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In 1976, after teaching for several years at the University of Massachusetts and spending several more years in various congressional staff positions, I joined the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress in Washington. CRS was and remains an invaluable and unique resource for the members and staff of the House of Representatives and the Senate, offering well--informed, balanced, and policy-neutral information and analysis on issues that attract congressional interest.
For the next 26 years, I focused on the operations of Congress itself, especially its legislative process in committee and on the floor. My task and my goal were to make the rules, precedents, and practices of both houses as accessible as possible to those empowered to use them. Much of my work took the form of meetings, seminars, and telephone conversations, as well as memoranda available only to the Senators or Representatives who requested them. I believe, though, that my most lasting legacy, such as it
At the same time, I did not cut my ties completely with the political science community. Beginning in 1980 and for many years thereafter, I presented papers, at political science conferences and other forums, on the congressional process and, in later years, on similar topics in non-American or comparative settings. Some of these papers subsequently were published in academic journals; most were not. Conference papers gave me the luxury to write on subjects that interested me, even if they were of much more