What Is Legislative Effectiveness? (with Craig Volden)

The topic of this episode is, “What is legislative effectiveness?”We voters often say that we want our senators and members of Congress to do things, and preferably, the right things. We tend to dislike it when we see people on Capitol Hill who are all talk and no action. And in theory, we should vote out of office those lawmakers who are ineffective.Let me have a caveat here. To be sure, there are some legislators who have turned noise making into a profitable brand, and they do use it to get reelected again and again. But in my 20 years of watching Capitol Hill, it's my estimate that they comprise a small percentage of the total membership. Most people in Congress are, to varying degrees, trying to get things done. So how, then, are we voters supposed to tell which of these legislators are effective and which are not?To help me answer that question, I have with me Craig Volden. He is a professor of Public Policy and Politics at the University of Virginia. Dr. Volden is the author of many publications. Critically for this podcast's purpose, he is the founder and co-director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking, which produces scores of legislator effectiveness that you can find at: thelawmakers.org.Kevin Kosar:Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it. But Congress is essential to our republic. It's a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I'm your host, Kevin Kosar, and I'm a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington DC.Welcome to the program.Craig Volden:Thanks so much for having me. It is a delight to join you, Kevin. Kevin Kosar:So let's cut straight to the topic of the program. What is legislative effectiveness?Craig Volden:This is something that I have been thinking about for a long time working with Professor Alan Wiseman at Vanderbilt University. We wrote a book on the subject about a decade ago called Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress: The Lawmakers.In that book, we defined legislative effectiveness as, “the proven ability to advance a member's agenda items through the legislative process and into law.” So the key elements of “legislative effectiveness”—proven ability, the agenda items of the member, advancing into law—are in there. Kevin Kosar:So as the title of the book indicates, it really does focus on the lawmaking function of an elected official. Craig Volden:That's right.And here, Alan and I founded the Center for Effective Lawmaking. And we like to stay in our lane—it is not the “Center for Effective Oversight” or “Center for Effective Communication with Constituents.” The Center is about lawmaking: what it takes to move those bills into law in the Congress and increasingly now in the state legislatures. Kevin Kosar:So you mentioned there was a book about a decade ago. In my intro of you, I mentioned the website, thelawmakers.org.When did that launch, and what was the motivation behind putting that out there? Craig Volden:Our book came out in 2014, and there was certainly some academic interest. But there was also some broader level of interest among members of Congress, in the good governance community, and some private foundations. We were blessed enough to get some grant money and to have a conversation about whether we wanted to continue our research on effective lawmaking into the future and, if so, did we want it to be a purely academic exercise or were we interested in maybe more engagement with Congress and with the good governance community? We are both at career stages after tenure where we can combine those—do research and hopefully make that research of use to others.As part of that, we looked into what would be the best way to make that contribution, and decided that setting up the Center for Effective Lawmaking—a partnership between Vanderbilt University and the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia—made a lot of sense. We have, for example, two dozen faculty affiliates at a variety of colleges, universities, and think tanks, an annual conference, a working paper series, public release of our scores on thelawmakers.org, a small grant competition, etc.—all of the things on the research end that are really helpful to building up a community of knowledge.On the engagement front, we—along with our good governance partner organizations—generate a new member guide and get involved in orientation materials for new members coming to Capitol Hill. We speak with a variety of organizations that are trying to get people to run for Congress who would be effective once they get there or ...