Congress and Its Members has been the gold standard for Congress courses for thirty years. In the fifteenth edition, authors Roger H. Davidson, Walter J. Oleszek, Frances E. Lee, and Eric Schickler offer comprehensive coverage of the U.S. Congress and the legislative process by examining the tension between Congress as a lawmaking institution and as a collection of politicians constantly seeking re-election.
The fifteenth edition considers the 2014 midterm elections and discusses the agenda of the new Congress, White House–Capitol Hill relations, party and committee leadership changes, judicial appointments, and partisan polarization, as well as covering changes to budgeting, campaign finance, lobbying, public attitudes about Congress, reapportionment, rules, and procedures. Always balancing great scholarship with currency,
Congress and Its Members, Fifteenth Edition features lively case material along with relevant data, charts, exhibits, maps, and photos.
Roger H. Davidson was professor emeritus of government and politics at the University
of Maryland and served as visiting professor of political science at the University of
California, Santa Barbara. He was a senior fellow of the National Academy of Public
Administration. During the 1970s, he served on the staffs of reform efforts in both the
House (Bolling-Martin Committee) and the Senate (Stevenson-Brock Committee).
For the 2001–2002 academic year, he served as the John Marshall chair in political
science at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. His books include Remaking
Congress: Change and Stability in the 1990s, co-edited with James A. Thurber (1995),
and Understanding the Presidency, 7th ed., co-edited with James P. Pfiffner (2013).
Davidson was co-editor with Donald C. Bacon and Morton Keller of The Encyclopedia
of the United States Congress (1995).
Walter J. Oleszek is a senior specialist in the legislative process at the Congressional
Research Service. He has served as either a full-time professional staff aide or consultant
to many major House and Senate congressional reorganization efforts beginning
with the passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. In 1993, he served as
policy director of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. A former
adjunct faculty member at American University, Oleszek is a frequent lecturer to various
academic, governmental, and business groups. He is the author or co-author of several
books, including Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process, 11th ed. (2020),
and Congress Under Fire: Reform Politics and the Republican Majority, with C. Lawrence
Evans (1997).
Frances E. Lee is professor of politics and public affairs in the School of Public and
International Affairs and the Department of Politics at Princeton University. She has
been a research fellow at the Brookings Institution and an APSA congressional fellow.
Most recently, she is co-author of The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a
Polarized Era (2020). She is also the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the
Perpetual Campaign (2016) and Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship
in the U.S. Senate (2009) and co-author, with Bruce I. Oppenheimer, of Sizing Up
the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation (1999). Her articles have
appeared in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies
Quarterly, and American Journal of Political Science, among others.
Eric Schickler is Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the
University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of three books that have won the
Richard F. Fenno Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics: Disjointed Pluralism:
Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (2001), Filibuster:
Obstruction and Lawmaking in the United States Senate (2006, with Gregory Wawro),
and Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power (2016, with
Douglas Kriner; also a winner of the Richard E. Neustadt Prize for the best book on
executive politics). His book Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American
Liberalism, 1932–1965 was the winner of the Woodrow Wilson Prize for the best book
on government, politics, or international affairs published in 2016, and is co-winner of
the J. David Greenstone Prize for the best book in history and politics from the previous
two calendar years. He is also the co-author of Partisan Hearts and Minds, which
was published in 2002.
