Book Project

In my book project, I examine how the Supreme Court affects policy development through statutory interpretation using the case studies of the National Labor Relations Act, Voting Rights Act, Social Security Act, and Clean Air and Water Acts.

Standalone articles from this work can be found in American Political Science Review and Law & Social Inquiry.

Normative Projects on Judicial Power

In research with Kumar Ramanathan, we interrogate normative implications of the outsized power afforded the U.S. Supreme Court. Using several methods, we explore several topics including the visibility of judicial decisionmaking, developments of Court doctrine, and how partisan dynamics structure judicial power. This collaborate agenda encompasses two working papers and a forthcoming article at The Forum.

Interest Group Scorecards and Intra-Party Conflict

In a project with Laurel Harbridge-Yong, we explore how interest group scorecards affect the influence of party leaders and intraparty cohesion in the United States Congress, arguing that interest groups will incentivize rank and file members to break with party leaders when organized interests and leadership take opposing positions on floor votes. Examining the position of fourteen interest groups across the 110th-115th Congress, we find that support for our hypothesis, and also uncover new insights regarding when interest groups disagree with ideologically aligned party leaders. These findings have important implications for interest group strategy, party leadership, and where power resides in the legislative process. This project was recently published in Legislative Studies Quarterly.

Public Writing

In May 2024, I published a blog post analyzing institutional clashes between the Biden-Harris NLRB and federal courts through an American Political Economy lens. I argue that the Biden-Harris NLRB has aggressively advanced workers’ rights but highly organized and resourceful business organizations have proven adept at limiting NLRB action through litigation. As such, sustained political action and success is required to create a more favorable institutional landscape for America’s workers.

In January 2022, I published an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune with Tonja Jacobi titled, “In voting rights battle, moderate Republicans are allowed to duck the issue”. In the piece, we argued that moderate Republican Senators (especially Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins) deserved heightened public scrutiny for their position-taking (or lack thereof) on proposed voting rights legislation.