With the U.S. Senate evenly split between the Republican and Democratic caucuses—something that's only happened three other times—two political science scholars at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences were inspired to study one of those periods. Their research regarding the Senate during the 1953–54 session of Congress, published in the American Political Science Review, examines a period of time when nine senators died and one resigned, flipping party control twice.