Jim Battista is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at UB. His work focuses on how legislatures organize themselves to do business, and what the consequences of different styles of organization are. His work has been published in American Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, American Review of Politics, and State Politics and Policy Quarterly. He joined the department in the fall of 2007, having previously served on the faculty of the University of North Texas.

• PhD, Duke University
• MA, Duke University,
• BA, University of Virginia

State legislative committee composition, state legislative party strength, legislative voting inside committees, new methods of estimating legislator preferences.

• PSC 101 – Introduction to American Politics
• PSC 502 – Research Methods
• PSC 508 – Introduction to Statistics

• Jurisdiction, Institutional Structure, and Committee Representativeness. Political Research Quarterly, March 2006.
• Reexamining Legislative Committee Representativeness in the States. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Summer 2004.
• An Ambition-Theoretic Approach to Legislative Organizational Choice. Legislative Studies Quarterly, August 2003.
• Conditional Party Government in the States. American Journal of Political Science, January 2002. With John H. Aldrich.