Thad Kousser

About

Thad Kousser will be working on two projects as a Hoover National Fellow. The first is a coordinated series of events held by Stanford, Berkeley, and the California State University at Sacramento to bring in national legal, historical, and political experts to inform the current debate over constitutional revision in California. The second is to complete a book titled The Hidden Powers of American Governors. Kousser is an associate professor of political science at UC San Diego; he holds a PhD in political science from UC Berkeley. His publications include work on term limits, the initiative process, voting by mail, reapportionment, campaign finance laws, the blanket primary, health care policy, and European Parliament elections. His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, Legislative Studies Quarterly, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization. He is also the author of Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2005), a coauthor of Adapting to Term Limits: Recent Experiences and New Directions (Public Policy Institute of California, 2004), a coeditor of The New Political Geography of California (Berkeley Public Policy Press, 2008), and a coauthor of The Logic of American Politics, 4th edition (Congressional Quarterly Press). He is a recipient of the UC San Diego Academic Senate’s Distinguished Teaching Award and the Faculty Mentor of the Year Award, serves as coeditor of the journal State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and has worked as a staff assistant in the California, New Mexico, and United States Senates.