Retrospective Congressional Oversight and the Dynamics of Legislative Influence over the Bureaucracy

• Author: Robert J. McGrath,Jason A. MacDonald
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12138
• Date: 01 November 2016
• Published date: 01 November 2016

JASON A. MACDONALD

West Virginia University

ROBERT J. MCGRATH

George Mason University

Retrospective Congressional

Oversight and the Dynamics of

Legislative Influence over the

Bureaucracy

Research stresses that congressional committees increase their oversight of the

bureaucracy during divided government. We extend this research by developing an

explanation, rooted in a more dynamic view of policymaking, for why Congress would

sometimes conduct vigorous oversight under unified control as well. In short, commit-

tees seem to engage in what we call “retrospective oversight” and take advantage of

newly friendly executive administration to refocus existing policy made under a past

opposition president. We assess our perspective using two separate sources of data on

oversight hearings spanning more than 60 years and find support for our claims

regarding retrospective oversight.

Oversight of executive agencies is an essential component of the

power and the legitimacy of modern legislatures. The scope and com-

plexity of policy challenges facing legislatures have led them to delegate

vast policy-making authority to their executive counterparts (see, e.g.,

Bawn 1995; Epstein and O’Halloran 1999; Huber and Shipan 2002;

Lowi 1969). In conducting oversight, a legislature investigates whether

agencies have made policy decisions in a manner consistent with their

interpretation of existing law. If the legislature believes that agency deci-

sions have violated their policy priorities, it can then engage in oversight,

consulting with, or even cajoling, agency personnel to alter their policy-

making decisions to converge with the legislature’s favored positions.

Oversight, then, allows the legislature the opportunity to monitor and

inf‌luence bureaucratic policy decisions.

The incentive to engage in oversight is thus greatest when legisla-

tures and executive branches disagree on policy goals. Not surprisingly,

then, empirical studies have explained cross-sectional and intertemporal

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 41, 4, November 2016 899

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12138

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C2016 Washington University in St. Louis

variation in oversight as a function of interbranch policy conf‌lict in the

US federal government. This literature is grounded in static spatial mod-

els of policymaking, thus making policy conf‌lict the natural explanation

of legislative oversight activity.

Despite its obvious contributions, this work has left a central

question unaddressed. Why does Congress conduct voluminous

oversight during unif‌ied government as well? We begin with this

question and seek to develop a more general account of how Con-

gress uses oversight as a tool to shape and, at times, support

bureaucratic policymaking. Our theory departs from the standard

account in that we consider how oversight is in part a function of the

fundamental dynamics of democracy in the separation-of-powers

system. In particular, election returns alter partisan control of the

White House and Congress, creating divided government or return-

ing a party to unif‌ied control of government. Theories of lawmaking

stress that these dynamics affect how easy it is to change policy sta-

tus quos through legislation (Brady and Volden 1998; Krehbiel

1998). Theories of oversight, however, do not consider how this

dynamic process may affect how useful oversight is to Congress

over time. Our theory goes beyond static models, allowing us to

understand oversight as an oftentimes effective and constructive way

for congressional committees to coordinate policy under unif‌ied gov-

ernment. As interbranch preferences are aligned under unif‌ied

government, agencies have a greater incentive to take committee

goals seriously, increasing the policy benef‌its of oversight. That is,

we expect new conf‌igurations of unif‌ied government to lead to spikes

in policy oversight, just as previous work has emphasized preference

alignment to lead to increases in legislative activity. In fact, our

f‌indings suggest the complementarity of oversight and lawmaking in

these circumstances.

Thus, under circumstances that are often met, there should be

“bursts” of oversight activity during the f‌irst session of unif‌ied govern-

ment after a period of divided government. These bursts occur, we

contend, because congressional committees conduct oversight

“retrospectively” to overturn and refocus bureaucratic decisions made in

the past under the previous presidential regime. We assess this perspec-

tive on several sources of congressional oversight data. The f‌irst

examines oversight hearings conducted by House and Senate commit-

tees from 1946 through 2010. We f‌ind that committees conduct just as

many oversight hearings under these burst periods as they do during

divided government. We additionally examine a second data source cov-

ering 1999 through 2011 where we pinpoint the specif‌ic agencies that

900 Jason A. MacDonald and Robert J. McGrath

are the subjects of each oversight hearing. In focusing on agencies, we

demonstrate that committees narrow their oversight attention to ideologi-

cally congruent agencies during burst periods, indicating that they are

directing their attention to those agencies most likely to respond to policy

overtures. In addition to supporting a key aspect of our theory, this is the

f‌irst exploration of how agency characteristics condition the extent to

which committees target particular agencies for oversight.

Ultimately, we suggest (but cannot show def‌initively) that the

oversight that takes place during these initial sessions of unif‌ied govern-

ment is likely to serve constructive policy-relevant purposes, rather than

pure position taking or strictly partisan goals. Observing, as we do

below, that committees target ideological allies, rather than opponents,

for oversight supports this position and indicates that the purpose of

these hearings is more constructive and supportive than the partisan

political theater, or the partisan “weaponization” of oversight, that has

been the focus of recent research (e.g., Kriner and Schickler 2014; Parker

and Dull 2013b). In the end, this research improves our understanding of

the politics that spur congressional oversight and hints at what we see as

the underlying, policy-motivated, relationship between committees and

agencies during unif‌ied government.

Existing Perspectives on Oversight

Despite some lingering misperceptions of their unwillingness to do

so (Bibby 1968; Lowi 1969; Ogul 1976), congressional committees

expend considerable resources monitoring executive agencies (see,

e.g., Aberbach 1990, 2002; Ainsworth, Harwood, and Moffett 2012;

Ainsworth et al. 2014; Balla and Deering 2013). From a political stand-

point, committees, and their chairpersons, can use oversight to cast

themselves in a positive light for interest groups and constituents. This is

often how committees respond to “f‌ire alarms” (McCubbins and

Schwartz 1984) pulled by groups dissatisf‌ied with agency decisions or

to bureaucratic failures sensationalized in the press. For example, in the

wake of the 2010 explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig, the

House Energy and Commerce Committee launched an investigation of

the incident, allowing members to demonstrate their commitments to

safety and accountability (Ota 2010).

There is also a serious policy component to oversight. Whether

oversight involves informal communication between committee staff

and bureaucrats, or occurs more formally through testimony at hear-

ings, Congress obtains detailed information about agencies’

discretionary policymaking. Oversight, then, allows Congress to

901Retrospective Congressional Oversight