As the new chair of the Legislative Studies Section, let me begin by thanking everyone for helping me in the transition. In particular, outgoing Chair Wayne Francis, holdover Secretary-Treasurer Wendy Schiller, and LSS Newsletter Managing Editor LaDonna Sullivan have been invaluable.

As most of you know, the section has three awards for outstanding scholarship: the Richard F. Fenno, Jr., award for the best new book on legislative studies, the CQ Press award for the best paper presented at the previous APSA convention, and the Carl Albert award for the best new dissertation on legislative studies. Details on eligibility requirements, nomination procedures, and selection committee members can be found elsewhere in the newsletter, but for now I would like to extend my appreciation to the nine scholars who let me place them on these committees. Their service to the section and the profession is deeply appreciated.

I am also fortunate to have a crackerjack Executive Committee, and one item I have discussed with the ExCom members is the possibility of creating one more award. This would be an LSS Career Achievement award which would parallel the career achievement awards given by many other sections. In the course of these discussions, it seemed to me there were sufficient reservations expressed to indicate a "go slowly" approach was appropriate. Selection standards would inevitably be somewhat more subjective and open to politicking for an award based on career achievement rather than (as is the case for the other three awards) a single piece of scholarship. Accordingly, eligibility, nomination, and selection procedures would need to be formulated carefully. But we will continue to mull over the idea and we invite any input you would care to provide on this or other topics relevant to the LSS.