Profile:

PhD, Harvard, 1994. American politics, history, institutions. Current research on Congress, state legislatures, and urban politics. Books include The Making of New Deal Democrats (University of Chicago Press, 1989), Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed (Harvard University Press, 1999), and a forthcoming book (with Steven S. Smith) on the development of Senate party leadership in the 19th and 20th centuries. Articles include No Strength in Numbers: The Failure of Big-City Bills in American State Legislatures, 1880-2000 (with Thad Kousser), American Political Science Review (2013); "The Dynamics of Party Government in Congress" (with Steven S. Smith) in Congress Reconsidered, 10th ed. (CQ Press, 2013); “Broad Bills or Particularistic Policy? Historical Patterns in American State Legislatures” (with Thad Kousser), American Political Science Review (2010); "Pockets of Expertise: Institutional Capacity in Twentieth-Century State Legislatures" (with Nancy Burns, Laura Evans, and Corrine McConnaughy), Studies in American Political Development (2008); "Legislatures as Political Institutions: Beyond the Contemporary Congress" (with John Huber) in Political Science: The State of the Discipline, 3rd ed. (American Political Science Association and W. W. Norton, 2002); "The Growth of Voluntary Associations in America, 1840-1940" (with Robert Putnam), Journal of Interdisciplinary History (1999); "Representing Urban Interests: The Local Politics of State Legislatures" (with Scott Allard and Nancy Burns), Studies in American Political Development (1998); and "Emergence of Legislative Institutions" (with Kenneth A. Shepsle), Legislative Studies Quarterly (1989). Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1996-97. Recipient of a 1998 Goergen Award for Distinguished Achievement and Artistry in Undergraduate Teaching. Chair of the Department of Political Science, 1999-2011. Teaches courses in the fields of American politics and American history.