Steven S Smith

Steven S. Smith (born July 8, 1953) is the Director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, the Kate M. Gregg Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences, and Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. He served on the faculties of George Washington University, Northwestern University, and the University of Minnesota and was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Smith is one of the leading scholars of legislative institutions and congressional politics. He served as editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly and chaired the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association.

Smith has authored or edited many books on U.S. congressional politics and parliamentary politics in Russia, including a 2014 book, The Senate Syndrome.

Smith's books include The Senate Syndrome: The Evolution of Procedure Warfare in the Modern U.S. Senate, Party Influence in Congress (Cambridge), Call to Order: Floor Politics in the House and Senate (Brookings), Politics or Principle: Filibustering in the United States Senate (Brookings), with Sarah Binder, and The Politics of Institutional Choice: The Formation of the Russian State Duma (Princeton), with Thomas Remington.

Smith's textbook on congressional politics, The American Congress (Cambridge), is in its ninth edition; the later editions were coauthored with Jason Roberts and Ryan Vander Wielen.

Smith edited popular readers for undergraduates: The Principles and Practices of American Politics (CQ Press), six editions with Samuel Kernell, and The American Congress Reader (Cambridge), with Roberts and Vander Wielen.

Smith's edited volume, Reforming the Presidential Nomination Process, with Melanie Jane Springer, was published by Brookings in 2009.