When conflict in Washington, D.C., grabs public attention, gridlock and political attacks can often dominate the news cycle.
But through his research, one University of Notre Dame political scientist is finding that compromise — and successful bipartisan decisions — are often made outside of the spotlight.
“Bipartisanship is less exciting and largely takes place behind the scenes, up until the point of action,” said James Curry, a professor of political science. “The moments of success tend to feel fleeting and short-lived because most of what’s happening on Capitol Hill daily is partisan mudslinging. That’s what you see day to day, even if compromise is happening behind the scenes.
“You see the fight, but there are these moments of success that occur.”
Curry has spent his career observing, researching, and writing about Congress to better understand how laws are made, the effects of the lawmaking process, and how this core function operates in changing political environments. He contends that compromise happens because Congress features more bipartisanship and productivity than people may believe.
As an undergraduate at SUNY Brockport, he began his time on Capitol Hill in 2005 as a communications intern for Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a role that included assisting with the onboarding of the state’s then-new senator, Barack Obama. Curry then became a fellow with the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government in 2007, researching earmark requests to determine which initiatives would appear in the final legislation. He moved on to work for Illinois Congressman Dan Lipinski in 2011.
Curry then teetered between continuing to work on Capitol Hill or pivoting into academia to study Congress.
“Over time, I realized I was ultimately more interested in researching and thinking about the institution,” he said. “Working there is thrilling, and you learn so much. But it's a grind, so my goals slowly evolved.”
Curry completed a doctorate in political science at the University of Maryland in 2011 and joined the University of Utah's political science faculty the following year. He remained in that role until this year, when he came to Notre Dame.
“I came to Notre Dame because of the incredible opportunities it provides for studying Congress and legislatures throughout the country,” Curry said. “I get to be part of the Representation and Politics in Legislatures Lab within the Rooney Democracy Institute, and work with other top scholars like Jeff Harden and Rachel Porter, as well as the excellent and motivated graduate students who come to Notre Dame to work with the lab.”
In his first few months on campus, Curry has noticed the focused and enthusiastic engagement of faculty and students. This semester, he’s teaching a course called The United States Congress — a comprehensive introduction to the workings of the contemporary House and Senate. Students examine who runs for and wins office, the lawmaking process, and the roles of parties and leaders in the two chambers.
“When in front of a camera, politicians cannot say anything that alienates supporters. When things are in public, it becomes more of a show to score political points. Real deliberations take place behind the scenes.”
— James Curry, professor of political science
“This course has been wonderful because there’s a much greater share of students taking it because they’re interested in the subject matter and motivated to learn how the institution works,” Curry said. “Many seem interested in going to D.C. and working after graduation.”
Curry has written three books — Legislating in the Dark (University of Chicago, 2015), The Limits of Party (University of Chicago, 2020, co-authored with Frances E. Lee at Princeton University), and Understanding American Legislatures (Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2025) — all of which tackle the topic of legislative logistics. He is also the co-author of the textbook Congress and Its Members and has published 27 articles in an array of journals.
In 2020, he testified before the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, which was examining, among other things, how to conduct better deliberations on Capitol Hill. At the time, there was a debate about reverting to an old way of advancing legislation, known as regular order. Curry contended that the former process fostered too much political gridlock, and real deliberation can’t take place when elected officials are in public.
“When in front of a camera, politicians cannot say anything that alienates supporters,” he said. “When things are in public, it becomes more of a show to score political points. Real deliberations take place behind the scenes.”
In a 2023 article published in Legislative Studies Quarterly, Curry examined the role of interpersonal relationships in Congress in fostering bipartisanship — work that resulted from dozens of in-depth interviews he conducted with elected officials and staff.
“Whatever topic I would try to talk to them about, they would always bring up that there are bipartisan members who are friends, get along well, and they’re able to work through bipartisan barriers because they developed interpersonal relationships that overcome the divide,” Curry said. “What we’ve been trying to do is essentially figure out where and how relationships actually do matter.
“Voters don’t really like it when members of Congress become friends. But what we’re learning is it can be helpful to collaborate more,” he said.
As a part of his research, Curry found that foreign travel can jumpstart unexpected friendships.
“What we were told in interviews is, when members of Congress are in an environment outside Washington, they let their guards down and are with each other all the time,” he said. “That helps them humanize each other, and they will naturally start talking about something other than politics when on an airplane for 13 hours.”
Personal tribulations can also unify politicians. For example, U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, and Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, recently revealed they became close friends as the result of Raskin’s cancer diagnosis, and Boebert had loved ones who had the same type.
“It’s a good example of ‘people expect they must hate each other,’ but it’s easier to work with someone if you like them,” Curry said. “It helps someone work past those partisan caricatures. It becomes this mystique in Washington, but it is clear that it can be useful.”
Conflict and compromise can also arise in a political science class when the conversation shifts to tough topics.
“When talking about policy — abortion, immigration, gender equality — things can get heated very quickly. Policy can become personal,” Curry said. “I’m trying to get students focused on this broader question of, ‘How does our government work?’ It’s generally something that’s viewed or presented as less personal. I try to keep my courses rooted in why members of Congress behave this way, then talk about forces and factors that drive them.
“To the degree we wade into current events, I tend to put whatever is happening today in a broader context. Once you contextualize something, it feels less intense. You can point to every president pushing the envelope on executive power and focus on procedural processes of government and the balance of power rooted in the Constitution.”
Curry’s classroom is not a forum for debating current events but rather a place for discussion to understand how institutional rules and processes allow the current events to happen.
“We can disagree about the topics, Curry said, “but there’s no room for disagreement on what the written rules are.”
And then there’s a question that can help students dive deeper to understand the current state of affairs — whether the issue involves a government shutdown, the creation of a new federal agency or a vote on an American president’s signature piece of legislation.
“What does this moment,” Curry asks students, “tell us about how the core of government functions?”
Originally published by at al.nd.edu on November 12, 2025.