something better than a congressional hearing?

Ted Hesson’s story on ABC News/Univision is headlined “Why Congressional Hearings Aren’t Worth Your Time.” It begins, “There’s a major immigration reform hearing in the Senate today. Don’t bother watching it. The general point of holding these hearings is so that members of Congress can debate a bill and let the public know what’s going on. This hearing won’t do either very well, according to Peter Levine, the director of CIRCLE, a Massachusetts-based organization that looks at civic engagement among young people.”

I am the only person quoted in the piece, but the headline and message (“don’t bother watching”) are stronger than my own views. Hesson quotes these words later on: “I’d be loath to say [a hearing] is of no value,” Levine said. “We want people to follow these important issues, and it’s one way to do so. But it’s not the greatest.”

In fact, I recognize that hearings have many purposes, including generating a legal record. I also acknowledge–and Hesson quotes me saying–that ordinary, low-profile hearings inform Members of Congress and help them refine their views. “But as a hearing grows in stature, it often turns into political theater. ‘When something is very high profile, they switch into entertainment mode,’ Levine said.”

I liked Hesson’s provocative piece, but these would be my own main points (on sober reflection):

1. Congressional hearings have several purposes, two of which are educating the public about the issue in question and letting us observe our representatives’ interactions. For those two purposes, high-profile hearings are not particularly helpful. They are examples of instrumental action (trying to score points) rather than real communication. I am a policy wonk interested in immigration, but I would never take the time to watch the immigration hearings. That is partly because …

2. High-quality journalism still plays an essential role in explaining issues and controversies. A reliable and skillful journalist can watch the hearings and pull out the salient exchanges. She will also read the bill, talk to staffers off the record, and generally tell a more complete picture. The supposedly unmediated access to the hearing that I could get from C-SPAN does not strike me as particularly useful; I want mediation.  I am glad that we have a right to see the whole event, because someone may make useful sense of it. I would not expect most people–even exemplary citizens–to watch it themselves.

3. Hesson quoted Madison (“the mild voice of reason”) at my suggestion. The Madisonian ideal is that our representatives should deliberate: listening, learning, and changing their views. Our culture does not reward that, generally ignoring nuance and treating changes of opinion as “flip-flopping.” I think the underlying reasons include bad news coverage, bad formats for official discussions, and–especially–a lack of civic engagement in the citizenry as a whole. The late, great Elinor Ostrom noted that the proportion of citizens who served on school boards fell by 95% between 1932 and 1982. That was just one example of diminished engagement. If we don’t have experience deliberating, how will we detect and reward it in Congress?

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About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.