Educator Seminar: Congress, the Constitution, and Contemporary Politics.
A decade ago, poll results released by Public Policy Polling showed that Congress was “less popular than root canals, NFL replacement referees, head lice, the rock band Nickelback, colonoscopies, carnies, traffic jams, cockroaches, Donald Trump, France, Genghis Khan, used-car salesmen and Brussel sprouts.” Although the poll interjected a dose of humor into understanding Congress’s low favorability ratings, there is nothing funny about the low esteem in which the public holds its national legislature. It is not unusual for polls to reveal that just single-digit percentages of respondents approve of the job that Congress—the part of the U.S. national government that the Framers intended to have the most power in our political system—is doing.
This seminar covers the main roles and functions of the U.S. Congress—representation, lawmaking, government oversight, and legitimizing the American political system—and considers why it is that the institution that the Framers most directly connected to the people is now so thoroughly loathed by the American public. The seminar reviews the constitutional design for the Congress and evaluates the ways in which the contemporary Congress has evolved from its historical roots. Throughout the seminar, issues such as the development and polarization of the political parties, changes in public expectations about representation, and internal changes to the House and Senate are explored, and seminar participants will consider how these changes have affected both Congress’s productivity and the public’s expectations of the institution over time. Participants will engage with the readings and course content in a series of discussions and activities that simulate the major steps in the legislative process.
About Lauren C. Bell
Lauren C. Bell is the inaugural James L. Miller Professor of Political Science at Randolph-Macon College, in Ashland, Virginia. In addition, she currently serves as the college’s Associate Provost and Dean of Academic Affairs.
Dr. Bell holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Wooster (Ohio) and Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at The University of Oklahoma. She is a former American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow (1997-98) on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a former United States Supreme Court fellow (2006-07) at the United States Sentencing Commission in Washington, DC. In Fall 2015, Dr. Bell was a short-term visiting scholar on the Faculty of Law at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan.
Dr. Bell is the author, co-author, or co-editor of six books: Civic Pedagogies: Teaching Civic Engagement in an Era of Divisive Politics (Palgrave McMillan, 2024), The U.S. Congress, A Simulation for Students (Cengage, 2nd ed. 2022), Slingshot: The Defeat of Eric Cantor (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2015), Filibustering in the U.S. Senate (Cambria Press, 2011), Perspectives on Political Communication: A Case Approach (Allyn & Bacon, 2008), and Warring Factions: Interest Groups, Money, and the New Politics of Senate Confirmation (The Ohio State University Press, 2002). Her seventh book, Transatlantic Majoritarianism: How Migration, Murder, and Modernity Transformed Nineteenth Century Legislatures, is forthcoming from Clemson University Press.
In addition to these books, Dr. Bell’s scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including The Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, The Journal of Legislative Studies, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Social Science Quarterly, Judicature, and the Journal of the Society for American Music.
Dr. Bell joined the faculty at Randolph-Macon College in Fall 1999 and served as Associate Dean of the College from Fall 2007 until Spring 2014 and as Dean of Academic Affairs from Fall 2014 until Spring 2022. She is a three-time winner of the College’s Thomas Branch Award for Excellence in Teaching (2002, 2004, 2019), and in 2017 was recognized as one of ten national Outstanding First-Year Advocates by the National Resource Center on the First Year Experience and Students in Transition. In 2023, Dr. Bell was awarded the Samuel Nelson Gray Distinguished Professor Award, the highest honor Randolph-Macon College bestows upon its faculty members.
