Extensions Summer 2018

A Journal of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center

Summer 2018

The

PEOPLE’S VOICE Inside

Corporate Lobbying Legislators and Constituents Mass Demonstrations

Established in 1979 by the Oklahoma Regents for Higher Education and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center is a nonpartisan institution devoted to instruction and scholarship related to the United States Congress. The mission of the Center is defined broadly in terms of academic inquiry into the history, structure, process, personnel, and policies of the Congress, and the relationship between the Congress and other agencies and actors in the American political system. In the most general sense, the Center is concerned with the problems of modern representative democracy, as exemplified by the Congress.

In pursuit of this goal, the Carl Albert Center performs four principal functions. The first is the development of academic programs in congressional studies at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, which are sponsored in cooperation with the University of Oklahoma’s Department of Political Science. At the graduate level the Center offers a specialized fellowship program leading toward the doctoral degree. Each fellow receives a fully financed program of study. At the undergraduate level the Center sponsors a research fellowship program designed to foster collaborative research between faculty and undergraduates.

Second, believing that professional research is the foundation upon which its academic programs rest, the Center promotes original research by faculty members and students into various aspects of politics and the Congress.

The Center encourages publication and provides its faculty and students with institutional and financial support to travel for research purposes and to present research findings at professional conferences.

The third function of the Center is the development of resource materials related to the Congress. The Center’s congressional archives, which are among the largest in the country, include the papers of more than 60 former members of Congress. Such prominent Oklahomans as Speaker Carl Albert, Dewey F. Bartlett, Page Belcher, Mickey Edwards, Glenn English, Robert S. Kerr, Sr., Fred Harris, Steve Largent, Dave McCurdy, Mike Monroney, Tom Steed, Mike Synar, and J. C. Watts have donated their papers to the Center along with such distinguished non-Oklahomans as Dick Armey, Helen Gahagan Douglas, and Carl Hatch.

Fourth, the Center actively strives to promote a wider understanding and appreciation of the Congress through various civic education programs. The Center sponsors conferences, speakers, television appearances, and the biennial Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture in Representative Government. The Center also publishes Extensions, a journal which focuses on issues related to the Congress. Taken together, these diverse aspects of the Carl Albert Center constitute a unique resource for scholarship and research related to the United States Congress.

The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center

Director and Curator Michael H. Crespin Associate Director Charles J. Finocchiaro Senior Archivist J. A. Pryse Archivist Rachel Henson Director of Administration Katherine McRae Director of N.E.W. Leadership and Civic Engagement Lauren Schueler National Advisory Board David E. Albert Richard A. Baker David L. Boren Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Joseph S. Foote Joel Jankowsky Thomas J. Kenan Dave McCurdy Frank H. Mackaman Thomas E. Mann Chuck Neal Ronald M. Peters, Jr. Michael L. Reed Cindy Simon Rosenthal Catherine E. Rudder U.S. Rep. Tom Cole 4th District, Oklahoma ex officio Graphic Designer, Extensions Haley Fulco University of Oklahoma Printing, Mailing and Document Services

A Journal of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center

TABLE OF CONTENTS Summer 2018 Editor’s Introduction

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Individual and Group Influence in Contemporary American Politics Charles J. Finocchiaro

Special Orders

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obbying the Rulemakers with Lawyers: L Reflections from the Volcker Rule

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Constituent Contact and Legislator Responsiveness

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The National School Walkout of March 14, 2018

Daniel Carpenter and Brian Libgober

Mia Costa

Jeremy Pressman

For the Record

22

Cindy Simon Rosenthal, When a Woman Leads

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News from the Center

Ronald M. Peters, Jr.

Katherine McRae

Images courtesy of Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Pixabay, White House and Wikimedia Commons.

Cover image: Ted Eytan, distributed under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

Extensions is a copyrighted publication of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center. It is published twice each year and distributed free of charge. To receive copies of Extensions, or to obtain permission to reprint, please contact Katherine McRae at (405) 325-6372 or e-mail to mcrae@ou.edu. Extensions also may be viewed on the Center’s website at www.ou.edu/carlalbertcenter.

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Editor’s Introduction

INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP INFLUENCE

IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POLITICS Charles J. Finocchiaro | Editor

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people. – Dwight D. Eisenhower 1

T

he First Amendment to the Constitution enshrines a series of rights that are integral to the healthy functioning of democratic government. A republic accountable to citizens is one that is checked by a free press; one whose policies can be questioned and criticized in word and action; and one to whom citizens may appeal for remedy.

The flip side of these rights, and what gives those rights power in the American system of government, is the expectation that government will be responsive to the wishes of the public. Yet many scholars, not to mention ordinary citizens, believe that government responds more to the “special interests” than it does to the general public. While there is a plurality of groups that might try to exert pressure in the political process, the question is whether all voices are heard equally. Nearly 60 years ago, E. E. Schattschneider in his book The Semisovereign People colorfully described this aspect of group influence as follows: “The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upperclass accent. Probably about 90 percent of the people cannot get into the pressure system.”2 Indeed, Americans’ perceptions of government responsiveness today are no more positive than Schattschneider’s observations more than a half-century ago.

Fully 76 percent of respondents in a recent poll from the Pew Research Center said that “government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves” as opposed to just 21 percent who said that “government is run for the benefit of all people.”3 Yet as Figure 1 shows, a majority of Americans do believe that their vote gives them some influence in government and that “ordinary citizens” can have an impact “if they make an effort.”4 2

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This disconnect — where most people believe government is run by special interests while many individuals nonetheless think they can have some influence — is perhaps partly attributable to high levels of cynicism and distrust in government.

Scholars have also shown that political trust — the belief that the government will do what is right — is closely connected to other contextual factors such as whether one’s party is in power, the state of the economy and world affairs.5 Despite the reservations expressed by many about government’s effectiveness, trustworthiness and responsiveness, among other characteristics, citizens nonetheless engage. And some engage very deeply.

Voting is of course the most basic form of civic engagement. Others choose to take the further step of contacting an elected official or participating in a protest. Still others may sign on to a petition — such as one on the We the People website (petitions.whitehouse.gov), which has drawn signatures on topics as varied as calling on the president to release his tax returns to building a “Star Wars”-inspired “Death Star.”6 Interestingly, various forms of expression and participation are not viewed uniformly. In fact, poll respondents view some as more essential to a definition of “good citizenship” than others. For instance, while 74 percent of those surveyed in a recent poll said that voting is very important “to what it means to be a good citizen,” only 45 percent thought it is very important “to protest if you think government actions are wrong.” It is worth noting that both of these actions were seen as very or somewhat important by supermajorities of respondents.

Also notable is the fact that there are partisan differences over some aspects of this topic as well. While Republicans and Democrats differed very little in thinking that voting is very important, they diverge quite

a lot over actions like protest and displays of the American flag.7 In this issue of Extensions, we take a deeper dive into three mechanisms by which citizens (or groups of citizens) seek to have their voices heard within government. Following up on the 2017 Rothbaum Lecture, in which Harvard political scientist Daniel Carpenter presented his work on the use of the petition by financial interests, Native Americans, and others in the first decades of the American republic, here Carpenter joins with Brian Libgober to look at lobbying by the financial sector on implementation of the very consequential Dodd-Frank reform legislation. The authors show that elite influence persists in the American policy process, as industry lobbyists are able to access policymakers — in this case the bureaucrats who draft the rules that implement acts of Congress — prior to the details of law being fleshed out.

Most Americans, of course, will never employ a professional lobbyist.

Nonetheless, some may engage in lobbying themselves as they contact a legislator to express a policy preference on a bill. Still others may reach out to a congressional office for help with an issue involving the federal government. A responsive government is one that receives and acts on such requests. In her article reviewing a spate of recent experimental studies on citizen contact with elected officials, Mia Costa shows that an array of biases exist in terms of how legislative offices respond to citizen contact. Using original survey data, she also describes what it is that citizens expect of their elected officials when they do contact them.

Finally, with the growing frequency and crowd sizes of mass protests in the U.S., citizens are clearly taking advantage of another clause of the First Amendment — the right to peaceably assemble. As Jeremy Pressman explains in his article on the national school walkout of March 14 that focused on gun

violence, we are witnessing a high degree of engagement on the part of young people, a demographic that historically ranks lowest in terms of voting and political participation.

What the patterns described in this issue mean for the future of American politics is difficult to say.

Will the current political fervor and heightened engagement, particularly on the left, extend beyond the fall midterm elections? It was, after all, not that long ago when observers were fixated on the role of the Tea Party and associated protests leading up the 2010 midterms. To what degree will citizen participation and trust in government be impacted by the unfolding events of this contentious era? While these questions will not be settled for some time, it is safe to say that the Republic benefits from the varied inputs of citizens into the policy process. And the more varied the voices, and the more those voices are heard by policymakers, the more fruitful the result.

Notes 1 Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Address Recorded for the Republican Lincoln Day Dinners,” January 28, 1954, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ ws/?pid=10008.

2 E. E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), 35.

3 “Most continue to say government run by a few big interests,” Pew Research Center, April 26, 2018, http://www.people-press. org/2018/04/26/6-quality-and-responsivenessof-elected-officials/6_9-2/.

4 “Younger adults less likely to say they can influence government, have a voice through the ballot box,” Pew Research Center, April 26, 2018, http://www.people-press.org/2018/04/26/6quality-and-responsiveness-of-electedofficials/6_11-2/.

5 Marc J. Hetherington and Thomas J. Rudolph, Why Washington Won’t Work: Polarization, Political Trust, and the Governing Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).

6 Rachel Weiner, “White House rejects ‘Death Star’ petition,” January 12, 2013, https:// www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/ wp/2013/01/12/white-house-rejects-deathstar-petittion.

7 “The responsibilities of citizenship,” Pew Research Center, April 26, 2018, http:// www.people-press.org/2018/04/26/9-theresponsibilities-of-citizenship/.

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Special Orders

LOBBYING THE RULEMAKERS WITH LAWYERS: REFLECTIONS FROM THE VOLCKER RULE Daniel Carpenter | Harvard University and Brian Libgober | Harvard University

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Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson

W

hile Congress remains the Article One branch and primary lawmaking organ of the United States federal government, it is arguable that most federal policymaking actually occurs in the nation’s administrative agencies.

Since the beginnings of the Republic, Congress has delegated rulemaking authority to executive departments and independent regulatory agencies and has expected agencies to fill out the details of law by issuing rules of their own. With ever greater frequency in the late 19th century, these patterns of rulemaking began to concern regulation of the economy, not just safety but also prices and the pricing behavior of large corporations such as the railroads.

With the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, Congress attempted to provide new structure to administrative policymaking, endowing the administrative rulemaking mechanism with something like a petition process, allowing anyone to express their grievances and requests openly and in a public forum.1 Political influence tends to flow to sites of political power, and modern American regulation provides no exception. The result of the migration of decision-making authority to administrative agencies has been

President Barack Obama signs the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in Washington, July 21, 2010. a massive increase in business expenditure upon lobbying and legal services. To take one prominent and relevant example, consider the recent law regulating the financial sector of the United States, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The law authorized over 390 rulemaking requirements, to be met by agencies across the federal government.

Whereas the Obama administration wanted to avoid the perceived failures of the Clinton health plan in the 1990s by allowing as much as possible of the content to develop within Congress, the administration took a different tack in financial regulation,

preferring to keep the statute general and delegate rulemaking authority to agencies with the requisite expertise.2 The result was a different kind of lobbying, one we call “lobbying with lawyers.� Firms met with agencies before the rules were drafted and tried to influence content in less visible venues. These same companies then turned to the rulemaking process and submitted comments on a range of rules affecting everything from consumer loans to prudential bank regulation to minimum capital requirements. Large banks, often incorporated as bank holding companies, responded by substantially increasing their expenditure on legal

Daniel Carpenter, who directs the social sciences program at the Radcliffe Institute, is the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. He combines theoretical, historical, statistical, and mathematical analyses to examine the development of political institutions, primarily in the United States, focusing on public bureaucracies and government regulation — particularly the regulation of health and financial products. Carpenter recently launched a long-term project examining petitioning in North American political development, comparing it to petitioning histories in Europe and India.

services. Bank holding companies spent less than $1 billion on legal expenses from 2004 through 2007 but, from 2009 to 2016 spent over $48 billion, with a peak of roughly $9 billion in 2012. While much of this legal expenditure concerned enforcement liability and compliance with new rules, much of it also concerned rulemaking, as journalists have discovered. By contrast, total reported lobbying expenditures during this period never exceeded $4 billion in any given year.3 In an ongoing research project funded by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the Russell Sage Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, we are examining attempts by “financial firms” (and other “interest groups”) to influence these rules, as well as whether the attempts have been successful in their aims. It is possible to see the massive sum of activity as a form of political influence over policy. While political scientists have in recent years published important, path-breaking studies on how wealthier citizens are better represented in legislative policy decisions, the possibly differential influence of wealthier interests (such as banks) in bureaucratic policymaking has not been studied as heavily.4

Brian Libgober is a postdoctoral associate and lecturer in political science at Yale. He studies the role of law and legal institutions in American politics and is particularly interested in questions about the distributive impact of regulation. His Ph.D. dissertation, completed at Harvard’s Department of Government, is entitled Persuading the State. It uses a variety of methods, including formal theory, content analysis, and event studies, to explore how interest groups shape regulatory policy.

Libgober also holds a juris doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Chicago.

Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule One of the most important rules issued under the authority of the Dodd-Frank Act was the Volcker Rule, so named after the former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, who argued before, during and after the financial crisis that permitting depository and systemically important financial institutions to engage in highly speculative trading with their own funds created incentives and dynamics that placed the global financial system at high risk. In writing the Volcker Rule, federal agencies (especially the Federal Reserve Board) sought to limit the activity of certain large financial institutions to engage in proprietary trading — firms investing their own capital to conduct financial transactions, in highly speculative trades that take positions in complex financial products such as derivatives.

In the Volcker Rule, Congress aimed to limit the financial risk of large institutions and to create a better alignment of incentives between banks’ capital provision functions and their activities in speculative trading in complex financial instruments.

Critically, they passed much of the content-writing of this rule to federal agencies.

Large bank-holding companies that had continually and profitably engaged in proprietary trading saw the matter differently, of course. They argued that proprietary trading was often done to maintain liquidity in the financial system and at the demand of their clients. In a fascinating study that contributes original data and perspective to the study of both financial regulation and administrative rulemaking, professor Kimberly Krawiec of Duke University tabulated the number of pre-notice of proposed rulemaking meetings between major banks and the rule-writing agencies for the Volcker Rule. Because everyone knew that the Volcker Rule was coming — the legislation called explicitly for such a rule — banks strategically lined up for meetings with agencies before the draft of a rule had even been published, much less scheduled.

Ten firms had 10 or more meetings with financial agencies in the run-up to the notice of proposed rulemaking: JPMorgan Chase & Co. (27 meetings, 11 with the Federal Reserve), Goldman Sachs (22 total meetings, six with the Fed and seven with Treasury), Morgan Stanley (19 total meetings, six with the Fed and seven with the Securities and Exchange Commission), Bank of America (15 total meetings, six extensions | Summer 2018

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Federal Reserve Board of Governors

Open Board meeting of the Federal Reserve on the Volcker Rule, December 13, 2013. with the Fed and five with the SEC), Barclays (14 total meetings, six with the Fed and four with the SEC), Credit Suisse (14 total meetings, five with the Fed and six with the SEC), Citigroup (13 total meetings, six with the Fed and four with the SEC), BNY Mellon (11 total meetings, four with the SEC and Treasury), RBC (11 total meetings, four with the Fed and five with the SEC), and State Street Financial Corporation (11 total meetings, four each with the Fed and the SEC). These 10 firms accounted for 44.7 percent of all bank meetings with the rulewriting agencies. On this critical rule, certain large bank-holding companies disproportionately populated the predrafting process of meetings.5

as proprietary trading and hence remain subject to the Volcker Rule’s prohibition. Appendix B laid out some sample criteria such as length of position taken in the asset, which particular trading desk at the bank had invested in the asset, and other standards by which regulators would make the differentiation.

Banks thought instead that the application of the market-making exemption to the proprietary trading prohibition should proceed more incrementally, in a common law

fashion. Several firms, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., openly argued in their Volcker Rule comments that Appendix B should be deleted entirely.

Other banks did not so openly call for the elimination of the Appendix, but instead argued more philosophically for a better accounting of the utility of asset position taking for hedging counterparty risk. Goldman Sachs’ comment letter was exemplary.

The final rule did indeed eliminate Appendix B from the proposed rule. Were these and other favorable changes attributable to the comments and influence of bank holding companies like Goldman and JPMorgan? Cause-andeffect attribution is difficult, as the counterfactual of whether the rule would not have changed absent a particular comment’s intervention is difficult to assess. Nevertheless the Volcker Rule triggered a causally identified difference between firms that comment and abstained. Figure 1 compares the standardized returns for publicly traded financial firms that commented on the Volcker Rule with those that did not comment relative to the time when the final Volcker Rule was announced. Prior to the announcement of the rule at

Lobbying on Appendix B When it came to the notice-andcomment process, large bank-holding companies targeted a part of the draft rule called “Appendix B.” Appendix B elaborated a set of criteria by which regulators proposed to adjudicate whether a particular trade using a firm’s own assets qualified as a “market-making” trade — allowing a client and a counterparty to complete a trade, thus enhancing liquidity in the financial system, and hence legal — or whether it should be categorized 6

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FIG. 1: DIFFERENTIAL RETURNS FROM VOLCKER RULE BY COMMENTER STATUS

Standardized returns for commenters and abstainers relative to the official announcement of the Volcker Rule. Shaded areas reflect the level of the price estimated via locally linear regression.

Excerpt from Goldman Sachs’ comment letter on the proposed Volcker Rule’s “Appendix B.” 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 12, 2013, the two sets of firms follow a common trend and their levels (estimated via local linear regression) are not statistically distinguishable. Twenty minutes after announcement, however, the difference in returns for commenters and abstainers is apparent. While it is difficult to imagine the market fully digesting the effect of the regulation in a mere 20 minutes, the broadstrokes were easier to evaluate, in part thanks to the Fed’s own press release, the preamble to the rule, news articles contemporaneously published (written with the benefit of prior access to the rule), and by the reports of equity analysts shared before and during the announcement. It was not hard to note, for example, that Appendix B had been deleted and that this was a major victory for firms extensively engaged in proprietary trading. One equity analysis firm, Morgan Lewis, remarked that “The Regulations no longer include Appendix B from the Proposed Rules. This is a significant accommodation to industry concerns over the requirements and impact of the proposed Appendix

B. While Appendix B purported to clarify what types of activities would be considered permissible market making-related activities, it contained a number of troublesome presumptions of activities that would be considered impermissible proprietary trading unless the banking entity could convince its regulators otherwise.”6 As we have documented elsewhere, the firms whose comments were cited in the final rule in the market-making section saw systematically higher stock returns in the first hour after the final rules was announced. Moreover, as we have also documented elsewhere, this pattern is hardly unusual: American financial firms that comment usually have higher returns relative to their competitors following Dodd-Frank rule announcements. Of course, there are cases where commenters did worse or not much different from abstainers, but the tendency for firms that comment to make gains following regulatory announcements relative to firms that did not is still notable evidence of gains for lobbying financial regulators.

As the Trump administration seeks to weaken Dodd-Frank and banking regulation more generally, it will turn less to congressional legislation than to administrative rulemaking to accomplish its goals. Just this past May, the Fed combined with a range of other agencies to extend a notice of proposal rulemaking for revision of the Volcker Rule.7 Early rulemaking under Dodd-Frank occurred with Democrats in control of the White House and the Senate. One wonders whether similar influences in comments will be observed that moderate the proposed rule. Because the initial proposed rule seeks to weaken the Volcker Rule’s proprietary trading restrictions, perhaps consumer comments will have more sway.

Capture or Informative Lobbying?

Whether the kinds of patterns witnessed in the Volcker Rule amount to a process that detracts from the public good or contributes to it is a difficult and thorny question. It is of extensions | Summer 2018

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POLITICAL SCIENTISTS AND JOURNALISTS ARE

(QUITE RADICALLY) UNDERESTIMATING THE AMOUNT OF LOBBYING THAT TRULY GOES ON IN AMERICAN NATIONAL POLITICS course possible that banks, possessed of highly refined and expensive information about the probable costs and effects of a rule, will be incentivized by a tough proposed rule to lobby with information, in a way that “subsidizes” (as political scientist Richard Hall has documented) the rule-writing agency to focus on those parts of the rule in which the bank is most interested. This may correspond to informative lobbying but may also reflect a degree of bias if the wealthiest interests are able to direct debate and rule revision to some parts of the rule rather than others.8 Still another possibility is that this rulemaking process allows for capture of a sort. Capture is difficult to define, precisely because it is such a widely used and loaded word. Daniel Carpenter and David Moss, in their recent book Preventing Regulatory Capture, argue that capture prevails when special interests (especially industrial or business-based special interests) can capture a regulatory process by intentionally driving policy away from the public good and toward their own interest. If a strong version of the Volcker Rule was in the public interest, then perhaps the weakening of the Volcker Rule and the elimination of Appendix B qualify as capture, but as scholars have argued, it is very difficult to detect and measure the public good, as well as to detect and measure whether capture is occurring in a given instance.9 Krawiec’s fascinating data on pre-notice of proposed rulemaking meetings by banks suggests that, if capture is in fact prevailing, it may be the kind of “cultural capture” that University of Connecticut law professor James Kwak discusses in a 2013 essay that is rapidly becoming an emerging classic. Kwak argues that capture occurs not because the company or industry bribes the 8

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regulator or somehow purchases influence, but rather through a deeply social process in which regulators become influenced by the status and power of bankers and adopt, sometimes slowly, the industry’s ways of thinking.10 What our research shows is that — whether the result is informative lobbying, capture by rulemaking or cultural capture — industry influence in financial regulation depends heavily upon the mobilization of legal expertise. To the extent that this hypothesis has merit, it means that political scientists and journalists are (quite radically) underestimating the amount of lobbying that truly goes on in American national politics, to say nothing of regulatory politics at the state and local levels. It also opens, we think, a new aperture into the dynamics of political inequality.

Suffice it to say that only some banks, and only some bankers, can afford the kind of high-end, specialized legal expertise that bank holding companies marshaled in their meetings and their comments on the Volcker Rule.

Because that kind of expertise is likely to be scarce for a long time to come, the process of lawyerly lobbying creates new inequalities in some of the most important public policy making in the modern United States.

Notes 1 Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Jerry L. Mashaw, Creating the Administrative Constitution: The Lost One Hundred Years of Administrative Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014); Daniel Carpenter, “The Evolution of National Bureaucracy in the United States,” in The Institutions of American Democracy: The Executive Branch, eds. Joel D. Aberbach and Mark Peterson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 41-71.

2 For a summary review of rulemaking under Dodd-Frank, see Curtis W. Copeland, “Rulemaking Requirements and Authorities in the

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” Congressional Research Service Paper 7-5700 (2010), http://www.llsdc.org/ assets/DoddFrankdocs/crs-r41472.pdf. On the role of bureaucratic politics in Dodd-Frank and its enforcement, consult J. Nicholas Ziegler and John T. Woolley, “After Dodd-Frank: Ideas and the Post-Enactment Politics of Financial Reform in the United States,” Politics & Society 44, no. 2 (2016): 249–280. Daniel Carpenter, “Institutional Strangulation: Bureaucratic Politics and Financial Reform in the Obama Administration,” Perspectives on Politics 8, no. 3 (2010): 825-845.

For more general overview of the legislation, see Edward J. Kane, “Missing elements in US financial reform: A Kubler-Ross interpretation of the inadequacy of the Dodd-Frank Act,” Journal of Banking and Finance 36, no. 3 (2012): 654–661; Daniel Carpenter, “The Contest of Lobbies and Disciplines: Financial Politics and Regulatory Reform,” in Reaching for a New Deal, eds. Theda Skocpol and Lawrence Jacobs (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011), 139-188.

3 Brian Libgober and Daniel Carpenter, “Lobbying with Lawyers: Financial Market Evidence for Financial Firm Influence on Regulation,” working paper, Harvard University, and Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

4 Larry Bartels, Unequal Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); Martin Gilens, Affluence and Influence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014). Professor Susan Webb Yackee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has pioneered the development and testing of hypotheses for unequal influence in rulemaking notice-andcomment processes. Consult Susan Webb Yackee, “The Politics of Ex Parte Lobbying: Pre-Proposal Agenda Building and Blocking during Agency Rulemaking,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 22, no. 2 (2012): 373-393; Jason Webb Yackee and Susan Webb Yackee, “A Bias Towards Business? Assessing Interest Group Influence on the U.S. Bureaucracy,” Journal of Politics 68, no. 1 (2006): 128-139.

5 Kimberly D. Krawiec, “Don’t ‘Screw Joe the Plummer’: The Sausage-Making of Financial Reform,” Arizona Law Review 55, no. 1 (2013): Table 3, pg. 87.

6 Morgan Lewis, “A Review of, and Insights into, the Volcker Rule Regulations,” January 2014, pg. 10, http://documents.jdsupra.com/75903cde9eb3-4a6a-ae61-4f94ac65aa47.pdf.

7 Sylvan Lane, “Fed votes to advance rule loosening Volcker rule on big banks,” The Hill, May 30, 2018, http://thehill.com/policy/ finance/389942-fed-advances-proposal-toloosen-volcker-rule.

8 Richard L. Hall and Alan V. Deardorff, “Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy,” American Political Science Review 100, no. 1 (2006): 69-84.

9 Daniel Carpenter and David A. Moss, eds., Preventing Regulatory Capture: Special Interest Influence and How to Limit It (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Carpenter, “Detecting and Measuring Capture,” in Preventing Regulatory Capture, 57-68.

10 James Kwak, “Cultural Capture and the Financial Crisis,” in Carpenter and Moss, Preventing Regulatory Capture, 71–98.

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CONSTITUENT CONTACT AND LEGISLATOR RESPONSIVENESS Mia Costa | Dartmouth College Mia Costa is an assistant professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. Her research focuses on issues of representation and the political behavior of elected officials and American citizens.

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legislator communication only fulfills its representative function insofar as legislators are actually responsive.

Whether and how legislators respond to such communications signal how well they represent and attend to their constituents’ concerns.

When politicians do not respond to constituent communication, they deprive their constituents of access to government and voice in the political process.

Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library

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ne of the most enduring forms of citizen engagement in a representative democracy is contacting one’s elected official in order to, as the Founders put it, “petition for a redress of grievances.” The communication between representatives and their constituents is, in many ways, baked into the design of American government.

In recent years, it seems as if it has become easier and more important than ever to voice your opinion to Congress.

Petitions circle the internet calling on voters to sign letters regarding legislation, interest groups organize massive letter-writing campaigns and there are even Twitter bots that compose letters on constituents’ behalf to legislative offices.1 In a nationally representative survey of American adults, over one-third reported that they had sent an email or letter to an elected official.2 Indeed, there is evidence that the volume of constituent mail that congressional offices receive has been increasing dramatically over the last two decades.3 In 2016, the Senate alone received more than 6.4 million letters just via postal mail.

Constituent relations are so important to American democracy because it connects representatives with citizens. Yet, constituent-

Inequalities in How Legislators Respond to Constituents Since contacting one’s legislator is so important to representative democracy, many scholars have begun to ask how responsive elected officials are to constituents, and whether elected officials are biased against

Representative Gerald R. Ford, Jr., reads constituent mail while eating a sandwich at his desk in his House office. 1953.

WHEN POLITICIANS DO NOT

RESPOND TO CONSTITUENT COMMUNICATION, THEY DEPRIVE THEIR CONSTITUENTS OF ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT AND VOICE IN THE POLITICAL PROCESS.

some constituents over others. To examine this, recent studies have followed the “audit” approach, an experimental methodology used in many disciplines to uncover various types of discrimination, such as in employment and hiring. For discrimination in constituent-legislator communication, audit studies involve randomizing the type of communication sent to public officials (this is the “treatment,” such as the race of the constituent), evaluating how many public officials respond and comparing response rates across groups. This experimental approach allows researchers to infer causality in a way that is not possible with observational data, where assignment to the treatment group is beyond the control of the researcher and consequently likely to suffer from bias.

In the past decade, the body of work using audit experiments to study legislative responsiveness has grown dramatically. At least 53 audits have been conducted since the initial one was published in 20114 and that number has been increasing since. The majority of these studies are done on state and local officials, rather than members of Congress, because there are more of these politicians to study. There are reasons to believe, however, that the results found for state officials can also apply to members of Congress. The few audit experiments that have been conducted on Congress have generally found similar patterns as studies on state and local officials.

This may be due, in part, to the fact that state legislatures are designed after the federal government and share many of the same institutional features, such as bicameralism, regular elections and separation of powers.

With that said, there are still some clear differences between Congress and state legislators that may limit the generalizability of the studies on state legislators. Notably, congressional offices are highly professionalized and have much more resources than state and local legislators. They may

RACE OR ETHNICITY OF THE

CONSTITUENT HAS A VERY LARGE EFFECT ON WHETHER THE LEGISLATOR RESPONDS be able to more routinely answer constituents’ letters and emails without differentiating between communications, leading to fewer inequalities in responsiveness than at the state or local level.

I conducted a meta-analysis of all published and unpublished audit experiments that examine elite responsiveness to constituent communication.5 Meta-analysis is a useful technique that synthesizes the findings of multiple studies and is especially valuable for better understanding a burgeoning area of research. By synthesizing the results of 41 audit experiments, I found that overall, government officials respond to letters and emails from constituents 53 percent of the time. How we substantively interpret this finding depends on our normative expectations about how responsive government officials should be. A combined response rate of 53 percent for any type of communication received in response

to a constituent request could be considered disappointing, especially for fully democratic countries like the U.S. Indeed, according to surveys by the Congressional Management Foundation, 91 percent of citizens want a response when they write to members of Congress.6 Since the emails in these audit experiments are specifically designed to elicit a response, ideally all would draw a response.

Of course, the overall rate of response is not the main outcome of interest in this literature. Rather, scholars seek to understand whether bias exists in legislative responsiveness; that is, are politicians more responsive to some constituents over others? I therefore also examined whether some factors influenced the responsiveness of legislators. One of my key findings is that the race or ethnicity of the constituent has a very large effect on whether the legislator responds (see Figure 1). Overall, racial and ethnic minorities are 9.4 percent

FIG. 1: EFFECT OF RACE/ETHNICITY ON LEGISLATIVE RESPONSIVENESS

The dots show difference in response rates for each group compared to white constituents. Vertical lines represent 95 percent confidence intervals. extensions | Summer 2018

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What Constituents Want (What They Really, Really Want) Despite all of the research on how responsive legislators are to constituent communication, scholars do not have a good general understanding of how citizens evaluate the communication they engage in with legislators. When citizens write to their representative, what kind of response do they expect in return? Constituents’ perceptions of this communication may affect

Fabrice Florin, distributed under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license

less likely to receive a response from legislators than non-minority constituents. In the U.S., legislators are 7.3 percent less likely to respond to African-American constituents than white constituents. They are twice as likely to ignore emails that come from nonwhite Latinos. Compared to white constituents, Latinos are 14.2 percent less likely to receive a response when they write to an elected official.

I also tested whether there was a difference in responsiveness between elected officials, for example members of Congress or state legislators, and non-elected “street-level bureaucrats,” i.e., public officials working in housing administration or voter registration offices at the municipal level. I found that officials who are elected are 18 percent less likely to respond to constituent mail than non-elected officials. This might be considered surprising, given that legislators are motivated by re-election and thus would have an incentive to be responsive to constituents (or potential voters). But it is possible that non-elected officials are better equipped to handle the minutia of casework and responding to citizens’ particular questions and requests.

Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA) addresses constituents at a town hall at the College of Marin in Kentfield, March 18, 2017. the extent to which they trust their elected officials and feel represented by government.

Some audit studies include a measure of the quality of legislators’ responses, in addition to simply collecting the overall rate of response.

For example, some scholars focus on the accuracy of the answer given in the response where others focus on attempts to be friendly. While these distinctions can uncover more subtle forms of bias in responsiveness to constituent mail, we still do not know if constituents themselves have the same considerations when communicating with elected officials.

Do constituents really care that much if emails from representatives are friendly?

It turns out the answer might be yes. Some of my ongoing work is focused on what constituents want out of their communication with representatives. For example, in a recent survey, I asked respondents to answer in their own words: “Generally speaking, what do you think makes

DO CONSTITUENTS REALLY CARE THAT MUCH IF EMAILS FROM REPRESENTATIVES ARE FRIENDLY? 12

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a good response from an elected official when they are replying to a constituent?” Their open-ended responses were telling. About onethird stated that they desired the response to be personalized, and/or include a greeting with their name, instead of being an automated form reply or even an answer in which the legislator copy and pasted information.

For example, one respondent wrote: “I think the most satisfying emails from elected officials are those that don’t seem like a generic form letter…

Constituents want to know that their elected officials are actually listening to them. I have written to several different elected officials over the years with mixed responses and the best responses were always the ones who addressed me by name, not by something along the lines of ‘valued constituent,’ and actually took the time to write a detailed message back.”

Another stated: “A good response is one that shows they read the original email and made at least a minimal attempt to get a personalized response instead of sending an automated message back. People appreciate it when they feel heard.”

The most striking thing here is not that constituents care about rhetorical niceties in legislators’ emails, which aligns with classic theories of representation and legislative behavior. Rather, it is that many respondents in the survey referenced the tone of legislators’ responses over the actual content. Specifically, many respondents stated that even if representatives could not help with the service request, they would be satisfied as long as the representative was polite.

In the same survey, I also used an experiment to examine whether certain components of legislative communication resulted in higher ratings of respondent satisfaction with the communication. Here, whether or not the legislator answered the question did have a large effect on satisfaction, but also among the strongest predictors were small, seemingly trivial phrases that add to a message’s “warmth.”

For example, respondents were

much more satisfied with the communication if the legislator’s message included a named greeting at the start of the message (e.g.,“Dear Molly”) or a sign-off at the end (e.g., “Regards,”). That only these few additional words could have such an influence suggests that forging a connection with legislators is central to constituents’ motivations for contacting representatives in the first place.

Does Constituent Mail Influence Policy?

To be sure, if a constituent is writing to their representative for help with a bureaucratic problem — such as registering to vote or filing for unemployment benefits — a friendly, generally informative response from the representative might be sufficient.

But many people who write to their representative do so to express a political preference and may desire

Pixabay

The sentiment that officials should write personalized responses was shared by many other respondents in the survey. As discussed earlier, congressional offices may be more equipped than state legislators to respond to a high volume of constituent mail because they have greater resources, but most of the time, these emails take the form of an automatically-generated letter. A trade-off might exist between simply replying to constituent mail and personally replying to constituents in a way that will make them “feel heard.”

In addition to desiring personalized interactions, one in 10 respondents referenced the tone of emails, stating that legislators should be “friendly,” “polite,” “cordial,” “warm,” etc. A few examples of these answers include: “A good response has a level of charm and interest. It should have a conversational, yet informational tone.

Also, it is best to be polite and thank the [constituent] and let them know you are there if they have any other questions.”

“Constituent service matters, and so does tone in these types of communications — terse, one-line answers, whether they provide the requested information or not, convey a sense of disinterest, even irritation.

As a public servant, I would make sure my staff greeted each of my constituents warmly, thanked them for their correspondence, and having addressed their concerns to the best of their ability, let them know our office is available for any and all follow-up questions, clarifications, etc. Basic customer service etiquette, really.”

“Elected officials should also be warm and polite when addressing their constituents.”

“A friendly tone is a must.”

“First of all I think they should be friendly in tone–almost overly friendly if necessary. Everyone knows that legislators are busy, but if they’re interested in getting votes, every email is an important one…These are future voters you’re answering!”

MANY RESPONDENTS STATED THAT EVEN IF REPRESENTATIVES COULD NOT HELP WITH THE SERVICE REQUEST, THEY WOULD BE SATISFIED AS LONG AS THE REPRESENTATIVE WAS POLITE.

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more than a response; they want action. Does contacting your elected official actually influence politics?

Since so many different factors can influence how a legislator decides to vote on an issue, it is difficult to isolate the impact of letters or emails from constituents. Yet there are many indications that politicians take constituent mail very seriously.

Most congressional offices have “constituent-management” programs whose sole purpose is to respond to constituent mail, as well as to develop the protocols for managing these communications.7 And some legislators claim that they rely on constituent mail for information about local policy issues in their districts.8 While it is difficult to causally link constituent mail and policy outcomes, one study found that when state legislators in New Mexico were informed via letter of public opinion on a certain policy proposal, they were more likely to vote in line with their constituents’ preferences.9 Given that officials at the federal level likely suffer from similar informational constraints about their constituents’ opinion on each issue, there is reason to believe that these results may very well extend to Congress (but, to be sure, more research should be done). Another study found that emails to New Hampshire state legislators mobilized through an interest group campaign influenced their voting behavior on two pivotal roll call votes.10 This set of studies suggests that emails and letters from constituents about a particular issue may lead legislators to be more

responsive to constituents’ policy preferences.

On the other hand, there is some evidence that contacting legislative offices to express policy concerns may be more successful if money is involved. In one study, a political organization contacted congressional offices in an attempt to schedule a meeting between the offices and campaign donors in the members’ district. When the organization informed the offices that the meeting attendees were campaign donors, members of Congress were between three and four times more likely to agree to a meeting.11 This work suggests that Americans who contact Congress in order to express their concerns would have a greater shot at having their voice heard only if they donate to their Congress member’s campaign.

Conclusions We can draw several conclusions.

First, the power to influence legislators via letters or emails is not equal across citizens. In particular, elected officials are much less responsive to mail from racial and ethnic minorities than they are to white constituents. Moreover, non-elected government officials in the “street-level bureaucracy,” such as housing officials and election administrators, are actually more responsive to constituent requests than officials that we elect to office. While legislator-constituent communication is a central component of representative democracy, those who are actually elected to represent

SOME STUDIES SUGGEST THAT

EMAILS AND LETTERS FROM CONSTITUENTS ABOUT AN ISSUE MAY LEAD LEGISLATORS TO BE MORE RESPONSIVE; CONTACTING LEGISLATIVE OFFICES TO EXPRESS POLICY CONCERNS MAY BE MORE SUCCESSFUL IF MONEY IS INVOLVED. 14

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us, in Congress and at the state or local level, may not be as apt to deal with constituency service requests as non-elected government officials.

It is less clear whether contacting your legislator about a policy issue actually impacts their activity around that policy.

With this said, citizens who contact their elected officials should not feel entirely disheartened. Contacting one’s representative can still result in a helpful response or even influence legislators’ behavior, especially on issues that are not yet a subject of intense partisan controversy.

Politicians claim that emails and letters from constituents help them understand the problems in their districts.12 Moreover, there are other benefits of contacting your legislator besides exerting a direct influence over policy outcomes. Getting involved in politics and having high levels of political efficacy — that is, feeling that your voice matters — has psychological benefits that are important for a healthy civic society.13 It is also possible that publicly sharing your act of political engagement, as many users of Facebook and Twitter now do, may encourage others to do the same.14 Finally, as my preliminary research suggests, having a positive experience communicating with an elected official and “feeling heard” might be just as important of a goal to constituents as concretely affecting a policy outcome.

Second, that people place a great amount of weight on the tone and friendliness of legislative communication has serious implications for understanding political representation. Classic research on legislative behavior argues that representatives try to appear responsive in order to generate trust among constituents. Some scholars have gone so far as to argue that what matters in responsiveness is that constituents feel represented, “regardless of whether the representative is responsive in his policy stands or the services or

IN AN ERA OF HEIGHTENED POLARIZATION

AND DISILLUSIONMENT WITH GOVERNMENT, IT IS AS IMPORTANT AS EVER TO UNDERSTAND THE DIRECT INTERACTIONS CITIZENS HAVE WITH THEIR ELECTED OFFICIALS. public goods he provides for his constituency.”15 What my research suggests is just how easy it might be to make constituents feel represented.

For example, including a named greeting at the start of an email results in higher constituent evaluations of legislative responsiveness, a finding that was consistent across multiple tests. Elected officials and legislative aides should not take this to mean that they do not also have to provide quality representation to constituents; rather, what seems to matter is that constituents are given voice and feel heard. Taking care to make a direct and personal connection with letter writers may go a long way in improving relations with one’s constituency.

Finally, I conclude with a note for scholars about the increasing number of audit studies on legislative responsiveness to constituent mail.

In general, I urge scholars doing this work to think about what each new experiment is really contributing to the broader body of literature and our collective knowledge about representation, given the realworld consequences of each study.

Legislators are spending their time and effort answering more and more “constituent” emails from researchers, and more and more of them are, according to some of my colleagues, becoming privy to the scheme and are not happy about it. The jig is not yet entirely up, so to speak, but it does not bode well for scholarship nor democracy if social scientists aggravate legislators and waste their time (albeit minimally). Instead of repeating the excellent experiments that have already been conducted — e.g., by randomizing the putative race/ ethnicity of the constituent, asking for help with a service request, etc. — how

can we leverage this type of design to probe deeper about the nature of representation, or the relationship between constituents and their representatives? Can more be done to understand the impact of constituent mail on politics beyond receiving a response from the legislator? In an era of heightened polarization and disillusionment with government, it is as important as ever to understand the direct interactions citizens have with their elected officials. After all, such interactions are an important component of efforts to restore trust in the political process, especially when constituents do not always agree with their representatives.

Auditing legislators to assess biases in responsiveness pushed the boundaries of extant political science scholarship and uncovered an important political problem. Scholars should now continue to push the boundaries in other directions to move toward identifying other problems or uncovering solutions.

Notes https://twitter.com/resistbot.

Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian F. Schaffner, “CCES Common Content, 2016,” Harvard Dataverse, V4, UNF:6:WhtR8dNtMzReHC295hA4cg==, 2017. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GDF6Z0.

3 Kathy Goldschmidt, Nicole Folk Cooper, and Bradford Fitch, Communicating with Congress: How Citizen Advocacy Is Changing Mail Operations on Capitol Hill (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Management Foundation, 2011).

4 Daniel M. Butler and David E. Broockman, “Do Politicians Racially Discriminate Against Constituents? A Field Experiment on State Legislators,” American Journal of Political Science 55, no. 3 (2011): 463-477; Mia Costa, “How Responsive are Political Elites? A Meta-Analysis of Experiments on Public Officials,” Journal of Experimental Political Science 4, no. 3 (2017): 241-254.

5 Costa, “How Responsive are Political Elites?.”

6 Kathy Goldschmidt and Leslie Ochreiter, Communicating with Congress: How the 1

2

Internet Has Changed Citizen Engagement (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Management Foundation, 2008).

7 For example: Bradford Fitch, Kathy Goldschmidt, and Nicole Cooper, CitizenCentric Advocacy: The Untapped Power of Constituent Engagement (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Management Foundation, 2017); Tim Hysom, Communicating with Congress: Recommendations for Improving the Democratic Dialogue (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Management Foundation, 2008).

8 Kathryn Schulz, “What Calling Congress Achieves,” The New Yorker, March 6, 2017, https:// www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/ what-calling-congress-achieves.

9 Daniel M. Butler and David W. Nickerson, “Can Learning Constituency Opinion Affect How Legislators Vote? Results from a Field Experiment,” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 6, No. 1 (2011): 55-83.

10 Daniel E. Bergan, “Does Grassroots Lobbying Work? A Field Experiment Measuring the Effects of an e-Mail Lobbying Campaign on Legislative Behavior.” American Politics Research 37, No. 2 (2009): 327-352.

11 Joshua L. Kalla and David E. Broockman, “Campaign Contributions Facilitate Access to Congressional Officials: A Randomized Field Experiment,” American Journal of Political Science 60, no. 3 (2016): 545-558.

12 Schulz, “What Calling Congress Achieves.”

Also see Richard F. Fenno, Home Style: House Members in Their Districts (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978).

13 Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer, “Happiness, Economy and Institutions,” The Economic Journal 110, no. 466 (2000): 918-938; Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

14 Robert M. Bond, Christopher J. Fariss, Jason J. Jones, Adam D. I. Kramer, Cameron Marlow, Jaime E. Settle, and James H. Fowler, “A 61-million-person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization,” Nature 489, no. 7415 (2012): 295-298.

15 Heinz Eulau and Paul D. Karps, “The Puzzle of Representation: Specifying Components of Responsiveness,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1977): 248.

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Special Orders

THE NATIONAL SCHOOL WALKOUT OF MARCH 14, 2018

Jeremy Pressman | University of Connecticut Jeremy Pressman is an associate professor of political science and the director of Middle East studies at the University of Connecticut. He is co-director — with professor Erica Chenoweth of the University of Denver — of the Crowd Counting Consortium at crowdcounting.org.1

O

n March 14, 2018, about 1.1 to 1.6 million students in approximately 4,470 schools walked out of their schools or staged other events as part of a national walkout.2 This event marked the highest number of locations for any single-day protest held in United States history. That day should spur reflection on how the walkout unfolded and what it says about power dynamics in schools, the politics of gun violence and the internalization of fear.

In this essay, I argue that administrators and students wrestled in different ways over how the day would unfold. Schools are a more controlled environment than are the usual spaces where protests take place. Many students and walkouts embraced the political rationale of the walkout — the need for new gun control policies. But even those who eschewed politics could not truly escape the political frame of the walkout writ large and the day’s media coverage. Meanwhile, the day itself served up reminders of the way in which safety and threat has permeated so many aspects of school life.

This essay is based on reading over one thousand media reports and 16

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tweets about the day. I co-direct the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) at crowdcounting.org where we tally protests in the U.S. and present our results in monthly updates about the size and nature of a given month’s protests.3 To do so, we depend on reports from social and traditional media, as well as submissions from the general public via our website.

Not surprisingly, students used social media extensively on March 14 to publicize and document their walkouts; many reporters, even though frequently barred from accessing school campuses during the walkouts, offered reports from the scene and told citywide or regional stories of what transpired.

Power Struggle Walkouts, a tactic students have used in the past, reflect an underlying struggle for power between students and administrators.4 Among venues where protest can occur, a school is more tightly controlled than most.5 Rules and schedules dictate where a student must be in the building and at what times. The idea of a walkout is a direct challenge to this notion of

administrative control of students’ location and schedule. The case of March 14, 2018, represents not only students making a substantive argument — that what happened in Parkland and before should be the subject of protest — but also a student transgression of the standard operating procedures. In other words, the initial call for a walkout is a call for 17 minutes (or more) of student control of location and schedule.

Superintendents and principals could call on a range of reasons to support or oppose the walkout.6 They do so in a context in which they often must answer to other stakeholders such as parents, school board members and teachers. They might oppose students breaking rules, such as those about attendance, leaving class, leaving the school building and arriving tardy to class. They might argue that leaving the school building is dangerous. They might oppose the political nature of the protest given that schools have students of various political persuasions; they do not want their school system to be associated with a particular partisan view but rather viewed as a comfortable place for all political flavors. They might fear that one protest on one issue could

WALKOUTS REFLECT AN UNDERLYING

STRUGGLE FOR POWER

BETWEEN STUDENTS AND ADMINISTRATORS. administrators they wrestle with these issues on a regular basis, with many probably losing sleep given the weight of the responsibility they have for hundreds to hundreds of thousands of precious student lives in their care.

Given the paucity of national progress on gun reform, they might welcome student initiative. They might have personal views or career incentives that dovetail with the political agenda of the walkout.

While we do not yet have the kind of deeper studies that might explore such motivations for March 14, 2018, we can say that administrators reacted in four ways in the weeks leading up to March 14: a largely hands-off approach, negotiated terms, co-optation of the walkout

or complete opposition.7 The lines between the categories may be a bit fuzzy. The news reports on which this essay is based do not provide enough detail to fully reconstruct the back and forth that took place between students, administrators, teachers, and parents, but they do at least suggest that at many schools, there were extensive discussions.

By a largely hands-off approach, I mean that administrators did not interfere or re-direct student efforts.

They may have provided some elements of support or answered questions, if asked, but they largely let the students dictate the form and shape of the walkout. If the students wanted to gather on the football field, they may have ensured that extra

Steve Garvie, distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license

snowball into many, frequent protests that regularly disrupt the school, undermine discipline and structure, and/or reduce academic learning time. They might have personal views or career incentives that clash with the political agenda of the walkout.

In terms of support, administrators might view this as a welcome opportunity for students to apply their classroom knowledge in a real-world setting and build important life skills related to leadership, public speaking and research. To oversimplify, the walkout becomes an opportunity for passive members of the school audience — the students — to become active participants in their own education and future. They might see students as voters-in-training, with this being an opportunity both to gauge the progress on that front and to further hone the relevant ideas and skills. They could support speaking out on gun violence, gun control and school safety because as

Students from Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa, join in the national school walkout on March 14, 2018. extensions | Summer 2018

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and the disciplinary consequences, e.g., detentions, for attending.8 Finally, some schools or districts were totally opposed to the walkout and tried to make sure it was not observed. They rejected the notion of any event. Students in Stanly County schools in North Carolina were put in lockdown during the time of the national walkout, though the administration later claimed the lockdown was supposed to be “a vehicle to allow students to discuss, debate, and share their thoughts.”9 The superintendent of Florida’s Escambia County said that, “[a] ‘rebellious’ event that disrupts school activities and is done without permission will not be tolerated.”10 Now in any of these four categories, students could accept the administration’s response and play by those rules or reject them. Students are autonomous human beings, and some of the walkouts demonstrated that students defied administrators and accepted consequences rather than allowing administrators to dictate how the walkout would unfold, if at all. At Albany High School, in New York, a student told a reporter she was not allowed to march with her sign because the school said it was “too political.” The student asked, “Can you get a photo of me with it anyway?”

The reporter obliged and posted it on

Twitter where it had 508 retweets and 866 likes within a week.11 Post-walkout discipline came in two forms. In certain cases, both sides seemed to acknowledge that some students broke rules and these actions carried consequences. Students and principals knew their roles; it was civil disobedience. You might think of it as an example of the theater of protest. In Downers Grove, Illinois, the district stated that, “When several of our student leaders heard that some schools were not assigning consequences, they shared with administration they didn’t feel this was a good idea. Students believed that in order to be taken seriously, they should show they are committed enough to receive a consequence.”12 In other cases, however, the discipline came in a more antagonistic manner, in the sense that administrators were angry that students had defied their authority. There was no expressed sense of understanding for why the students had dared to break the rules. Parents and school boards also weighed in during the back and forth over discipline.

In sum, administrators varied greatly in their willingness to cede power to students for the walkout.

Many were unwilling to do so and thus, at a minimum, insisted on negotiating with student leaders

https://crowdcounting.carto.com

police officers were there just in case.

In short, the students led and owned the walkout.

By negotiated terms, I mean that a student-administration dialogue shaped the terms of the walkout and the exact type of event that took place. Sometimes this meant re-direction with, for example, students who originally wanted a walkout that left the building accepting an indoor gathering, e.g., in the halls or the gym. The original student vision was not enacted but the administration did not assume complete control of the event either.

The administration set the parameters.

By co-optation of the walkout, I mean that the event largely took on the characteristics of a regular, schoolwide event. The best example is probably an indoor, all-school assembly in an auditorium or gym that was an officially-sanctioned part of the day’s schedule. Students did not leave the building; there were no consequences for attending; and the ceremony was seemingly apolitical enough — more on that below — that the principal felt it was safe to mandate all students attend. To differentiate between this category and the negotiated one, we should think about who attended, where it took place, the content of the event,

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DEFYING SCHOOL AUTHORITY

IS NOT AN EASY STEP. THAT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS STUDENTS TOOK THAT STEP TELLS US MUCH ABOUT THE IMPACT OF SCHOOL SHOOTINGS AND GUN VIOLENCE ON THIS GENERATION. to help shape the walkout at their school. Students, too, greatly varied in their levels of boldness. Intentionally defying school authority for the sake of a greater cause is not an easy step. That hundreds of thousands of students took that step tells us much about the impact school shootings and gun violence are having on this generation of students.13 They are worried, and they are motivated.

Political Walkouts While many students at the walkouts openly embraced policy stances (gun control) that other students opposed, some students and many administrators distanced themselves from what they called the political aspects of the walkout.

They sought to support only the two parts of the event that they saw as non-political and on which everyone agreed: we remember Parkland and we want safe schools for everyone. I am deeply skeptical that omitting the role of guns in school violence thereby depoliticizes the event. In particular, the momentum for changing gun laws in the U.S. is bolstered by the number of students and schools that participated in the national walkout on March 14, regardless of whether some of those students and schools asserted a non-political aim.

In some schools, students and administrators clearly tried to distance themselves from the politics of gun control. “Our event is in no way motivated by gun control but led to commemorate the students and staff who so tragically lost their lives on Feb. 14,” one student leader told

150 to 200 other students on the sidewalk outside Saegertown JuniorSenior High School in Saegertown, Pennsylvania. At nearby Meadville Area Senior High, a group of students also gathered in front of the school, but a second group “gathered inside the school auditorium to conduct a separate observance in honor of the Parkland victims rather than participate in the outdoor event associated with the National Student Walkout movement organized by Women’s March Youth Empower.”14 Under intense community pressure, student organizers at Billings West High School in Montana changed their Facebook call from “gun reform” to “school safety.”15 In Florida’s Escambia County, “the school is ‘asking’ students not to discuss political issues like gun laws.”16 But in some sense, it all was political, because it took place on the designated day, March 14.

First, the national leadership of the walkout, Empower (the youth arm of the Women’s March), supported the idea that gun control will help improve school safety. Its formal list of demands supported legislation banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, expanding background checks to all gun sales, and supporting restraining orders against dangerous gun owners.

Empower also called for federal funding for research into gun violence.17 Second, many students and student leaders at the walkouts called explicitly for gun reform. A future project could evaluate the speeches, posters and statements at each school. But my preliminary contention

is that at the majority of schools, the walkouts highlighted the connection between permissive gun policies and violence in schools.18 Moreover, many walkouts were connected to other political, though not partisan, acts. At Brighton High School in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, one organizer encouraged students to “send an email to their elected representatives by the end of the day.”19 At Gloucester High School in Massachusetts, a student speaker told 300 fellow students, “One day of protest is not enough...Get involved, let your voice be heard, work with candidates.”20 A sub-set of walkout students at Gig Harbor High School in Washington continued on to a local museum where they ran a letter-writing campaign (“Students will provide paper, pens and pre-addressed envelopes”) and voter registration table for the wider community.21 As an aside, these activities demonstrated that many students understood that a successful social movement is based on not a single walkout but rather a continuous flow of events and actions that in different ways affect politicians and the political process.

Third, the local story lines probably have a local impact, but the press and society aggregate them into a national narrative about the March 14 walkouts.

As that happens, I would expect that gun control will remain a part of that narrative. One reason is the proximity to the March for Our Lives on March 24. To the extent that both days are seen as part of the same wider social movement, the March for Our Lives emphasized gun control efforts even more explicitly and uniformly than the school walkouts. As that fuses together with the walkouts, I think the events of March 14 and March 24 will cement the centrality of this movement’s commitment to gun control as a means to reduce gun violence in schools and elsewhere.

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THE QUESTION OF WHERE WE DRAW THE LINE IN RESPONSE TO THE THREAT OF VIOLENT ACTORS IS A KEY POLITICAL ONE. Washington High School in Atlanta or of a sit-in in the hallways of CarmanAinsworth High School in Flint Township, Michigan.

Fourth, memory can be a political act even if people often do not think of it that way. Consider the individuals or historical events we memorialize with national holidays and what they symbolize. When students or others remember Parkland and the lives cut short, they will also explicitly or implicitly remember that a gun cut those lives short. They may also remember the individual perpetrator, the role of law enforcement and other factors.

But you cannot avoid telling the story of Parkland, or any other shooting, without identifying the means by which the casualties occurred. Telling the story may not determine the path forward, but to state the obvious, it does offer some very suggestive elements for those who argue that stricter gun laws would reduce the epidemic of gun violence in the U.S.

On the one hand, every school district needs to be prepared for the possibility of mass violence. Should a shooter enter a school, we all want students, teachers and staff to react in a way that minimizes the casualties.

We want people to know what to do and it is impossible to do that without talking about it, and without practicing and training for it, even with very young children.

Internalized Fear Admittedly, my final point is a tricky one to make. Like every reader, I greatly value the safety of our students including of course my own students and my own children.

Students should not have to live in fear of their school becoming the next Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the next Sandy Hook Elementary School, or the next in an ever-growing list of school shootings.

Yet I worry about the endless messages we transmit to students and teachers about fear, threat, violence and safety. You might call it the Preparedness Dilemma.

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On the other hand, constantly talking about fear and insecurity influences us to feel more fearful and less secure. The more times we rehearse for dealing with an attack, the more it reinforces the possibility that an attack might happen, often disproportionately to the actual odds of such mass violence. Is there a spot where society can land that is prepared but not unduly fearful? I am doubtful.

A disproportionate emphasis on responding to mass shootings might also distract society from addressing

the more frequent acts of gun violence that harm a single person.

In terms of the walkout, note the widespread expression of administrators’ concern about safety if students left the building. Whether the result was not leaving the building, many extra police officers on-site, allowing an outdoor walkout only on closed school grounds (e.g., a fenced-in track or football field), and/ or preventing parents and community members from joining the student demonstration, the overriding concern for safety sent a very clear message.22 Even on the day millions of students are protesting about school safety, school safety and the possibility of its absence (a threat) helped determine the nature of the walkout and reinforced the message that threats to student safety are ubiquitous.

Did keeping students separate from the wider community advance school safety? Perhaps. But what if, for example, the only way to change the American approach to gun violence is through a massive, crossgenerational social movement?

In the long term, is barring parents from school campuses slightly undermining the push for that movement and for positive change?

Despite important differences, I am reminded of societies that face internal violence, often from terrorist organizations. Many times, the societal response to a brutal terrorist attack is to carry on, because to redefine what can pass for normal in daily life is to give the violent perpetrators power. So people carry on. At the extreme, we could build schools that are more like fortresses. We could turn school buses into armored personnel carriers but this time the personnel are K-12 young people. Surely then our capitulation to the demands imposed by violent actors would have gone too far. The question then is as we move

away from the extreme examples, where do we draw the line? It is a key political question.

Conclusion In this article, I have neglected the larger currents in which this issue is situated. The U.S. faces all kinds of gun violence, in schools and other venues as well as at the mass and individual levels. There are accidental shootings. Some people use guns to commit suicide, a far more lethal method than many other possible means of attempting suicide. How U.S. society and politicians have responded to these variations is also driven by other crucial factors like class, gender and race. Black Lives Matters and Dreamers have also brought students to walk out and march in the streets, but often to a different societal reception. That is significant.

The March 14 walkouts were quickly followed by the March for Our Lives on March 24 and more student walkouts at thousands of schools on April 20 when many of the same struggles and questions arose. Close academic scrutiny could help further explicate these questions about student-administrator relations over highly-charged political issues, the best route to student safety, and the risks of living in a fearful society.

Scholars should make sure not to get too academic. The subject at hand is one dear to our hearts and the future of our children, who themselves by definition are the future of the United States. The loss of lives, the injuries and the lasting trauma for thousands every time a school shooting of any size happens animates the research and reflection, but they should not be fully supplanted by it.

Notes 1 I would like to thank Professor Erica Chenoweth, the co-director of the Crowd Counting Consortium and an excellent scholarly partner. For assistance compiling the information, I would also like to thank Fizza Alam, Camille Chill, Madeleine Chill, Kevin Fitzgerald, Sarah

Fromer, Tommy Leung, Nathan Perkins, and Jason Spandow. For comments on earlier drafts and other ideas, I would like to thank Kanisha Bond, Glenn Mitoma, Ellen Steigman, and Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh. For financial support, I would like to thank Humility & Conviction in Public Life, a project of the University of Connecticut’s Humanities Institute, and the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

2 Jenna Arnold, Kanisha Bond, Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman, “These are the four largest protests since Trump was inaugurated,” The Washington Post, May 31, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkeycage/wp/2018/05/31/these-are-the-four-largestprotests-since-trump-was-inaugurated/?utm_ term=.547843477798. The Crowd Counting Consortium’s public spreadsheet for March 2018 may be viewed at https://docs.google.com/ spreadsheets/d/1S4f4a8vkezwDqNbFyyj13vOetyX LUGqF2tflsVayTa4/edit#gid=1538635238 3 For example, see Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman, “In December, thousands of Americans protested against the tax plan, for DACA and about all the other usual suspects,” The Washington Post, January 25, 2018, https:// www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/ wp/2018/01/25/in-december-thousand-ofamericans-protested-against-the-tax-plan-fordaca-and-about-all-the-other-usual-suspects; and Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman, “The Women’s March could change politics like the Tea Party did,” The Guardian, January 31, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2018/jan/31/womens-marchpolitics-tea-party.

4 For administrative thinking about how to handle student walkouts, see U.S. Department of Education, “Responding to School Walkout Demonstrations,” Lessons Learned 3:1. Silver Spring, MD: Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Technical Assistance Center, 2008.

5 From January 21-December 31, 2017, only about 4.1 percent of protests in the United States took place at schools, including school system headquarters but not including universities. See Jeremy Pressman, Erica Chenoweth, Camille Chill, and Kevin Fitzgerald, “Protests in the United States, 2017,” unpublished manuscript.

6 Decisions at the district level often might dictate how much discretion principals have in dealing with proposed walkouts.

7 In this article, I focus on the studentadministrator interactions. Teachers are a third actor who might also support or oppose student or administrator views on the walkout.

8 In the case of schools that co-opted the walkout with a mandatory school assembly, there might have been penalties for not attending.

9 Paul Boyd, “Students told they couldn’t participate in walkout in Stanly County,” wsoctv.com, March 16, 2018, https://www. wsoctv.com/news/local/students-told-theycouldnt-participate-in-walkout-in-stanlycounty/716560939.

10 Only the word rebellious is a direct quotation of the superintendent. Jake Newby, “Escambia County Superintendent: No tolerance for walkouts March 14,” Pensacola News Journal, March 13, 2018, https://www.pnj. com/story/news/local/2018/03/13/escambiacounty-superintendent-no-tolerance-walkoutsmarch-14/416458002/.

11 See https://twitter.com/bethanybump/ status/973929512126877696. Totals as of March 22, 2018.

12 “More Than 1,000 Students Face Discipline for Joining Nationwide School Walkout Over Gun Violence,” NBC Chicago, March 16, 2018, https:// www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/downersgrove-school-walkout-discipline-detentionparkland-477115933.html.

13 I hesitate to put an exact number on it because attending a school-sanctioned assembly with every other student is usually not thought of as a bold or defiant act.

14 Mike Crowley and Lorri Drumm, “Crawford County students remember those killed last month in Florida during national walkout,” Meadville Tribune, March 15, 2018, http://www. meadvilletribune.com/news/crawford-countystudents-remember-those-killed-last-monthin-florida/article_4b30a496-27f1-11e8-8b5aaf070a118854.html.

15 Julie Turkewitz, “The View From Opposite Sides of a Student Walkout in Montana,” New York Times, March 15, 2018, https://www. nytimes.com/2018/03/15/us/school-walkoutmontana.html.

16 Newby, “Escambia County Superintendent.”

17 Women’s March, “Our demands,” Accessed May 9, 2018. https://www.womensmarch.com/ enough-demands. For more on the impediments to federal research and recent workarounds, see Michael Hiltzik, “Kaiser Permanente will start filling the vacuum in gun research with a $2-million study program,” April 11, 2018, http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fihiltzik-kaiser-guns-20180411-story.html; Ryan Hutchins, “7 governors launch ‘unprecedented’ effort to study gun violence,” Politico, April 25, 2018, https://www.politico.com/states/newyork/albany/story/2018/04/25/7-governorslaunch-unprecedented-effort-to-study-gunviolence-384339; and Nell Greenfieldboyce, “Spending Bill Lets CDC Study Gun Violence; But Researchers Are Skeptical It Will Help,” March 23, 2018, https://www.npr.org/sections/ health-shots/2018/03/23/596413510/proposedbudget-allows-cdc-to-study-gun-violenceresearchers-skeptical.

18 One reason my estimate could be wrong is that the areas more sympathetic to gun control might be over-represented in the media coverage based on where media outlets are concentrated.

The absence of local media entities might be more likely in areas of the United States where gun control is less popular.

19 Marjorie Cortez, “‘If we don’t take action, who will?’: Utah students participate in nationwide walkout,” Deseret News, March 14, 2018, https://www.deseretnews.com/ article/900012904/utah-students-join-nationalschool-walkout-to-protest-gun-violence.html.

20 Joann Mackenzie, “‘We feel unsafe’ — 300 teens walk out, will deliver essays on gun violence, reform Friday,” Gloucester Times, March 15, 2018, http://www.gloucestertimes.com/news/ local_news/we-feel-unsafe-teens-walk-out-willdeliver-essays-on/article_195ccf29-64d8-5c36bb77-2383e8d35014.html.

21 “Gig Harbor students plan walkout to honor Parkland shooting victims,” The News Tribune, March 13, 2018, http://www. thenewstribune.com/news/local/community/ gateway/article204982489.html.

22 Some schools allowed joint studentcommunity protests — for example, Brattleboro Union High School in Vermont. Liam ElderConnors, et al., “Vermont Students Join In National School Walkouts Despite Some School Closures,” VPR News, March 14, 2018, http://digital.vpr.net/post/vermont-studentsjoin-national-school-walkouts-despite-someschool-closures.

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For the Record

CINDY SIMON ROSENTHAL, WHEN A WOMAN LEADS

Ronald M. Peters, Jr. | Founding Director and Professor Emeritus

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indy Simon Rosenthal has always been a leader. She began her adult life as a journalism major and point guard on the women’s basketball team at Northwestern and then a reporter on the city beat for The Toledo Blade in her native Ohio. She would go on to hold multiple director positions with the National Conference of State Legislatures, along the way picking up a master’s degree in urban studies from Occidental College. Cindy came to Norman in 1985 when her husband Jim joined the University of Oklahoma faculty in social work. From the very beginning she was active in the Norman community — joining the Citizens Advisory Committee to the Norman School Board (her first CAC!). There, she met Carl Albert Center Associate Director Gary Copeland, at that time a member of the Norman School Board. She learned of the center’s graduate fellowship program and Gary encouraged her to apply. While her experience had involved state legislative politics and policy, her interests were and remain broadly theoretical in legislative institutions, particularly the role of women in political leadership.

Cindy joined the center as a graduate fellow in 1991. She immediately established herself as a leader among her peers and as a collaborator with other students and faculty. She chose as her dissertation topic a study of women in state legislative leadership roles. Supported by a dissertation grant from the 22

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Cindy Simon Rosenthal’s award-winning dissertation was published by Oxford University Press in 1998.

National Science Foundation, she conducted field research in four state legislatures where women served in committee leadership roles.

Her dissertation was recognized as the outstanding dissertation in the field of women and politics by the American Political Science Association and When Women Lead would be published by Oxford University Press in 1998. It is recognized as a milestone study on the impact of women in legislative politics.

In 1995 Cindy joined the faculty in the OU Department of Political Science, offering courses in American politics, public administration and public policy.

In 1998 Cindy was named Assistant Director of the Carl Albert Center.

In that role she organized a major conference on women in congressional leadership, leading to the publication of the edited volume Women Transforming Congress.

In 1999 she received the Irene Rothbaum Award as the Outstanding Assistant Professor in OU’s College of Arts and Sciences.

She also brought the N.E.W. (National Education for Women’s) Leadership program to Oklahoma.

Since its founding in 2002, N.E.W. Leadership brings to OU’s campus more than two dozen women undergraduates from colleges and universities around the state for an

Rosenthal receiving the Woman of the Year award from the Journal Record in 2010.

Rosenthal at the 2018 EmPower Lunch. intensive residential conference that immerses participants in state politics and policy. Many N.E.W. Leadership participants have gone on to careers in public service or become active in citizen participation. N.E.W. Leadership and the center’s companion programs under the umbrella of the Women’s Leadership Initiative have been honored repeatedly by Oklahoma’s Journal Record “Woman of the Year” celebration as a program “making a difference.” Cindy also established the Pipeline to Politics program, which encourages women to become involved in politics and public service.

In 2005 Cindy was named Director and Curator of the Carl Albert Center.

As director, she initiated a number of new programs including Community Scholars, which immerses students in internship experiences in state and local government and nonprofit organizations.

While serving as curator, the center advanced a number of initiatives and secured external funding for activities such as a traveling exhibit on water development and obtained a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to process the papers of James R. Jones, a member of the House of Representatives and later the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.

She maintained an active research agenda as well, including further work

Founding Director Ron Peters, former House Speaker and current Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Cindy Simon Rosenthal (from left to right) in Washington. on women’s roles in state legislatures and Congress. In 2010 she and I published Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New American Politics, which remains the definitive book on Nancy Pelosi as the first and, to date, only woman speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

In recognition of her outstanding contributions to OU, in 2002 Cindy was named the Carlisle Mabrey and Lurleen Mabrey Presidential Professor of Political Science. She is also the recipient of the Sophonisba Breckinridge Award for the best paper on women and politics at the Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting.

Cindy’s academic accomplishments tell only one part of her accomplished career. She is also among the rare political scientists who have served in elective public office. In 2004 she was elected to the Norman City Council for Ward 4. In 2007 she was elected to the first of three consecutive terms as mayor of Norman, the first women to have been elected to that position and the second-longest serving mayor in the city’s history. As mayor, Cindy worked to address the city’s water challenges and advanced the Norman Forward initiative.

Her many civic accomplishments have won statewide recognition. She received the Distinguished Public Service Award of the Oklahoma

Chapter of the American Society of Public Administration in 2009, the Woman of the Year award from the Journal Record in 2010, and the 2016 Don Rider Award from the Oklahoma Municipal League.

Cindy’s retirement from public office in 2016 and from OU in March 2018, left big shoes to fill in Norman and at the university. Fortunately for all of us, she and Jim will remain a part of the city and university communities as they enjoy their retirement in traveling, playing golf, visiting their grandchildren, and at their second home in Santa Fe. We at the Carl Albert Center will miss Cindy’s energy, her wisdom and her unflagging good spirits as the center moves into its next era, building on the foundation to which she has so greatly contributed.

Rosenthal with Joel Jankowsky at the Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture Series. extensions | Summer 2018

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CINDY SIMON ROSENTHAL RETIREMENT CELEBRATION

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THE STUDENTS WERE LUCKY TO HAVE DR. ROSENTHAL AS A ROLE MODEL, BUT SO WERE THE FACULTY AND STAFF. HER LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP WILL CONTINUE THROUGH SO MANY PEOPLE IN SO MANY WAYS. — Breea Clark

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Former students, professional associates, family and friends gathered from around the country in February to celebrate Cindy Simon Rosenthal’s career. Among the presentations were an engraved crystal of the United States Capitol commemorating her role as center director and the unveiling of a plaque designating the “Cindy Simon Rosenthal Office of Women’s Leadership” in the Carl Albert Center.

1. Breea Clark and Rosenthal.

2. Rosenthal with N.E.W. Leadership alumnae (left to right) Meredith Wolfe, Lauren Schueler, Ally Glavas, Connie Hammond, Grace Olaleye, Leslie Illston and Brittany Heckard.

3. Past and current center faculty join the celebration. (left to right) Ron Peters, Mike Crespin, Glenn Krutz, Rosenthal, Allen Hertzke and Chuck Finocchiaro.

4. Rosenthal and husband Jim Rosenthal.

5. Director and Curator Mike Crespin presents Rosenthal with plaque.

6. R osenthal with center staff (left to right) Kay Blunck, Katherine McRae and Laurie McReynolds.

7. Plaque designating the “Cindy Simon Rosenthal Office of Women’s Leadership.”

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I AM THE SCHOLAR AND EDUCATOR THAT I AM TODAY

BECAUSE OF CINDY. — Victoria Rickard

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For the Record

NEWS FROM THE CENTER Katherine McRae | Director of Administration

Archives

The 2018 Capitol Scholars and their assignments were: Drew Hutchinson, Senate Judiciary Committee; Arden Nerius, Oklahoma Department of Education, Government Affairs; Andrew Rader, Sen. Kay Floyd; Cole Roberts, Oklahoma Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union; Logan Slane, Sen. J.J. Dossett; Weston Thompson, Rep. Cindy Munson; Amy Vanderveer, Oklahoma Policy Institute; and Izzy Vasquez, Oklahoma Department of Education, Legal Services.

Joseph J. Fins used research from the archives in his article, “Secret Memo Shows Bipartisanship During Watergate Succession Crisis,” written for The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/us).

Fins discussed the Watergate crisis, President Richard Nixon’s resignation and how Democratic House Speaker Carl Albert considered resigning to avoid partisanship and ensure a Republican assumed the presidency.

In April, the center participated in the activities surrounding University of Oklahoma President David Boren’s retirement. Archivist Rachel Henson designed an exhibit which was displayed at Boren’s retirement dinner and later in the Oklahoma Memorial Union. The exhibit featured material from the archives’ David L. Boren Collection documenting 2018 Capitol Scholars (left to right) front row: Boren’s time as Oklahoma Weston Thompson, Cole Roberts, Logan Slane, governor and U.S. senator.

Professor Michael Crespin; middle row: Izzy Vasquez, Amy Vanderveer; back row: Arden Nerius, Drew Hutchinson, Andrew Rader.

Capitol Scholars Each spring the center offers the Capitol Scholars course in which students are placed in internship assignments at the Oklahoma legislature and with related institutions. During the semester, students develop professional skills and experience, and gain insight into the Oklahoma legislative process and state government.

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The 2018 legislative session was notable due to the hundreds of public school teachers who rallied at the state capitol for increased funding for public education. The multiday teacher rally was one of several nationwide which garnered local and national media attention.

In April, Carl Albert Center Director Mike Crespin and the scholars traveled to the Kansas state capitol

to experience the legislative process in another state. The visit was hosted

by University of Kansas Professor Burdett Loomis and the Dole Institute of Politics. The group met with Kansas Speaker of the House Ron Ryckman Jr. as well as other legislators, lobbyists and reporters. This is the third year of the ongoing exchange program between OU and KU, and the center plans to host students from KU for a visit to the Oklahoma state capitol in 2019.

Women’s Leadership Initiative The Women’s Leadership Initiative welcomed a new graduate assistant to the team. Connie Hammond is a 2017 graduate of the N.E.W. (National Education for Women’s) Leadership program and is pursuing her master’s degree in public administration at OU. The center again partnered with the Oklahoma Women’s Coalition to host the ninth “Pipeline to Politics” conference to help attendees increase their involvement in politics and public service. The conference was held Jan. 27 in Oklahoma City at the Girl Scouts of Western Oklahoma headquarters.

More than 40 women from around the state heard from 14 expert speakers which included four female elected officials and presenters on topics such as grassroots organizing, communications, campaign strategy, fundraising and why women are needed in politics and public service.

In May, the 2018 N.E.W. Leadership program converged on the Norman

campus for the 17th year. The program’s mission is to educate, inspire and empower women to become leaders in public service and elective office. The intensive fiveday program brought together 37 undergraduate women from 24 higher education institutions to learn from Oklahoma’s top women leaders in government, business, the nonprofit sector and politics. Lauren Schueler, director of N.E.W. Leadership and civic engagement, and Dr. Jill Irvine, President’s Associates Presidential Professor of International and Area Studies at OU, oversaw the program.

The 2018 faculty-in-residence were Sarah Adams-Cornell, co-founder of Matriarch, a program to empower Native women, and Tamya Cox, regional director of public policy and organizing for Planned Parenthood Great Plains. Students heard from more than 50 presenters about various topics and completed a campaign simulation and action project focused on the topic of paid family leave. The program closed with the fourth annual EmPower Lunch fundraiser where Natalie Shirley, president and CEO of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, served as the keynote speaker.

Civic Engagement Fellows Civic Engagement Fellows Brenda Lozano, Madison Morrow and Ryleigh Navert had a busy spring semester.

First, they attended the National Campaign Conference at Harvard University Feb. 2-4. The conference theme was “Facilitating Civil Discourse on Campus” and the fellows joined students from around the country to learn how to build relationships to help further civic engagement initiatives on their campuses.

The fellows then held two “Politics and Pizza” sessions. On Feb. 27, they partnered with the OU Writing Center to present information about best practices for communicating with legislators. Speakers were Madison

Hobson, campaign scheduler with the Todd Lamb for Governor campaign and former director of constituent services for the Oklahoma lieutenant governor; Scott Martin, president and CEO, Norman Chamber of Commerce and former state representative; and Will McPherson, field representative, office of Rep. Tom Cole. The Writing Center provided templates for writing letters and emails to legislators.

The second event April 10 addressed the challenges faced by women in politics, public service and higher education. Attendees heard from Oklahoma State Commissioner of Labor Melissa McLawhorn Houston; state Rep. Cyndi Munson; and Kayla Storrs, OU Diversity Enrichment Programs & Diversity Interns program.

Presentations In January, graduate fellow Henry Ashton presented “Information Valence and Evaluations of Congress and Individual Legislators: Experimental Evidence Regarding Negativity Bias in Politics,” with B. Kal Munis at the Southern Political Science Association annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ashton also presented “Congress and the Unilateral Presidency: On the Constraints Imposed by Gridlock and Divergence from the Majority Party Median” at the same meeting.

In April, graduate fellows Matthew Geras, Sarina Rhinehart and Jessica Hayden presented “Electoral Rules and Gender Representation in U.S. Congressional Elections” at the Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois. The fellows also presented “Appointees versus Elected Officials: The Implications of Selection Method on the Diversity of State Bureaucratic Leaders” at the same meeting.

Transitions The center experienced several significant leadership and personnel transitions in the first half of 2018.

In March, JA Pryse joined the center as senior archivist. Pryse previously served as the director of the digital archives at the Oklahoma Historical Society. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Oklahoma, a master’s degree in museum science from OU, and a master’s in information and library science from the University of North Texas. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in information policy and management from UNT. March also marked the retirement of longtime center director and curator Cindy Simon Rosenthal.

Professor Michael Crespin was promoted to center director and curator, and Charles Finocchiaro was promoted to associate director.

Crespin has been with OU since 2014 and served as associate director of the center. Prior to joining OU, he taught at the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Georgia.

He earned his Ph.D. from Michigan State University and served in the office of Rep. Dan Lipinski as an APSA Congressional Fellow.

Michael Crespin, Cindy Simon Rosenthal and Charles Finocchiaro pictured at the Rothbaum Lecture dinner in October 2017.

Finocchiaro joined OU and the center in 2017 as an associate professor. He previously taught at the University of South Carolina and the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Finocchiaro received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University where he extensions | Summer 2018

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In April, the center hosted a public event on the topic of congressional reform. The standing room only crowd heard from John A. Lawrence, former chief of staff to House Speaker and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and author of the new book The Class of ’74, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, and David W. Rohde, Ernestine Friedl Professor of Political Science at Duke University. During his visit, Rohde visited some OU classes and interacted extensively with graduate students, sharing his insights on developing a successful research program.

Laurie McReynolds retired from the Carl Albert Center on July 1, 2018 after nearly 20 years of service at the University of Oklahoma. was a fellow in the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program.

The changes continued as Laurie McReynolds retired July 1 after nearly 20 years of service at OU. During her career, McReynolds served four center directors, provided key support for numerous events including 10 Rothbaum lectures and 17 N.E.W. Leadership programs, as well as every class of Capitol and Community Scholars. Her hard work ensured that events came off without a hitch and our graduate fellows knew they

could always count on her for help no matter the problem.

Laurie was the face of Monnet Hall, the first person visitors saw as they walked into the building, and was always eager to help, even if it meant pulling out a map and directing them elsewhere. Laurie assisted countless students and guests in a variety of ways. All of us at the Carl Albert Center will miss her and wish her all the best in retirement.

Visiting Scholars Patrick Charles from St. Petersburg, Florida researched the history of gun rights, gun control and the Second Amendment. He is the senior historian for special operations command in the U.S. Air Force.

Community Engagement

Carl Albert Dissertation Award winner Michelle Whyman with Senior Vice Provost and former CAC associate director Glen Krutz.

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In March, the center hosted 2017 Carl Albert Dissertation Award winner Michelle Whyman. She participated in on-campus presentations and a Community Coffee Klatch. Whyman received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program at Duke University.

Alumni News Carl Albert Graduate Fellow alum Professor Karen M. Kedrowski has been named director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University.

Prior to this appointment, Kedrowski had been a professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and served as executive director for the university’s Center for Civic Learning and the co-director of its John C. West Forum on Politics and Policy.

The Center welcomes news from former students — please contact us with career updates!

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER! /CarlAlbertCenter /womensleadershipinitiative @CarlAlbertCtr @W_L_I

THE CARL ALBERT GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM ~ A Commitment to the Study of Representative Government ~ The Carl Albert Graduate Fellowship is a highly-competitive and prestigious program at the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma.

Carl Albert Fellows work closely with Center faculty, in cooperation with the Department of Political Science, to pursue a rigorous and individualized program of study leading to a PhD. Fellows focus their program of study on fundamental issues in representative government in America including the study of institutions, processes and public policy.

Faculty regularly interact with fellows in a physical space that facilitates collaboration and scholarly exchange. The laboratory model of graduate education means students will be involved with research from day one.

The robust fellowship package provides up to four years (including summers) of financial support as a teaching or research assistant and a final additional year with no work obligations to complete the dissertation.

The fellowship pays for full tuition and fees, funded research and conference travel, course work at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and dissertation research funds. The Center also assists fellows in finding the best possible placement to meet career goals.

Carl Albert Center Director and Curator Mike Crespin (left) with Carl Albert doctoral fellows (left to right) Courtney Kellogg, Sarina Rhinehart, Henry Ashton, Jessica Hayden and Matthew Geras.

Carl Albert Fellows are introduced to nationally known political leaders and scholars through special guest lectures and seminars.

Distinguished visitors to the Center include Representative Tom Cole, Former Ambassador James R. Jones, and leading scholars such as Daniel Carpenter, Jennifer Hochschild, Frances Lee, John Patty, David Rohde, Steven S. Smith, and Keith Whittington.

Carl Albert Fellows access a rich and diverse selection of other resources at the University of Oklahoma: • Carl Albert Center Congressional and Political Collections: bit.ly/CAC-Archives • National Institute for Risk and Resilience: risk.ou.edu • Political Commercial Archives: pcc.ou.edu

CARL ALBERT GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP Application Deadline: February 1 of each year.

Apply Online bit.ly/CAC-GradFellow extensions | Summer 2018

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The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center 630 Parrington Oval, Room 101 Norman, Oklahoma 73019-4031 (405) 325-6372 http://www.ou.edu/carlalbertcenter

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage

PAID University of Oklahoma

Visiting Scholars Program The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma seeks applicants for its Visiting Scholars Program, which provides financial assistance to researchers working at the Center’s archives. Awards of up to $1,000 are normally granted as reimbursement for travel and lodging.

The Center’s holdings include the papers of many former members of Congress, such as Speaker Carl Albert, Robert S. Kerr, and Fred Harris of Oklahoma; Helen Gahagan Douglas and Jeffrey Cohelan of California; Dick Armey of Texas; and Neil Gallagher of New Jersey. Besides the history of Congress, congressional leadership, national and Oklahoma politics, and election campaigns, the collections also document government policy affecting agriculture, Native Americans, energy, foreign affairs, the environment and the economy.

Topics that can be studied include the Great Depression, flood control, soil conservation and tribal affairs. At least one collection provides insight on women in American politics. Most materials date from the 1920s to the 1990s, although there is one nineteenth-century collection.

Information about the Center’s collections is available online at ou.edu/carlalbertcenter. Additional information can be obtained from the Center.

The Visiting Scholars Program is open to any applicant. Emphasis is given to those pursuing postdoctoral research in history, political science and other fields. Graduate students involved in research for publication, thesis or dissertation are encouraged to apply. Professional writers and researchers are also invited to apply. The Center evaluates each research proposal based upon its merits, and funding for a variety of topics is expected.

Interested applicants should complete the Visiting Scholars Grant Application available online at ou.edu/carlalbertcenter/congressional-collection/vsp. Applications are accepted at any time.

For more information, please contact: Archivist, Carl Albert Center, 630 Parrington Oval, Room 101, Norman, OK 73019. Telephone: (405) 325-6372 E-mail: cacarchives@ou.edu

The University of Oklahoma is an Equal Opportunity Institution. www.ou.edu

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extensions | Summer 2018

Extensions is a copyrighted publication of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center. It is distributed free of charge twice a year. All Rights Reserved.

Extensions and the Carl Albert Center symbol are trademarks of the Carl Albert Center. Copyright Carl Albert Center, The University of Oklahoma, 1985.

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