Incorporating the crucial updates and new research you expect, the thirteenth edition of Congress and Its Members remains a trusted resource for introducing students to the legislative branch. As thousands of undergraduates have learned, focusing on Congress as not only a legislative body, but also as a group of reelection-minded politicians, is an extraordinarily effective way to understand the institution and the law-making process.

In addition to featuring new examples and cases drawn from recent congressional politics—including the battles over health care reform, financial regulations, economic stimulus, fiscal management, and tax policy—the authors also integrate new scholarship on representation, congressional elections, lobbying influence, and the relationship between Congress and the Court.

The thirteenth edition also features analysis of:

• the 2010 congressional campaigns and elections;
• party and leadership changes for the 112th Congress;
• executive-legislative relations under President Obama;
• new procedures in the House and Senate;
• budgeting in an era of huge deficits;
• the heightened importance of lobbyists in legislative policymaking;
• public attitudes about Congress as dysfunctional, even corrupt; and
• the courts and their impact on the interpretation of congressional statutes, the scope of congressional power, and the reach of statutory campaign finance regulations.

CQ Press is pleased to comply with the Higher Education Opportunity Act. Please email heoacompliance@cqpress.com for additional information that may be available. Be sure to include your name, contact information, academic affiliation, and the title, author, and edition of the book in question.

Contact us at collegesales@cqpress.com if we may assist you in your book selection or if you have feedback to share. Thank you for your consideration of CQ Press books.

Part I. In Search of the Two Congresses
1. The Two Congresses
2. Evolution of the Modern Congress

Part II. A Congress of Ambassadors
3. Going for It: Recruitment and Candidacy
4. Making It: The Electoral Game
5. Being There: Hill Styles and Home Styles

Part III. A Deliberative Assembly of One Nation
6. Leaders and Parties in Congress
7. Committees: Workshops of Congress
8. Congressional Rules and Procedures
9. Deliberation in Congress

Part IV. Policy Making and Change in the Two Congresses
10. Congress and the President
11. Congress and the Bureaucracy
12. Congress and the Courts
13. Congress and Organized Interests
14. Congress, Budgets, and Domestic Policymaking
15. Congress and National Security Policies

Part V. Conclusion
16. The Two Congresses and the American People

Congress and its Members stands out among textbooks on the topic. Its substantive coverage is comprehensive, ranging from campaigns and elections to committee politics, floor procedure and inter-branch relations. It reflects the best recent scholarship about Congress, and the authors do a great job of integrating up-to-date illustrations and examples. The book is a superb vehicle for getting undergraduate students interested in the legislative process.

In an age when it is easy to be cynical about politics and Congress's standing with the public continues to plummet, Congress and its Members challenges its readers to understand the complexities and contradictions faced by legislators and Congress as an institution. The authors engage both students and scholars by combining discussions of the latest political controversies with historical and theoretical analyses that engage readers of all backgrounds.

This is a book I have used with great success, not only with an advanced class of college students, but which I have recommended to curious Americans and foreign visitors alike who want to learn more about how Congress really works in easy-to-understand, non-technical language. The contemporary examples used to bring the modern Congress to life are worth the price of admission alone.

Congress and Its Members is a classic. Its authors have written a book that combines analytic depth and up to date coverage of the latest congressional controversies. The text is great for students and scholars alike.

I always assign Congress and Its Members because it provides the most comprehensive assessment of Congress and the individuals and groups within and outside of the institution. Each volume is meticulously researched, timely, and, accessible to students who appreciate the text's balance between statistical data and in-depth, member-specific cases. I highly recommend Congress and Its Members for anyone interested in understanding Congress and its central role in American politics.I am delighted to sing the praises of Congress and Its Members. It is simply an outstanding text.

Organized around the simple, but incisive, theme of the "two Congresses", Congress and Its Members provides students with a valuable framework for understanding lawmaking and representation in Congress. Just as successful members of Congress must balance the competing demands of the institution and their constituents back home, Davidson, Oleszek, and Lee masterfully balance the historical with the contemporary, the theoretical with the practical, and the sophisticated with the accessible.

Roger H. Davidson is professor emeritus of government and politics at the University of Maryland, and has served as visiting professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. During the 1970s, he served on the staffs of reform efforts in both the House (Bolling-Martin Committee) and the Senate (Stevenson-Brock Committee). For the 2001–2002 academic year, he served as the John Marshall Chair in political science at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. His books include Remaking Congress: Change and Stability in the 1990s, co-edited with James A. Thurber (1995), and Understanding the Presidency, 6th ed., co-edited with James P. Pfiffner (2011). Davidson is co-editor with Donald C. Bacon and Morton Keller of The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress (1995).

Walter J. Oleszek is a senior specialist in the legislative process at the Congressional Research Service. He has served as either a full-time professional staff aide or consultant to every major House and Senate congressional reorganization effort beginning with passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. In 1993 he served as Policy Director of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. A longtime adjunct faculty member at American University, Oleszek is a frequent lecturer to various academic, governmental, and business groups. He is the author or co-author of several books, including Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process, 8th ed. (2011), and Congress under Fire: Reform Politics and the Republican Majority, with C. Lawrence Evans (1997).

Frances E. Lee is professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. She has been a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution and an APSA Congressional Fellow. She is the author of Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate (2009) and co-author, with Bruce I. Oppenheimer, of Sizing Up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation (1999). Her articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and American Journal of Political Science, among others.