loewenberg Award for the best article published in Legislative Studies Quarterly went to Professors Stephen Ansolabehere, James M. Snyder, Jr., and Charles Stewart III, all of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for their article entitled The Effects of Party and Preferences on Congressional Roll Call Voting, LSQ 26 (November 2001), 533-72.  Professor Ben Bishin of the University of Miami presented the award on behalf of the committee that also included David Samuels of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and Sarah M. Morehouse, Professor Emerita of the University of Connecticut. 

President Mayhew turned to new business and yielded the floor to Ken Kurtz of the National Conference of State Legislatures.  Kurtz announced that the National Conference of State Legislators and the State Legislative Leaders Association had offered to sponsor and endow a new award named in honor of Alan Rosenthal.  In the spirit of Rosenthal's work, the purpose of the award is twofold:  (1) to recognize the best book or article in legislative studies of value to legislative practitioners, and (2) to encourage young scholars to undertake work in this vein.  As proposed, the award would be open to works written in the previous calendar year by authors below the rank of associate professor.  It would be conferred by an award committee appointed by the LSS President and one member would be a legislative practitioner.  Anyone, including authors themselves, could offer nominations to the committee. 

Discussion of the award followed.  First, a proposal was offered to open the award to scholars of all ranks by striking the requirement that award recipients be below the rank of associate professor.  The amendment failed on a show of hands, with 11 voting in favor of the amendment and more than 30 voting against.  Second, a question was raised regarding the eligibility of co-authored work where one author is above the rank of assistant professor.  It was agreed that such works should be eligible, and the proposal was amended to reflect that a co-authored publication would be eligible for the award if at least one of the authors was below the rank of associate professor.  Third, there was discussion of how to handle works by practitioners.  The proposal was amended to clarify that the award was open to practitioners, provided that they are at a stage in their career comparable to scholars of junior rank.  Such determinations would be made by the award committee.

During the discussion, Professor Bruce Oppenheimer thanked Karl Kurtz and the National Conference of State Legislators and the State Legislative Leaders Association for taking the initiative to sponsor an award.  This suggestion was received with widespread applause.  After all concerns had been aired, the chair put the establishment of the Alan Rosenthal Award to a vote, and it was adopted unanimously. 

President Mayhew then asked Professor Ronald M. Peters, Jr. of the University of Oklahoma to report on the newsletter.  In order to generate the critical mass necessary to make the LSS listserv succeed, Peters offered a motion to put all members on the list, with the provision that members could request that their names be removed.  The motion was agreed to.  He also announced that Professor Burdette Loomis of the University of Kansas, who has edited the Extension of Remarks since 1996, had asked that the section begin to consider someone to replace him as editor.  Peters requested that suggestions be forwarded to him.  Finally, Peters followed up on the results of an inquiry from last year's meeting by announcing that there had not been sufficient interest to institute a working papers section on the website.  Professor Linda Fowler suggested that Midwest and APSA papers might be made available on such a site for longer than they are preserved on the PROceedings website. 

Two other announcements were made.  Professor Barbara Sinclair reminded attendees that the deadline for paper proposals for the upcoming meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association is September 15.  Professor David Olson, co-chair of the Research Committee of Legislative Specialists (RCLS) of the International Political Science  Association, announced that the next RCLS conference will be held in Durban, South Africa in 2003. 

President Mayhew closed the meeting by inviting everyone to attend the 25th anniversary reception in the Sheraton Hotel from 6:30 to 8:00.  The meeting adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Frances E. Lee
Secretary-Treasurer