In partnership with The American Political Science Association, CCPS honors the late political scientist Barbara Sinclair, a renowned expert on Congress, by hosting a lecture by a prominent Congressional scholar.

The 2025 lecture will be hosted in November by Dr. Matthew Green. Green is Vice-Chair & Director of Graduate Studies at Catholic University, and also a professor of politics since 2005. He teaches a variety of courses in American politics, focusing in particular on political institutions, state and local politics, federalism, and methodology. He developed a course on recent political events called Politics in the Age of Trump, and also helped develop and co-teach the class Washington Past and Present, an interdisciplinary introduction to the city of Washington, D.C. that is unique to Catholic University. Green's most recent book, Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur (University Press of Kansas, 2022), coauthored with American University's Jeff Crouch, uses media accounts, original interviews, and newly-uncovered archival material to explain the motivations and influence of former Congressman and Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The 2024 lecture was hosted by Professor Eric Schickler. Schickler is the Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of three books on the U.S. Congress: Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (2001), Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the United States Senate (2006, with Gregory Wawro), and Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power (2016, with Douglas Kriner). His book, Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965, was the winner of the APSA Woodrow Wilson Prize for the best book on government, politics or international affairs published in 2016. He is also the co-author of Partisan Hearts and Minds, which was published in 2002. Schickler was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2017.

Past speakers:
Stephen Smith, Washington University, in 2023 (recording available here)
Rodney Hero, Arizona State University, in 2022 (recording available here)
Wendy Schiller, Brown University, in 2021 (recording available here)
Rick Hall, University of Michigan, in 2020 (recording available here)
Frances Lee, Princeton University, in 2019
Sarah Binder, George Washington University, in 2018