Sunday Breakfast Menu, Sept. 29

Though a final decision on the 1,700-mile pipeline, which would carry crude from Canada's oil sands to American refineries, will not come for months, both supporters and opponents of the project have been amplifying their messages as the State Department nears completion of an assessment of the pipeline's environmental impact.

â€œAmerica imports millions of barrels of oil from the Middle East every week,â€ an announcer says in TransCanada's newest television ads, as images of violent protests, presumably in the Mideast, flash across the screen. â€œBut we don't have to.â€ The ad goes on to promote the prospect of increased domestic production and imports from a close ally, if the pipeline were approved.

First noted in Politico, the television spots began airing in Washington late last week. TransCanada said other aspects of the campaign, including a minute-long radio spot and print ads, are set to run in the capital's media market on Monday.

Opponents have released their own ads, most recently with a series of commercials produced by Thomas F. Steyer, a San Francisco hedge fund billionaire and a Democratic donor. In a series of four 90-second ads, he rebuts the oil industry's claims that the pipeline would have minimal effect on the environment and create jobs.

Even though they make opposing arguments, both sets of Keystone XL ads have one thing in common: they were developed with the help of consultants who served as top strategists for President Obama. Anita Dunn of SKDKnickerbocker, a former White House communications director, produced TransCanada's campaign. Jim Margolis, a top ad maker for both of Mr. Obama's presidential bids, and his firm GMMB were behind Mr. Steyer's spots.

Study Suggests Fact-Checking Influences Political Behavior

The rise of professional fact-checking in recent years has brought both praise and criticism. One of the more common laments, even from fans of fact-checking, is that it has little effect - that politicians judged to be untruthful ignore the judgment against them and pay little price from voters.

But a new study, by two political scientists, suggests that politicians, or at least state legislators, may care more about fact-checking than the conventional wisdom suggests.

The two political scientists, Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth and Jason Reifler of the University of Exeter, conducted an experiment during last year's campaign in which they sent letters to more than 1,100 legislators in nine states, all with PolitiFact units dedicated to local politics.

One group of randomly selected legislators received letters reminding them of the existence of PolitiFact. â€œPoliticians who lie put their reputations and careers at risk, but only when those lies are exposed,â€ the letters said. The professors also enclosed postcards that they asked legislators to return, as a sign that they had received and read the letters.

A second set of legislators received a placebo letter, in which the professors simply said they were conducting a research project studying the accuracy of officials' public statements. A third group of legislators received no letters.

The professors then followed the legislators in the weeks leading up to the election. Among those legislators who received reminders about PolitiFact, substantially fewer made statements later that appeared to have been false. Only 1 percent of legislators who received one of the PolitiFact reminders made such statements; by comparison, 2.7 percent of the legislators in the other two groups made claims that appeared to be false.

â€œThese results suggest that the electoral and reputational threat posed by fact-checking can affect the behavior of elected officials,â€ Mr. Nyhan and Mr. Reifler wrote in a version of the paper released Tuesday by the New America Foundation. â€œIn this way, fact-checking could play an important role in improving political discourse and strengthening democratic accountability.â€

In an e-mail, I asked Mr. Nyhan, a frequent contributor to the Columbia Journalism Review, whether the letters really could have influenced state legislators. His reply:

As far as why the effect occurred, we can only offer our theory - as you know, experiments speak much less clearly about mechanisms than treatment effects. Our interpretation is that the letter was an effective reminder of the potential costs of a negative rating.

The PolitiFact affiliates were new in most of the states, and the typical legislator is risk-averse. Given how little coverage most of them receive and the fact that many likely have ambitions of higher office, leadership, etc., the threat of acquiring a reputation as a dissembler seems potentially meaningful. Even if they knew about PolitiFact in the abstract, being reminded repeatedly about the damage that a negative rating could inflict might make such concerns more salient.

Bill Young, Florida\'s Master Appropriator, to Retire

Representative C. W. Bill Young of Florida, currently the longest-serving Republican in Congress, will retire in 2014, he announced Wednesday.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press Representative C.W. Bill Young, Republican of Florida, in 2007 on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Young, 82, told the Tampa Bay Times that he will vacate his seat representing parts of Pinellas County, on the Gulf Coast, at the end of his term for several reasons, concluding, â€œIt's my time.â€

â€œI don't know that I would pick out one thing,â€ he said by telephone from the hospital where he is recovering from a back injury. â€œIt's a lot of things. My family, my job, my rehabilitation from my back.â€

The congressman has long served on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, including as its chairman from 1999 to 2005. In Florida his name adorns roads, bridges and other projects, and he is known for bringing millions of dollars back to his district, especially in military contracts - making him a target for critics of earmarks. But those days have gone by the wayside with both chambers of Congress imposing bans on earmarks in recent years, inhibiting the ability of lawmakers - even members of the appropriations committees - to bring home the bacon.

A moderate Republican, Mr. Young came to Congress in 1971, at a time when most Southern conservatives were still Democrats.

Last week he said he would vote for a â€œcleanâ€ budget resolution to end the government shutdown that did not touch President Obama's health care law. While he said he admires the spirit of the Tea Party members of his party, Mr. Young said he was â€œa little disappointedâ€ with the gridlock.

He also discussed their hold on Speaker John A. Boehner. â€œHe withstood the pressure for a long time,â€ he told the Tampa Bay Times last week. â€œHe finally has agreed to the outspoken minority of his conference. And they're pretty much in charge right now.â€

Though Mr. Young held a solid grip on his district, Mr. Obama carried it in 2008 and again in 2012 after it had been redrawn, signaling increasing difficulties for some Republicans. He is the fourth member of the House, all Republicans, to announce retirement plans this year. Representative Spencer Bachus, the senior congressman from Alabama, said last week that he would also step down.

Christian Conservatives to Meet Cruz and Rand Paul

A group of longtime Christian conservative activists are holding a private meeting Thursday in Washington to hear informal presentations from two of the most talked-about potential Republican presidential candidates: Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

â€œThis is not a fundraiser, nor an endorsement of U.S. Senator Rand Paul or U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, just a great opportunity for you to get to know them and discuss your ideas and views with them and hear of their lives, faith, and respective vision for our nation,â€ wrote Robert Fischer, a South Dakota-based conservative organizer, in an emailed invitation to dozens of evangelical Christian leaders.

The gathering is being held in conjunction with the Family Research Council's Values Voters conference, an annual gathering of Christian conservatives in Washington, but it is not an official part of that event. Rather, it is being staged by a loosely-organized group of Republican leaders that call themselves â€œConservatives of Faith.â€

The hosts include Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, the former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, the conservative talk show host Janet Parshall and Richard Viguerie, the direct mail pioneer, along with a handful of others from the conservative movement. Mr. Fischer is the group's chief organizer.

The same group met in the midst of the last two Republican presidential nominating fights. But after Republicans failed to nominate a Christian conservative in either race, many of the activists concluded they must begin to discuss potential candidates well before the next campaign begins.

Mr. Cruz and Mr. Paul will each bring their wives to the gathering, to be held in a hotel meeting room, a move that the organizers believe will better allow them to assess the values of the would-be candidates.

â€œOur hope in pulling together this meeting of the Conservatives of Faith is to listen, really listen to what these leaders have to say,â€ Ms. Parshall wrote in a note appended to the emailed invitation. â€œOur hope is to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere that allows the leaders and their wives to open up and really share with us what they believe. Far from the tally lights of the camera and the scratchy notepad of a reporter, these leaders will share their worldview on a wide variety of crucial issues.â€

Unlike former Senator Rick Santorum, whom many of these activists rallied to in last year's Republican nominating fight, neither Mr. Cruz nor Mr. Paul have longstanding relationships with Christian conservative leaders. Both, though, have assiduously courted evangelicals, both in their home states and more recently in Iowa this summer. The two senators will each address the Values Voter summit on Friday.

Shirley Chisholm Gets a Stamp of Approval

A stamp honoring Shirley A. Chisholm, the former congresswoman from New York, may soon grace your mail.

The United States Postal Service announced Thursday that it would print a stamp recognizing Ms. Chisholm, the first black woman to serve in Congress and the first woman to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, in its Black Heritage stamp series next year.

Ms. Chisholm, who was elected to Congress from New York in 1968, earned a reputation as an outspoken liberal and an advocate for women, minorities and the poor. She successfully pushed to expand the nation's food stamp program and to create the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children - known as W.I.C. - for low-income families.

She ran for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1972. Her campaign slogan was â€œUnbought and Unbossed,â€ which she also used in her first Congressional campaign and which later became the title of her memoir.

Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, had lobbied for the stamp since 2005, the year Ms. Chisholm died at age 80.

â€œShirley Chisholm was a trailblazer, a beacon and a champion, and I would not be here today as a member of Congress if it were not for her guidance, inspiration and example,â€ said Ms. Lee, who was a volunteer on Ms. Chisholm's presidential campaign.

Ms. Chisholm served seven terms representing the Brooklyn-based 12th Congressional District and was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971. She also spent four years in the New York State Legislature and worked as an educator. She earned a master's degree in elementary education at Columbia and was authority on early education and child welfare.

After leaving Washington, she taught politics and women's studies at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and Spelman College in Atlanta, before moving to Florida in 1991.

Representative Marcia L. Fudge, Democrat of Ohio, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Ms. Chisholm â€œshattered glass ceilings and broke racial barriers in America, paving the way for African-Americans and women to serve as leaders in their communities and in the United States Congress.â€

Previous stamps in the Black Heritage series have honored the abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the civil rights leader Rosa Parks, among others.