Chapter 5 examines the intent for a legislative hearing and how it affects a committee’s selection of witnesses. Committees, guided by the partisan goals of the committee chair, seek different types of information depending on whether they are considering specific bills in hearings. When the chair has not yet advanced a bill through the committee process, it gives the committee more political flexibility to hear from those who can provide expertise in policy development. Consistent with this argument, we show that committees turned to think tanks, universities, and bureaucrats – witnesses who can provide more analytical information – at higher rates for hearings without a bill (nonreferral hearings), when committees hearings to learn about an issue area. Committees tended to invite witnesses from mass-based groups, such as labor unions, trade associations, and membership associations, at higher rates for hearings on a specific bill (referral hearings). Different witness compositions between referral and nonreferral hearings suggest strategic choices of the identities of witnesses and thus the types of information that the committee hearing generates.

This chapter outlines our book’s contributions to understanding how partisan incentives drive the information-seeking behavior of Congress and its committees. Moreover, it underscores the challenge legislators face in balancing their political roles with the need for expert insights. In this final chapter, we relate our arguments and findings to recent challenges Congress has faced in seeking information in its partisan environment. We propose new lines of research that build on our data and work in our book and emphasize the connections to long-standing issues in American democracy. Our book, empirical evidence, and accompanying analyses promote a new understanding of the dynamics underlying the acquisition and dissemination of information in Congress and, we hope, will stimulate further inquiry into the role of information in shaping public policy in a democracy.