Congress as manager: oversight hearings and agency morale

Federal agencies perform many important tasks, from guarding against terrorist plots to mailing social security checks. A key question is whether Congress can effectively manage such a large and influential bureaucracy. We argue that Congress, in using oversight to ensure agency responsiveness to legislative preferences, risks harming agency morale, which could have negative long-run effects on performance and the implementation of public policy. More specifically, we argue that oversight’s effects on agency morale are conditional on whether oversight is adversarial or friendly. We assess our claims using a novel data set of the frequency and tone of hearings in which federal agencies are called to testify before Congress from 1999 to 2011 and merge it with data on agency autonomy and job satisfaction. Our findings suggest that agency morale is sensitive to congressional oversight attention, and thus speak to questions regarding democratic accountability, congressional policymaking and the implementation of public policy.

A Troika of Fellows

This year was an unusual one for the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program—three fellows were placed with the same congressional office. The fact that three fellows, each with very different backgrounds, were drawn to the Senate Finance Committee, says something about the unique role that the committee plays in congressional policymaking. As one of the “A”s of the four “Super-A” committees, along with Appropriations, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations, the Senate Finance Com-mittee is one of the committee assignments most sought after by Senators. Its vast policy jurisdiction enables members to affect many different parts of the economy, society, and government. In addition to Chairman Baucus, the majority membership of the committee includes chairs of six other committees: Senators John Kerry of Foreign Relations; Jeff Bingaman of Energy and Natural Resources; John D. Rockefeller of Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Debbie Stabenow of Agriculture and Forestry; Kent Conrad of Budget; and Chuck Schumer who serves both as chairman of the Rules Committee and the Democratic Policy and Communications Center. On the minority side, in addition to the ranking member, Senator Orrin Hatch, the panel includes three ranking members of other committees: Senators Chuck Grassley of Judiciary, Olympia Snowe of Small Business, and Mike Enzi of Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. They serve alongside with the Republican Whip Senator Jon Kyl, the Republican Conference Chair John Thune, and the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman John Cornyn of Texas. This concentration of senatorial experience testifies to the importance of the work undertaken by the Finance Committee.

Learning by Doing: A Simulation for Teaching How Congress Works

Teachers of political science have increasingly recognized the utility of classroom simulations to provide students with an active-learning experience to enhance learning outcomes. Our article builds on this growing trend by proposing a congressional simulation to help students understand the complexities and nuances of the lawmaking process. Specifically, the simulation aids students in identifying the deliberative aspects of congressional policymaking, appreciating the complicated process involved in a bill becoming a law, understanding the multifaceted ways in which self-interest guides the decisions of congressional actors, and challenging student cynicism about Congress as an institution.

Commodity Models and Their Contribution to Congressional Policymaking: Reflections from the 2002 Farm Bill and Beyond: Discussion

The organizers of this session asked me to do two things: to place policy modeling into the context of both general congressional policymaking and that of the 2002 Farm Bill and to comment on the three papers of the session.Commodity models provide results that are useful for congressional decision making. Expected impacts of proposed policies on supply, demand, prices, and income are of interest to members of Congress. But decisions by policymakers depend on a variety of factors beyond model results, including professional backgrounds and perspectives, personal experiences, familiarity with proposed and alternative policies, views of key constituents, and ideologies. Many policy changes are incremental. So while model results are important to the policymaking process, they rarely are the key determinant as to why one proposed policy trumps another.

The News Media's Failure to Facilitate Citizen Participation in the Congressional Policymaking Process

The news media can provide information that makes it easier for citizens to express their views to members of Congress who are considering a public policy issue. This study examined coverage of eight major issues in the House of Representatives by nine news media organizations, and it found that the news media serve to hinder - rather than facilitate - citizen participation in the congressional policymaking process. The news media rarely explained the implications of a pending issue, rarely alerted the public to a forthcoming vote on an issue and never described the views of a local congressman on an issue.