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Lauren C. Bell |
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R-MC Professor Lauren Cohen Bell is the author of a new book,
Filibustering in the U.S. Senate (Cambria Press, 2011). Bell, the associate dean of the college and professor of
political science, says she was inspired to write the book because “there are a lot of misconceptions about filibusters. Many people envision the classic filibuster scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but very few filibusters actually look like that anymore.”
The book includes a much more comprehensive list of Senate filibusters than any that has previously been compiled, and identifies the senator or senators that led each one. The list undergirds a comprehensive historical analysis of filibusters and a full exploration of both micro-level determinants of filibustering and macro-level factors that affect filibustering and its consequences. Beyond compiling and sharing information about who filibusters what, Bell demonstrates that filibustering is simply one strategy among many that senators employ as they try to advance their sometimes competing goals of representing their constituents, serving their political parties, and crafting good legislation.
Bell is also the author of
Warring Factions: Interest Groups, Money, and the
New Politics of Senate Confirmation and The U.S. Congress,
A Simulation for Students, as well as co-author of
Perspectives on Political Communication: A Case Approach with Randolph-Macon colleagues Ted Sheckels and Joan Conners
. Her work has appeared in The Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, The Journal of Legislative Studies,
The Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and
Judicature.
Bell, who joined the faculty at R-MC in 1999, earned her B.A. from the College of Wooster, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at The University of Oklahoma. She served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary during the 1997–1998 academic year and was the United States Supreme Court Fellow at the United States Sentencing Commission in Washington, D.C. in 2006–2007.