How Are Politicians Informed? Witnesses and Information Provision in Congress

Abstract

How are politicians informed and who do politicians seek information from? The role of information has been at the center for research on legislative organizations but there is a lack of systematic empirical work on the information that Congress seeks to acquire and consider. To examine the information flow between Congress and external groups, we construct the most comprehensive dataset to date on 74,082 congressional committee hearings and 755,540 witnesses spanning 1960–2018. We show descriptive patterns of how witness composition varies across time and committee and how different types of witnesses provide varying levels of analytical information. We develop theoretical expectations for why committees may invite different types of witnesses based on committee intent, interbranch relations, and congressional capacity. Our empirical evidence shows how committees’ partisan considerations can affect how much committees turn to outsiders for information and from whom they seek information.

Policy agenda trade‐offs for sustainability: The compositional change of attention about energy in legislative hearings

“…Moreover, as a similar approach can be used to evaluate other policy topics through past data, more studies can be undertaken to evaluate not only the generalizable tendencies across policy domains but also the specific factors that are more limited to a specific policy domain, including energy policy. On the other hand, since the empirical section of this article focuses on congressional hearings and assumes that attention in hearings, as a type 16 The discussion of this dynamic is described in Appendix F. of political endeavors, follows a pattern similar to that of change in federal energy policy in general, future studies can instead focus on the uniqueness of a "hearing" to advance theory related to this particular type of political endeavor (Ban et al, 2023).…”

“…Congressional hearings can provide a unique venue to examine congressional interests as not all agendas addressed in congressional hearings may warrant subsequent policy action, such as policies and/or laws (Baumgartner & Jones, 2010, p. 90). Congress members obtain information on proposed bills (Ban et al., 2023) or conduct an oversight of bureaucracies and their implementation of legislations (Aberbach, 2001; McGrath, 2013). Thus, more prominent topics may be underscored when evaluating the changes in numbers of hearings discussed in each period.…”

A Seat at the Table: A New Data Set of Social Movement Organization Representation before Congress during the Twentieth Century

“…Notably, we find that testimony by SMOs begins to decline in the late 1990s, a period that follows a decade of the normalization of social movements and protest (Meyer and Tarrow 1998), declining labor union membership and stagnating social movement participation (Caren, Ghoshal, and Ribas 2011;Western and Rosenfeld 2011), as well as the success of Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. Future research should not only interrogate how resources, political opportunities, and public opinion shaped the trajectory of individual social movement families' testimony over time but also how changes in the political structure (e.g., the closing of the Office of Technological Assessment; Ban, Park, and You 2022;Bimber 1996) affected opportunities for testimony. Do the movements consulted most by the state advise only a few state venues?…”

“…However, since 1970, chamber rules state that minority members can call witnesses for at least one day. Witnesses may be called because they provide desired expertise (Baumgartner and Leech 1998;Ganz and Soule 2019), or they reflect partisan interests (Park 2017), or their organizations are presumed to speak for important constituencies (Ban, Park, and You 2022;Grossmann 2012;Schlozman et al 2015). Indeed, these hearings are the primary vehicle through which the legislative branch gathers information (Baumgartner and Jones 2015;Burstein and Hirsh 2007).…”

Keeping tabs on the executive

“…While there is an oversupply of available information on executive policymaking from congressional support agencies, interest groups and other constituents, the media, and committee staff, members of Congress have limited time to sift through such complex information streams (Workman et al, 2009). As a result, in gathering and consuming information, Congress, its committees, and its members do not act neutrally (Ban et al, 2023). Instead, they approach information processing with a particularized definition of the policy problems they encounter (Whiteman, 1985) and tend to use oversight as a form of advocacy for support of preexisting positions (Aberbach, 1990).…”