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Written by three of the nation's best-known and most-respected political scientists, Vital Statistics on Congress, 2001-2002, is the definitive source of essential information for all those who watch Congress--as citizens, journalists, political scientists, students, lobbyists, and even as staff and members of the institution. The volume is an invaluable tool for observing and evaluating the changing shape of politics and the legislative branch of government. The eleventh addition is updated to include new statistical information on the 2000 elections and the 107th Congress. More than 100 tables and figures illustrate the dramatic changes taking place in Congress.

In addition to the chapters on the members of Congress, elections, campaign finance, committees, the congressional staff, Congress' workload, budgeting, and voting alignments, this edition contains an introductory essay that describes Congress during three key eras during the past fifty years and identifies the major changes and patterns of stability in that period. [more...]

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI. He is codirector, with Thomas E. Mann, of the AEI-Brookings Transition to Governing Project.

Thomas E. Mann is the W. Averell Harriman Senior Fellow in American Governance at the Brookings Institution. With Norman J. Ornstein, he has codirected the AEI-Brookings Renewing Congress and Transition to Governing Projects.

Michael J. Malbin is executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute in Washington, D.C. and a professor of political science at the State University of New York at Albany and the director of its Washington Semester Program.