Fifteen Eighty Four

Members of Congress play a critical role in shaping policy on a vast array of complex issues — from climate change to healthcare, national security to agriculture.  Yet, they are not experts in these fields.  Instead, they rely on external sources of information to guide their legislative decisions.  But who provides this information, and how does partisanship, especially in today’s polarized era, shape what Congress hears and considers?

In our book, Hearings on the Hill: The Politics of Informing Congress, we explore the intricate ways in which partisan incentives influence the way legislators search for information.  Drawing on an extensive dataset covering nearly 60 years of congressional hearings and witness testimonies, we offer an unprecedented look at how Congress selectively seeks out and disseminates information to serve political and legislative goals.

Partisan Incentives and Hearings in Congressional Information Gathering

Congress has many avenues for acquiring information for policymaking, but committee hearings play a unique and highly visible role.  These hearings are not merely procedural exercises; they are carefully curated forums where legislators invite witnesses—experts, industry leaders, government officials, and advocacy groups, among others—to provide testimony and answer questions.  While the media often portrays hearings as staged theater, these hearings also serve as a key mechanism for shaping public policy and legislative agendas.

Chiefly, these hearings do not function in a vacuum.  Partisan dynamics strongly influence which voices are heard.  Legislators do not randomly select witnesses; they strategically choose individuals and organizations that align with their legislative goals and political interests.  The result?  A deeply politicized flow of information that can both illuminate and distort the policymaking process.

Our research lifts the hood on this flow of information. Our key theoretical insight focuses on how partisan incentives determine when committees and their members seek witnesses who can provide analytical input to policy decisions.  When searching for information, members of Congress hold two responsibilities in tension: they are politicians who respond to political forces yet they are also lawmakers who must make policies and laws that solve real problems.  We identify partisan incentives within three key institutional conditions—committee intent, inter-branch relations, and congressional capacity—that shape how Congress gathers information.

In the first category (committee intent), when a bill is still in its early stages and a committee has not yet advanced the bill through its process, members have greater flexibility to seek out expert analysis.  Without a firm policy position to defend to sell, members are more open to engaging with diverse viewpoints that can help refine legislative proposals.  In the second (inter-branch relations), when different parties control Congress and the White House during divided government, the party in control of Congress has less of an incentive to rely on executive agencies for information and, instead, replace bureaucratic witnesses with other experts.  And in the third (congressional capacity), when party leaders equip committees with more internal resources, committees have a greater ability to engage with more expert witnesses for specialized information.

A Groundbreaking Data-Driven Analysis

What sets Hearings on the Hill further apart is our use of a massive, newly compiled dataset of over 74,000 hearings and more than 755,000 witnesses across six decades of changing institutional conditions in Congress.  By analyzing this wealth of data, we empirically uncover patterns in how Congress seeks and disseminates information in their partisan-driven information search.  Marshaling this extensive new data, we use a new methodological approach to quantify the quality of information that witnesses present to committees.  This allows us to systematically examine whom Congress invites to provide information, the conditions under which committees turn to certain types of witnesses more often than others, and the implication for the types of information that Congress ultimately receives.

Why This Matters

Understanding how Congress gathers and uses information is critical for anyone interested in the policymaking process.  Our book sheds light on the subtle yet powerful ways that partisanship influences not only the laws that are passed but also the very facts and expertise that legislators consider.  As political polarization deepens, the battle over information in Congress will continue to shape the future of American democracy.Hearings on the Hill is an essential read for scholars, policymakers, and engaged citizens who want to understand the mechanics of legislative decision-making in today’s highly charged political environment.  By uncovering the forces that shape congressional information flows, we provide a clearer picture of how politics and knowledge intersect on Capitol Hill.

Hearings on the Hill by Pamela Ban, Ju Yeon Park, Hye Young You