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A St. Olaf College Collaborative Undergraduate Research and Inquiry (CURI) team recently set out to explore a question rooted in constitutional history: How did the 17th Amendment — ratified in 1913 to establish the direct election of United States senators in each state — shift the balance of power between rural and urban constituents?

Under the guidance of Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics Noah Braun, students Asmita Mandal ‘26 and Lauren Olson ‘26 spent 10 weeks this summer digging through legislative blue books, state constitutions, census records, and century-old newspaper articles. Their goal: to determine whether changing the way senators are elected also changed what issues they prioritized, and who benefited from federal attention and resources. 

“A lot of the work I do looks at how our political institutions impact economic outcomes,” Braun says. “Looking at the impact of the 17th Amendment very much fits into that, in terms of trying to better understand how the ways in which we run elections in the U.S. and the sorts of people who we empower politically affects economic equality.”

The team’s working theory is that prior to the amendment, rural counties held disproportionate sway in state legislatures — many of which appointed senators in a way that didn’t reflect population size or majority interests. After the amendment, senators were forced to appeal to a broader electorate, including rapidly growing urban populations. 

“Florida is a great historical example,” Braun says. “Small, rural areas had a really outsized impact on the state legislature, to the point that their legislators were given the nickname ‘The Pork Chop Gang’. Though they represented a tiny portion of the population, they constituted a voting majority within the state legislature, and prioritized rural interests.” 

The work that went into supporting this hypothesis was far from straightforward. The team spent long hours tracking down historical records, many of which were not digitized or labeled consistently. 

“It was frustrating at times,” Mandal admitted. “You could spend whole days on a thousand page document with no table of contents, not even sure if the data you needed was in there.”

But when they finally found the information they needed, and successfully coded a visualization in R (an open-source programming language and software environment specifically designed for statistical computing and graphics), it was deeply rewarding. Eventually, the team built a dataset tracking county-level representation before and after the amendment, which they hope will be useful for future researchers when it is ultimately published. 

“At the end we were able to code out a map of our data set and it was really powerful to see the data we collected come together in one visual,” Olson says. 

The team met nearly every day by the end of the summer, often collaborating with other social science CURI teams (including groups looking at the effect of generative AI on student critical analysis and the communication of stereotypes), in weekly meetings organized by Department Chair and Associate Professor of Economics Allison Luedtke. These meetings gave the students a chance to share progress, offer feedback, and learn about projects beyond their own field of study. 

“We learned so much from each other, and it was a good opportunity to practice presenting parts of our project findings,” Olson says. 

While their dataset is still being finalized and analyzed, the team believes their research has contemporary relevance.

“There are people within the conservative legal movement who believe we should repeal the 17th Amendment,” Braun says. “Our work helps show why that would be a mistake. If we were to return to a system in which our senators are appointed by a really biased legislative body, the goals of the US government could be undermined, in terms of making sure we are spending money in equitable ways that are going to benefit as many people as possible.”

“Most people have no idea what the 17th Amendment even is,” Mandal added. “They don’t understand the impact it has had on U.S. politics and wealth distribution, so this project is also about raising awareness.”

For both Mandal and Olson, the project provided a unique opportunity to apply the skills they’ve developed in political science, data science, and economics coursework. Olson, who became interested in public policy after participating in St. Olaf’s Washington D.C. Politics and International Relations practicum, said the project helped her see the broad range of careers possible in government and policy. 

“That study away experience got me considering public policy and policy research as a path,” she says. This CURI project allowed me to get even more of an understanding on how important government policy is on all different day-to-day outcomes — and my major and interests can be used for a variety of career paths.”

Mandal also considers her CURI research project to be a bridge to her career aspirations. 

“I have always been interested in the intersectionality of political science and economics,” Mandal says. “Through this project, I learned how to research federal policies and their day-to-day impact on the lives of citizens, while also doing novel economic data analysis. This experience has inspired me to consider pursuing a similar research project on Nepali federal policies and their impact on provinces and districts. While I may not undertake this work immediately after graduation or need to be physically in Nepal to begin it, I am seriously considering developing such a project in the future.”

As a first year faculty member, this was Braun’s first CURI experience as well. 

“It’s been a lot of fun, learning to organize an undergraduate research team like this,” he says. “It was great working with students who can think on the fly and are good at going with the flow, and are engaged with and enthusiastic about the process.”

Mandal and Olson said their CURI research summer gave them confidence, technical skills, and a stronger sense of purpose as they look to life after St. Olaf. Their advice for future participants? Be open-minded, flexible, and take initiative.

“Go and talk to the professor before you apply, and learn more about what the individual project will be exploring,” Olson says. “Being able to work on a high-level research project as an undergrad is such a valuable experience, as is doing so with a team.”