[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 56 (Friday, March 30, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E719]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO NELSON W. POLSBY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. HOWARD L. BERMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 29, 2007

  Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, for more than 40 years, Nelson W. Polsby 
was a leading figure in American political science years he served as 
editor of the subject's premier journal, the American Political Science 
Review, and his friendships and books and articles on the U.S. 
Congress, the presidency, political parties, elections, and the media 
made him a mentor to generations of graduate students.
  Naturally warm and gregarious--with the comic timing of a master 
improviser--Nelson helped to build strong communities at his beloved 
University of California, Berkeley, at its Institute of Government 
Studies (IGS), which he headed for 10 years, and in the wider political 
science profession.
  Born in 1934, Nelson Woolf Polsby came from Yankee Jewish farming 
stock, based in Connecticut. His family encouraged his precocious 
interest in current affairs. In the early 1900s a great-uncle ran for 
the mayoralty in New Haven as a socialist.
  His father, a successful businessman, died after a surgical mishap 
when Nelson was 11. At prep school (there were not many Jewish farm 
boys, and even fewer at prep school) he was a brilliant student, 
turning down offers from Yale and Harvard universities to attend Johns 
Hopkins. This enabled him to sit in the House and Senate galleries and 
observe Congress at work.
  His academic breakthrough came from his association with Robert 
Dahl's pathbreaking study of political power in New Haven in the 1950s, 
Who Governs? (1961). His doctorate was published as Community Power and 
Political Theory in 1963 and was quickly regarded as a masterpiece. He 
argued that rather than a single dominant elite running things, there 
were different elites in different areas and that this pluralism was 
compatible with democracy.
  Polsby spent 6 years at Wesleyan University, becoming a full 
professor in 1967. That year he moved to Berkeley, where he remained 
for the rest of his career, in spite of offers from other universities, 
including Yale and Harvard. At an early stage, therefore, he had 
developed his two chief interests; the theory of democracy and how it 
operates in practice.
  He also developed his lifelong interest in Congress, particularly the 
House of Representatives, in the 1960s. He showed how it had become 
institutionalized and how the seniority system for allocating key roles 
developed. He also analyzed how the large contingent of Democrats 
(``Dixiecrats'') from the segregationist and more conservative South, 
in contrast to the more liberal Democrats from the North, prevented 
that party from using its nominal majority to give effective leadership 
to Congress. Later, in How Congress Evolves (2004), he explored the 
decline of the South in the House and the emergence of sharper 
partisanship in its operations.
  In 1964 he and his dynamic Berkeley colleague, Aaron Wildavsky, 
published Presidential Elections. Revised and published quadrennially--
its 12th edition is scheduled for publication in the summer of 2007--it 
remains the standard text on the topic. After Wildavsky died in 1993, 
Polsby was the sole author and claimed that: ``The only difference 
since Aaron's death is that I win the arguments.'' His prose was highly 
readable and marked by wide reading and incisive analysis. Polsby 
confessed that his insomnia was caused by noticing light in the rooms 
of colleagues in the early hours of the morning--they were still at 
work! He quipped: ``While Polsby sleeps, Wildavsky publishes.''
  He also wrote witty pieces on politics under an assumed name, Arthur 
Clun (borrowed from Angus Wilson's Anglo-Saxon Attitudes). They 
prompted a publisher to offer a book contract to the mystery author. A 
keen observer of the British political scene, he collaborated with 
Geoffrey Smith, a political commentator for The Times, to publish 
British Government and Its Discontents in 1981.

  At 37 he received the accolade of the editorship of the APSR. For 6 
years he successfully managed, in a relaxed style, the journal's staff 
and coped with pressures from authors and reviewers.
  Polsby was a popular choice to become director of the IGS in 1988. He 
seemed to know everybody and to have read almost everything. He invited 
visiting scholars and politicians to talk about their work and their 
experiences--his good friend, Chris Patten was a regular visitor. He 
did much to create a friendly atmosphere, and a high point was the 
afternoon tea at which he presided.
  Having basked in the acclamation for his work he was desolate when 
his term expired in 1999, a consequence of the university's 10-year 
rule for tenure. The Institute had meant so much to him.
  His Consequences of Party Reform (1983) was sharply critical of some 
of the effects of the reforms the Democratic Party made to the 
presidential nominating process in the late 1960s. These gave increased 
representation to some minorities (race and gender) but not others, and 
increased the influence of single-issue groups in the party's 
deliberations. But they also weakened the party's ability to nominate 
presidential candidates representative of the broad American public and 
to win elections. Polsby was always concerned about good government and 
citizenship.
  If Polsby argued with someone it was a mark of his approbation. 
Speakers who assumed that Polsby, eyes shut and snoring in the 
audience, was asleep could quickly be confounded when the ``sleeper'' 
made a pertinent, or ferocious, intervention.
  He received many honors, including an honorary degree from the 
University of Liverpool. He had the respect of political reporters, and 
many politicians, for his understanding of the constraints under which 
they worked, and he drew readily on his encyclopedic knowledge of U.S. 
politics to provide wise counsel. He regarded his frequent 
contributions to ``round tables'' and op-ed pages as part of a 
professional obligation to inform the public, entertaining ``the 
delusion that too few of my opinions were available to the world at 
large''.
  At home, Polsby and his wife Linda provided rich hospitality for 
their many Berkeley and overseas friends. For a time they jointly wrote 
a column on restaurants for California magazine. He was a keen follower 
of the local Oakland Athletics baseball team. But most of all he loved 
passionate argument with friends.
  I personally benefited from a number of personal contacts with 
Professor Polsby over the years. He always had both astute insights 
into what was going on in politics and a great sense of humor. But the 
first time I met him was perhaps the most valuable. Two or three days 
after I was elected to Congress, I was invited to take part in a 
retreat for new members from California--of which there were eight--at 
UC San Diego. Professor Polsby was the scholar in charge and his views 
on how to be effective and what to look for as a new Member of Congress 
have been of great value to me throughout my entire tenure in the House 
of Representatives.
  Polsby is survived by his wife Linda, their two daughters Lisa and 
Emily, their son Daniel, and their grandsons Benjamin and Edward.

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