Show Me the Evidence: Committee Reports & Congressional Lawmaking (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: Implications of Partisanship in the U.S. Congress

Abstract

Policymakers are increasingly confronted with demands to base policy reforms upon evidence. Yet, in spite of these demands, anecdotally it appears that the majority of policies are not rooted in a rigorous evidence base. In this paper I examine evidence use in congressional lawmaking. When does Congress bring evidence to bear? Has the use of evidence increased over time? Are Republicans or Democrats more likely to rely on evidence in making their case for a particular policy? To answer these questions, I draw on citations to develop a new dataset of evidence usage in House and Senate committee reports on congressional bills from 1995-2019. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of evidence in congressional lawmaking.

Authors

• Rachel Augustine Potter, University of Virginia

• Jacob Michael Lollis, University of Virginia