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I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with primary expertise in American political institutions, especially the U.S. Congress, and secondary interests in political communication, representation, and comparative legislatures.
My research examines how members of Congress use public-facing rhetoric to influence opinion, shape policy debates, and perform and signal representation. I use a mixed-methods approach that includes text and content analysis, original data collection, survey experiments, and interviews. My current projects explore how members of Congress communicate about legislative activity, oversight, and constituency work, and I extend these questions to parliamentary systems to better understand variation in legislative communication.
I graduated from Montana State University with a BA in political science and a minor in history in 2019. Prior to graduate school, I worked as a committee assistant in the Washington State Legislature and interned in the British Parliament.
I can be contacted via email at jemunson @ wisc.edu and by mail at 110 North Hall, 1050 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706.
Research
Publications
“To Scrutinise and Protect: Question Time as a Window into Institutional and Electoral Incentives at Holyrood and Westminster”. 2020. Parliamentary Affairs. With David C.W. Parker (Montana State University), and Caitlyn M. Richter
Abstract: Question Time is subject to problems of collective action and coordination. Individual parliamentarians seeking to build a personal vote are not incentivised to participate, despite the fact that the collective party brand affecting re-election is at risk during these highly publicised weekly spectacles. We analyse questions asked at First Minister’s Question Time during the first four sessions of the Scottish Parliament to examine the factors predicting whether and how parliamentarians chose to participate in oversight of the government. Despite the varied incentives provided by the Scottish Parliament’s electoral system, the total number of questions asked and the tone of those questions is largely a function of whether the Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) is serving in the governing party or not.
Under Review
Claiming and Blaming: How Minority Party Status Shapes Filibuster Framing in the U.S. Senate (Job Market Paper; Revise and Resubmit, Legislative Studies Quarterly)
Abstract: Why do senators choose to talk about filibustering, a tool widely associated with obstruction and gridlock? This paper examines how senators strategically reference filibustering in official communications, focusing on two rhetorical frames: credit-claiming and blaming. Using an original dataset of Senate press releases from the 109th through 118th Congresses, I evaluate when and how senators utilize these frames. I show that minority party senators are more likely to claim credit for obstruction, while majority party senators are more likely to assign blame to the opposition. These patterns align with theories positioning the filibuster as both a tool of resistance and a symbol of dysfunction. Over time, credit-claiming rhetoric has declined, while evidence for increased blaming is mixed. While factors like ideological extremity shape some messaging, minority party status remains the most consistent driver. Filibuster rhetoric serves as a strategic tool for managing reputations, shifting blame, and appealing to varied audiences.
Working Papers
Words and Deeds: Do Legislators' Public Messages Reflect Their Behind-the-Scenes Work with Federal Agencies? With Devin Judge-Lord (University of Michigan), Rochelle Snyder (Coe College) and Eleanor Powell (UW-Madison)
Abstract: Do legislators’ words match their deeds? Specifically, we examine whether the public attention that legislators pay an executive agency when talking to constituents corresponds to the invisible work they do behind the scenes contacting that executive agency. We examine three hypotheses: 1) Words and Deeds: Attention Consistency, 2) Attention Consistency Conditional on Ideological Agreement between legislator and agency, and 3) Attention Consistency Conditional on Ideological Disagreement between legislator and agency. To test these hypotheses, we analyze attention to executive agencies in members’ electronic newsletters (Cormack, 2025) and legislators’ agency requests (Judge-Lord et al., 2025) from the 111th – 116th Congresses. Despite concerns that the contemporary Congress is a “broken branch” (Mann and Ornstein, 2006) engaged in a “perpetual campaign” (Lee, 2016) we find somewhat reassuring evidence in support of attention consistency. We show a significant positive correlation between legislators words and deeds, and no evidence that this relationship is conditional on the ideological alignment of the legislator and the agency.
Football, #BlackLivesMatter, and #ThreeLions: What the 2021 Euro Championship Tells Us about the Politics of Race, Place-based Resentment, and the Representational Styles of English MPs. With David C.W. Parker (UW-Platteville), Stran Knudson (MSU Undergraduate), Mesa McKee (MSU Undergraduate), and Heba Haq (UW-Madison Undergraduate)
Abstract: Members of the English football team expressed their support for racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement by taking a knee during the Euro championship this summer—and were subjected to expressions of crowd disapproval, negative commentary from government ministers, and racist online abuse after losing to Italy in the finals. We explore in this paper how English MPs addressed the kneeling of the English team and the subsequent racist abuse faced by English players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukaya Saka as a window into the politics of place-based (Cramer, 2016; Goodhart, 2017) and racial resentment in British politics. Many scholars have used social media to gauge the representational styles and position-taking of legislators (e.g. Silva and Proksch, 2021). We gathered data on the twitter feeds of English MPs for six weeks this summer to analyse the positions they took on the controversy. We anticipate that MPs representing less racially diverse and more deprived constituencies were less likely to make note of the controversy on social media. We expect that MPs representing Red Wall constituencies—whether Labour or Conservative—to be particularly unlikely to express support for the targeted players when compared to their colleagues. We conclude by considering how the politics of place, the rise of the culture wars, and identity conflicts (Sobolweska and Ford, 2020) in British politics create representational dilemmas within both the Conservative and Labour Parties in England.
Works in Progress
Filibuster as Foil: How Senators Position Themselves Relative to the Filibuster
Description: This paper examines how senators frame appeals for or against the filibuster as an institution and how that messaging shifts across their Senate careers. Rather than focusing solely on partisan opponents, senators often position themselves in relation to the filibuster itself, defending it, advocating reform, supporting narrow exceptions, or calling for full elimination.
Evaluating Public Responses to Filibuster Messaging
Description: This paper tests how exposure to filibuster messaging affects public evaluations of obstruction and the senators discussing it, using a survey experiment focused on credit-claiming and blame.
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