Nelson Polsby

by Karl Kurtz

A point of personal privilege here to salute the passing of University of California, Berkeley political scientist Nelson Polsby, one of the foremost American legislative scholars. 

I first knew of Nelson in graduate school as the author of the seminal American Political Science Review article, "The Institutionalization of the U.S. House of Representatives," which inspired my own PhD. dissertation expanding on his topic.  When I became a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association, I met Nelson personally.  He befriended me, as he did all of the Congressional Fellows, and I valued that friendship, which continued over the decades.

Nelson never studied state legislatures (despite his interest in me and my career, I harbor a suspicion that he regarded state legislatures as the minor leagues), but his voluminous writings on Congress have greatly influenced the study of state legislative scholars who have tested his hypotheses about national politics at the state level.

Nelson was as well known in England as in the U.S., as witness a thorough and personal obituary in the Times of London.  I love the Times' description of him: "Polsby had a dominating physical presence; a mountain of a man, he looked like an American footballer gone to seed."

Because I knew Nelson through the Congressional Fellowship program, I want to share a portion of a letter that Jeff Biggs, the director of the program, wrote to all Congressional Fellows today:

For all those who study, teach, write about and love politics, we have lost a true friend with the death last night, Tuesday, February 6, 2007, of Nelson Polsby. He passed away peacefully, at home, in his favorite chair, with his wife, Linda, and daughter, Emily Polsby, near his side.

[Continue reading Jeff Biggs' letter after the jump.]

The Heller Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught American politics and government since 1967, Nelson was a close Congress watcher for more than 40 years and was the author of, among others, Congress and the Presidency, Presidential Elections (with Aaron Wildavsky, 10th edition), and most recently, How Congress Evolves: Social Bases of Institutional Change. For many years he was the director of the Institute of Government Studies at Berkeley as well as editor of the Annual Review of Political Science. His political acumen reached far beyond the world of academe through his frequent op-ed pieces in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. He was a recipient of the American Political Science Association’s Goodnow Award for service to the profession....

On a more parochial, but one of my favorite, point, Nelson Polsby, at his request, was serving his second stint on the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program’s Advisory Committee. He frequently credited the fellowship’s political scientist alumni with having been in the forefront of scholarship on the Congress. Although I knew him for years, he never ceased retelling me the story, as though we were meeting for the first time, that he had been nominated, but not selected to be a Congressional Fellow, because the selection panel felt he already knew too much about the institution.

Our loss is lessened only by the wealth of fond memories and intellectual debt we owe to Nelson Polsby.

Comments

[David Skaggs]

This is a such a loss to the field -- whether of scholarship or practical politics. I was introduced to Congress in any meaningful sense when Nelson brought Dick Bolling to Wesleyan for a visiting stint in 1963 -- Polsby then a junior faculty member and Bolling a senior member (not yet chair, I believe) of the Rules Comm and I a junior in college. The exposure to both Polsby and Bolling sharpened my early interest in politics and Congress and shaped what has ended up being a career. It was a particular joy and source of satisfaction for all of us to reconnect when I served in the House and was able to tell Nelson and Dick of the huge influence that early experience had had on me. Thank you, Nelson, and Godspeed.

[Fred J. Martin, Jr.]

Comments of Karl Kurtz with regard to Nelson Polsby are points well taken and a fitting tribute to an outstanding scholar, writer and professor. As a former president of SGAC, who had he opportunity to work with many legislators and staff, I also came to know Nelson when I was with Bank of America. When I called him to say I was retiring he immediately invited me to Join him at IGS as a Visiting Scholar. I audited his "great books" seminar on the major works in political science and public affairs and found him able to stimulate and draw the best from his students. He was affable, able and intelligence with an exceptional knowledge of legislative workings. For those who have not read his work, now is the time. He was a giant in his field. Fred Martin