The business meeting of the Legislative Studies Section was held in Chicago on Friday, September 3, 2004 during the annual convention of the American Political Science Association.

LSS Chair Diana Evans of Trinity College gaveled the meeting to order at 6:00.  The LSS membership adopted the minutes from the 2003 meeting, previously published in the LSS newsletter.

LSS Secretary-Treasurer Frances Lee announced that the membership of the section remains stable at 624.  Accordingly, the section is “in the black” and in good financial shape looking forward

The session then turned to the presentation of awards.  Professor Michael L. Mezey of DePaul University, on behalf of the committee that also included Professors Barbara Sinclair of UCLA and Greg Wawro of Columbia University, conferred the Congressional Quarterly Press Award for the best paper presented in the legislative studies division at the 2003 meeting of the APSA.  The prize went to Sam Kernell of the University of California-San Diego for his paper entitled “To Stay, To Quit, or To Move Up: Explaining the Growth of Careerism in the House of Representatives, 1878-1940.” Kernell reports that the drop in retirements is connected with the increasing likelihood of reelection and that decisions to leave to try for higher office are connected with an opportunity to run for a Senate seat.  Although the committee had the pleasure of reading a number of excellent papers, Mezey indicated that they had been “most impressed by Kernell’s unique and detailed data set, by the care and sophistication of his analysis, and by the new perspective that his findings offer on what has been a staple of the congressional literature for the last 35 years.”

Professor Patricia Hurley of Texas A&M University, on behalf of the committee, which also included Christopher Deering of George Washington University and Charles Shipan of the University of Iowa, presented the Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics.  Hurley began by noting that the committee had received a number of good submissions, and that deliberation had been slightly complicated by the fact that Deering recused himself from discussion of a nominated book written by one of his colleagues.  In the end, it was that book that merited this year’s award. 

The Fenno Prize went to Sarah Binder of George Washington University for her book Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock, published in 2003 by the Brookings Institution Press.  Binder’s book examines the “supply of legislation relative to the demand for it” and provides multiple measures of gridlock.  Based on her analysis Binder finds that divided government does contribute to gridlock, that bicameral disagreement is an important source of stalemate, and that gridlock has been on the rise.  Furthermore, the parties contribute to gridlock in surprising ways—the stronger they are, the worse the gridlock.  Hurley commended the book for its “creativity in measurement combined with systematic empirical analysis” and recommended it to the section membership for both research and classroom use. 

Professor Bruce Oppenheimer of Vanderbilt University, on behalf of a committee that also included Christine DiGregorio of American University and Brian Sala of the University of California-San Diego, conferred the Carl Albert Dissertation Award for the best dissertation on a legislative topic.  The award went to Christian Grose of Lawrence University for his dissertation entitled “Beyond the Vote: A Theory of Black Representation in Congress,” written under the supervision of Professor Harold Stanley at the University of Rochester.  The committee had received a number of outstanding dissertations, but was “unanimous in the choice of this exceptional piece of research.”  Grose makes a “major contribution to the literature on minority representation in Congress.”  Employing several measures of representation, Grose demonstrates that descriptive representation yields benefits to African American constituents, especially when one looks beyond roll call voting.   The committee particularly applauded the dissertation’s multi-method approach, complimenting “first rate data gathering with extensive interviews with members and staff and with observation within congressional districts.”

Professor Susan Hammond of American University, on behalf of a committee that also included David Olson of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Keith Hamm of Rice University, presented the Jewell-Loewenberg Award for the best article published in Legislative Studies Quarterly in 2003 .  The award went to Octavio Amorim Neto of the Getulio Vargas Foundation and Fabiano Santos of the Rio de Janiero Graduate Research Institute for their article titled “The Inefficient Secret Revisited: The Legislative Input and Output of Brazilian Deputies.” Professor Hammond applauded the article for examining an important theoretical question and for interesting findings that modify existing conventional wisdom.  The article examines the effect of political institutions on policymaking, specifically in a polity with a strong president with legislative power and party leaders with weak control over rank and file members.  The article finds that a presidential system is efficient because clear differences among parties are evident, and voters do, in fact, have a choice.

Professor Burdett Loomis of the University of Kansas, on behalf of a committee that also included Don Wolfensberger of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Scott Adler of the University of Colorado, Boulder, presented the Alan Rosenthal Prize for the best book or article in legislative studies written by a junior scholar that has potential value to legislative practitioners.  The award went to Yusaku Horiuchi of the National University of Singapore and Jun Saito of Yale University for their article “Reapportionment and Redistribution: Consequences of Electoral Reform in Japan” published in the American Journal of Political Science (47:669).  The article addresses a “core question in the age of Tom DeLay:  How does redistricting affect policy outcomes?”  The article examines how the electoral reforms of 1994 affected per capita subsidies at the municipal level, but the findings “offer direct lessons for legislators of all democracies that undergo periodic reapportionment.” 

The chair then thanked all the members of the prize committees this year for their great work.  Thanks were also extended to Sarah Binder and Forrest Maltzman for the fantastic legislative division program they assembled for this year’s APSA meeting.  Evans then recognized Eric Schickler of Harvard University as legislative division chair for the 2005 APSA meeting.  Schickler welcomed proposals from all the members of the Legislative Studies Section, especially proposals for individual papers.

Professor Joe Cooper of Johns Hopkins University was then recognized to announce a memorial session for Arthur Maass to take place at 9:00 following the business meeting. 

The chair then recognized one of LSS’s own members who was running as a Democratic candidate for Congress, Dan Lipinski of the University of Tennessee.  Professor Lipinski spoke briefly to ask for support from members of LSS and to indicate his intention to seek membership on the Science Committee.  LSS wished the best of luck to Dan in his bid for Congress. 

LSS Chair Evans then turned to important new business, a proposal to link LSS dues with a subscription to LSQ.  Currently, a subscription to LSQ costs $40 for members, but in conjunction with this linkage the subscription will only cost $20.  Total dues for the section will rise to $30 (from its current rate of $10.)   This LSS executive committee--including Sarah Binder and Forrest Maltzman (legislative division program co-chairs), Frances Lee (Secretary/Treasurer), LSS Chair Diana Evans, and LSS Council Members Janet Box-Steffesmeier of the Ohio State University and Gary Cox of the University of California-San Diego -- received this as a generous offer.  The proposal received careful study from the executive committee, and they recommend the linkage to the membership as an excellent opportunity for the section.  The other sections that have adopted a linkage with a journal subscription have suffered no adverse effects for their membership levels.  Furthermore, LSS negotiated a risk-sharing arrangement with LSQ whereby financial losses resulting from membership declines will be shared equitably. The executive committee regards the linkage with LSQ as providing members with a nice selective benefit.

Because of concerns that these changes in dues might adversely affect graduate students, Forrest Maltzman offered an amendment from the floor to permit graduate students experiencing financial hardship to write to the LSS Secretary/Treasurer to waive the subscription to LSQ and to receive a rebate of the dues increase. 

The LSS membership then discussed these proposals. Questions were raised about costs to international members of LSS and how members with current subscriptions to LSQ would be handled under the new arrangement.  LSQ Managing Editor Michelle Wiegand indicated that there would be no additional costs to international members for the journal and that an equitable arrangement would be made for current subscribers. 

The amendment regarding graduate student rebates was adopted by voice vote without opposition, and then the full linkage proposal was passed by voice vote, also without opposition.

LSS Chair Evans then turned to some needed revisions in the bylaws.  One change would delete as obsolete a line in the bylaws encouraging members to subscribe to LSQ.  The second change updated the bylaws to reflect the new prizes that the LSS had instituted in recent years.  Both these changes were adopted without dissent by the LSS membership.

LSS Chair Evans gaveled the meeting to a close at 7:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Frances E. Lee
Secretary/Treasurer