Congress and Its Members

The gold standard for Congress courses for over 30 years

Congress and Its Members, Sixteenth Edition, by Roger H. Davidson, Walter J. Oleszek, Frances E. Lee, and Eric Schickler, offers readers current, comprehensive coverage of 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 Sixteenth Edition of this best-selling text considers the 2016 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, the best-seller features lively case material along with relevant data, charts, exhibits, maps, and photos.

Roger H. Davidson is professor emeritus of government and politics at the University of Maryland, and has served as visiting professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. During 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 1990’s, co-edited with James A. Thurber (1995), and Understanding the Presidency, Seventh Edition, co-edited with James P. Pfiffner (2012). Davidson is 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 every major House and Senate congressional reorganization effort beginning with 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 longtime 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, 10th ed. (2016), and Congress under Fire: Reform Politics and the Republican Majority, with C. Lawrence Evans (1997).

Frances E. Lee is professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. She has been a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution and an APSA Congressional Fellow. Most recently, she is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (2016). She is also author of Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate (2009), which received the Richard F. Fenno Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics in 2010 and the D. B. Hardeman Prize for the best book on the U.S. Congress published in 2009. She is 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 Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (2001), which won the Richard F. Fenno Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics in 2002, and of Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932–1965 (2016). He is also the co-author, with Donald Green and Bradley Palmquist, of Partisan Hearts and Minds (2002); with Gregory Wawro, of Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate (2006), which won the Fenno Prize in 2007; and, with Douglas Kriner, Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power (2016). His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Studies in American Political Development, among others.