Christopher Z. Mooney is the W. Russell Arrington Professor in State Politics at the University of Illinois, Springfield and the Institute of Government and Public Affairs. He has published seven books and 70+ articles and book chapters on American-style legislatures, comparative state politics, public affairs, statistics, and pedagogy. In 1999, Mooney founded the scholarly journal, State Politics and Policy Quarterly; he was editor of SPPQ until 2007 and business manager until 2010. He is also co-author of one of the leading college textbooks in his field, State and Local Politics: Institutions and Reform (3rd ed., 2012, Wadsworth/Cenage).