Leading congressional scholar, political scientist

Richard Fenno Jr., a prominent political scientist and congressional scholar who was best known for identifying the tendency — dubbed Fenno’s Paradox — of voters to dislike Congress as a whole but to trust and re-elect their local representatives, died April 21 at a nursing facility in Rye, N.Y. He was 93.

The cause was suspected complications from COVID19, said his son, Craig Fenno.

Richard Fenno, a longtime professor at the University of Rochester in western New York, was considered one of the most original and influential political scientists of his generation. His studies on appropriations, the importance of congressional committees and the ways members of Congress interacted with their constituents were considered groundbreaking and startlingly original. His practice of following members of Congress from Capitol Hill to their home districts reshaped how political scientists went about their work.

“Fenno was hands down the most significant student of Congress of the last half of the 20th century,” political scientist and author Norman J. Ornstein wrote in an email to The Washington Post. “He was the first to note that voters loved their congressman while hating Congress.”

For a 1978 book, “Home

Style: House Members in Their Districts,” Mr. Fenno traveled across the country, interviewing voters and observing members of Congress in their districts, seeking to understand why many were re-elected year after year, despite low approval ratings for Congress.

He attributed the tendency to “home style,” or the way members of Congress looked after the concerns of their constituents. His book about the phenomenon was recognized as a classic in the field.

In his first book, published in 1959, Mr. Fenno examined changes in presidential Cabinets in the 20th century. He later devoted most of his scholarly attention to Congress. He dubbed his manner of research “soaking and poking,” or acquiring vast quantities of information about governance while poking into the details of political campaigns. The phrase has been adopted by later generations of political scientists.

Mr. Fenno wrote almost equally about Republicans and Democrats and explored rural, urban and African American congressional districts in depth. Yet he never endorsed any candidates, and even many who were close to him could not say what his private political views may have been.

He retired in 2003 but maintained a campus office.

His final book, “The Challenge of Congressional Representation,” was published in 2013.