The thesis began as a paper
written in Dr. Mueller's
seminar on Congress class,
a graduate seminar.
I was interested in the
members of Congress and
where they come from.
You went on to decide to
write a thesis on this
and to really expand that.
And I view my role as being
part facilitator, helping you
find sources, particularly
in the scholarly literature,
trying to ground your research
in other findings out there
so that you can explain how this
fits into political science
knowledge, and then
helping you think about
some of the big questions.
And it's been really interesting
to watch that evolve and
watch your skills as both a data
collector, the real practical
aspect of research, and
a writer really evolve.
I thought your research really
turned into something more
interesting because some of your
results were so suprising.
It wasn't suprising to me that
you found that there are more
women, a few more women in
Congress than there used to be,
but some of the other variables
that you looked at, to me,
were really intriguing and
raised other questions.
So why don't you tell us
a little bit about what
some of those factors
are that you found,
how is Congress
changing slowly.
I was trying to think of all
kinds of different variables
that I might code for in this
project, and I took a lot of
these ideas from research
articles that we had read
in your class, and I was
trying to determine what
personal factors of the
members of Congress might
make a difference in
their electoral success.
So I did code for things like
gender, I coded for occupational
background, I coded for age,
racial status, religion, and a
number of these things did yield
some pretty interesting results.
Also, what's interesting is some
of the religious diversity that
we're seeing in Congress now.
For instance, the 110th Congress
which was elected in 2006,
it included the first two
Buddhists ever elected to
Congress, the first two Muslims
ever elected to Congress.
So we're starting to see some
really interesting changes
that are likely to be enduring.
One thing I wonder about is
a lot of research right now
suggests that Congress is
ineffective, and there are
some measures that suggest
that it is ineffective,
but maybe it's just an
evolution occurring.
I think that that might have
something to do with it.
You know, the electorate and
the general population here
in the United States, there's
not unanimous agreement
among the voters.
The fact that there may be
more disagreement and there
may be more people pulling
in different directions as
opposed to moving in the same
direction, I don't think
that's necessarily a
bad thing.
I think that may be an evolution
that may be just reflective of
the fact that the US House
of Representatives may be
more representative
today than ever.
