Honors Theses

Date of Award

Spring 5-7-2026

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Jonathan Klingler

Second Advisor

Emily Ommundsen

Third Advisor

Francis Boateng

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

This thesis examines how the use of high-profile witnesses in congressional committee hearings relates to legislative effectiveness in the U.S. House of Representatives. While hearings are traditionally viewed as venues for information gathering and oversight, they also serve as highly visible platforms for political communication. This study evaluates whether committees that devote a greater share of their hearings to high-profile witnesses exhibit lower levels of legislative effectiveness due to a potential shift toward symbolic activity. Using the Congressional Committee Hearing Dataset (CoCoHD), the analysis covers House committee hearings from the 105th through the 115th Congress. The data are aggregated to the committee–Congress level and are merged with legislative effectiveness scores from the Center for Effective Lawmaking to construct an average effectiveness measure for each committee. Linear regression models are used to evaluate the relationship between the share of high-profile witness hearings and committee effectiveness. Contrary to expectations, the results show that committees allocating a larger share of hearings to high-profile witnesses tend to be more effective. These findings suggest that highly visible hearings are not substitutes for legislative productivity but are instead characteristic of committees that are more active and institutionally engaged, contributing to broader debates about the informational and symbolic roles of congressional hearings.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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