Who Polices the Administrative State? FIGURE 1.Oversight Activity in the 110th and 111th Congresses 10000 5000 MSPB FLRA EEOC NRC CPSC USAID FDIC GSA Labor HUD DOT FED Energy EPA USDA DHS 300 200 00 4号 MSPB FLRA EEOC NRC CPSC USAID FDIC GSA Labor HUD DOT FED Energy EPA USDA DHS Note:Days of witness testimony collected through keyword searches of ProQuest Congressional;excludes appointment hearings; off-site inquiries include both casework and general policy requests,but exclude scheduling and committee-related business. conventional perspective on oversight previously de- policy-related inquiries are more likely to be revealed scribed makes no distinction between the mundane,the member positions-since failing to communicate them important,or the distributive.McCubbins and does not mean actively disregarding the voice of a Schwartz (1984)write,for example,"as part of the constituent.In sum,the subset of oversight requests fire-alarm system,district staff and casework help dealing with general policy concerns should be most individuals and groups-some of them otherwise likely to follow the expectations laid out in the previous powerless-to raise and redress grievances against section. decisions by administrative agencies"(173).Moreover, Moreover,as the previous section indicates,there is in interviews with current and former congressional a clear conceptual distinction between oversight that staff,most considered casework"low level"oversight.15 requests information and those that advocate for par- In short,members of Congress attempting to gather ticular policies (lobbying).Though I have argued that information and influence any public policy may both should follow similar patterns,recent work by qualify as oversight of agencies. MacDonald and McGrath (2016)suggests lobbying However,it is important to distinguish between the might be negatively associated with ideological diver- direct service of constituents(casework)and more gen- gence.More generally,it is not difficult to construct al- eral policy-related concerns (policy).First,legislators ternative models of oversight as lobbying that produce most often frame the content of oversight hearings this reversed expectation. as general policy concerns.This facilitates more direct Accordingly,though past research on oversight does comparison of this study with prior studies of hearings not distinguish between hearings that fall into the Second,there are theoretical reasons to believe that above categories,I take the additional step of coding casework would be only weakly associated with ideol- all informal oversight.Each contact is labeled either ogy.Members of Congress are not ideological clones "casework"or"policy"related.I also label the contacts of their median constituent (Tausanovitch and War- that are cases of"lobbying."Complete definitions,cod- shaw 2013).Though constituent grievances are likely ing rules,and diagnostics can be found in Online Ap- to be correlated with member preferences,a strong pendix A2 of the Supplementary Information(SI).The association would imply members were systematically contacts were classified with supervised machine learn- disregarding complaints that went against those pref- ing to reduce reliance on human coders and enhance erences.There is no evidence that members "politi- replicability.I have also removed several classes of cor- cize"their casework operation.In contrast,general 16 The literature on lobbying in Congress is large.See,for example, 15 Interview with former congressional staffer,June 22,2017 Hall and Reynolds(2012)for a recent review. 879
Who Polices the Administrative State? FIGURE 1. Oversight Activity in the 110th and 111th Congresses 0 5000 10000 MSPB FLRA EEOC NRC CPSC USAID FDIC GSA Labor HUD DOT FED Energy EPA USDA DHS Off−site Inquiries 0 100 200 300 MSPB FLRA EEOC NRC CPSC USAID FDIC GSA Labor HUD DOT FED Energy EPA USDA DHS Days of Witness Testimony Note: Days of witness testimony collected through keyword searches of ProQuest Congressional; excludes appointment hearings; off-site inquiries include both casework and general policy requests, but exclude scheduling and committee-related business. conventional perspective on oversight previously described makes no distinction between the mundane, the important, or the distributive. McCubbins and Schwartz (1984) write, for example, “as part of the fire-alarm system, district staff and casework help individuals and groups—some of them otherwise powerless—to raise and redress grievances against decisions by administrative agencies” (173). Moreover, in interviews with current and former congressional staff,most considered casework “low level” oversight.15 In short, members of Congress attempting to gather information and influence any public policy may qualify as oversight of agencies. However, it is important to distinguish between the direct service of constituents (casework) and more general policy-related concerns (policy). First, legislators most often frame the content of oversight hearings as general policy concerns. This facilitates more direct comparison of this study with prior studies of hearings. Second, there are theoretical reasons to believe that casework would be only weakly associated with ideology. Members of Congress are not ideological clones of their median constituent (Tausanovitch and Warshaw 2013). Though constituent grievances are likely to be correlated with member preferences, a strong association would imply members were systematically disregarding complaints that went against those preferences. There is no evidence that members “politicize” their casework operation. In contrast, general 15 Interview with former congressional staffer, June 22, 2017. policy-related inquiries are more likely to be revealed member positions—since failing to communicate them does not mean actively disregarding the voice of a constituent. In sum, the subset of oversight requests dealing with general policy concerns should be most likely to follow the expectations laid out in the previous section. Moreover, as the previous section indicates, there is a clear conceptual distinction between oversight that requests information and those that advocate for particular policies (lobbying). Though I have argued that both should follow similar patterns, recent work by MacDonald and McGrath (2016) suggests lobbying might be negatively associated with ideological divergence. More generally, it is not difficult to construct alternative models of oversight as lobbying that produce this reversed expectation.16 Accordingly, though past research on oversight does not distinguish between hearings that fall into the above categories, I take the additional step of coding all informal oversight. Each contact is labeled either “casework” or “policy” related. I also label the contacts that are cases of “lobbying.” Complete definitions, coding rules, and diagnostics can be found in Online Appendix A2 of the Supplementary Information (SI). The contacts were classified with supervised machine learning to reduce reliance on human coders and enhance replicability. I have also removed several classes of cor- 16 The literature on lobbying in Congress is large. See, for example, Hall and Reynolds (2012) for a recent review. 879 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Shanghai JiaoTong University, on 26 Oct 2018 at 03:53:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000497
Kenneth Lowande FIGURE 2.Policy Audit(Dept.of Energy) 9 Letter to Cl/JIll Sigal from Representative Susan A.Davis Subject: Request information from DOE regarding the implementation of Executive Order 13149 entitled, "Greening the Government Through Federal Fleet and Transportation Efficiency"&how DOE have met the goals specified in the order Control Number: EXEC-2007-000145 Priority: Essential Action Office: EE Correspondence Date: 03-Jan-2007 Signature Level: EE Date Created: 09-Jan-200712:17PM Address Office: C Due Date: 23-Jan-2007 …==-nd0afa respondence that fall outside the scope of the analysis. Other policy requests are more general and indica- These include contacts about committee business(in- tive of members'ideological orientation toward an cluding scheduling,questions for the record,and con- agency's mission.In October of 2014,Senator Ted Cruz tacts related to appointments),as well as thank you sent a letter to the EPA alleging "collusion"and "cor- or congratulatory letters that do not require responses. ruption"in the agency's Office of Transportation and Excluding committee business is important,since oth- Air Quality.In March of 2009,Senator Dianne Fein- erwise,the effect of committee roles discussed later stein urged the Interior Department to maintain its ban might be driven entirely by uninteresting logistics con- on concealed carried weapons in national parks.Rep. 4号 tacts.I discuss several examples of oversight contact Steve King (R-IO).who once wrote that the United below,and report examples for every agency and cate- States could not be "restored [...with somebody else's gory in Table A4 in the SI. babies,"contacted the Department of Homeland Se- Examples of casework abound.Rep.Joseph Pitts curity in 2008 about its efforts to reduce legal immi- & (R-PA)contacted the DOE on behalf of constituents gration.8 In short,these requests are both substan- with "unsightly"natural gas regulators placed near tively meaningful and contain concerns similar to those their homes.Constituents endured this externality raised in other kinds of oversight activities. because UGI Utilities Inc.,an energy provider in western Pennsylvania,was required by agency rules. Members of Congress also make frequent requests that RESEARCH DESIGN federal funds be spent in a particular way-usually to To isolate the effect of ideological divergence on over- benefit some specific constituent.For example,Senator sight,I compare changes in oversight of a particular Russ Feingold(D-WI)contacted USAID in February agency by a particular legislator during a period that of 2007 on behalf of Marquette University (his con- includes the transition from the presidency of George stituent)to help secure an additional $50,000 for the W.Bush to Barack Obama.I rely on a generalized African democracy training program run by the Les difference-in-difference design implemented with the Aspin Center. linear probability model below19: Policy audits are also common.Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA),for example,contacted the VA after the broadcasting of an All Things Considered episode Contactii=a+h+8,+中，+BDistanceiit+SX+ei, that described the families of veterans"tricked"out of death benefits by MetLife,Prudential,and other life where yi represents legislator fixed effects,which ac- insurance providers.17 Other policy contacts appear to counts for differences in legislative constituencies and be attempts to detect wrongdoing or policy deviation congressional office culture,8;denotes agency fixed- Then-Senator Joseph Biden(D-DE),for example,con- effects accounting for the fact that some agencies tacted the U.S.Agency for International Development perform functions inherently more likely to be over- in 2007 requesting all internal policy evaluations of funded programs.In Figure 2,Susan Davis audits the DOE's efforts to implement President Bush's execu- goo.gl/Dge79m. 9 tive order designed to reduce fuel consumption in the Since baseline probability of contact is 0.36,it is not surprising that the results of a logistic regression are nearly identical.Another con. federal vehicle fleet. cern of LPM estimation is that it yields predicted values outside the Members of Congress also lobby agencies to take bounds of 0 and 1.In this case.few y values (about 16%)fall outside specific actions.Many of these requests demand exten- this bounds.Thus,I report the LPM results for ease of interpretation sions to notice-and-comment periods in federal rule- It should also be noted that collapsing the dependent variables to di- chotomous indicators results in little information loss,because of the making or request specific changes to proposed rules. relative infrequency of contact by legislator-agency dyad.About 83% of observations are five contacts or fewer.Thus,repeated contacts are 17"Life Insurance Firms Profit from Death Benefits,"NPR.July 28 very rare.All of the findings presented in the following section are 2010.URL:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyld= robust to modeling the complete counts.I report one such robustness 128799983 check in Table B2 of the SI. 880
Kenneth Lowande FIGURE 2. Policy Audit (Dept. of Energy) respondence that fall outside the scope of the analysis. These include contacts about committee business (including scheduling, questions for the record, and contacts related to appointments), as well as thank you or congratulatory letters that do not require responses. Excluding committee business is important, since otherwise, the effect of committee roles discussed later might be driven entirely by uninteresting logistics contacts. I discuss several examples of oversight contact below, and report examples for every agency and category in Table A4 in the SI. Examples of casework abound. Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA) contacted the DOE on behalf of constituents with “unsightly” natural gas regulators placed near their homes. Constituents endured this externality because UGI Utilities Inc., an energy provider in western Pennsylvania, was required by agency rules. Members of Congress also make frequent requests that federal funds be spent in a particular way—usually to benefit some specific constituent. For example, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) contacted USAID in February of 2007 on behalf of Marquette University (his constituent) to help secure an additional $50,000 for the African democracy training program run by the Les Aspin Center. Policy audits are also common. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), for example, contacted the VA after the broadcasting of an All Things Considered episode that described the families of veterans “tricked” out of death benefits by MetLife, Prudential, and other life insurance providers.17 Other policy contacts appear to be attempts to detect wrongdoing or policy deviation. Then-Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), for example, contacted the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2007 requesting all internal policy evaluations of funded programs. In Figure 2, Susan Davis audits the DOE’s efforts to implement President Bush’s executive order designed to reduce fuel consumption in the federal vehicle fleet. Members of Congress also lobby agencies to take specific actions. Many of these requests demand extensions to notice-and-comment periods in federal rulemaking or request specific changes to proposed rules. 17 “Life Insurance Firms Profit from Death Benefits,” NPR, July 28, 2010. URL: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId= 128799983 Other policy requests are more general and indicative of members’ ideological orientation toward an agency’s mission. In October of 2014, Senator Ted Cruz sent a letter to the EPA alleging “collusion” and “corruption” in the agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality. In March of 2009, Senator Dianne Feinstein urged the Interior Department to maintain its ban on concealed carried weapons in national parks. Rep. Steve King (R-IO), who once wrote that the United States could not be “restored [...] with somebody else’s babies,” contacted the Department of Homeland Security in 2008 about its efforts to reduce legal immigration.18 In short, these requests are both substantively meaningful and contain concerns similar to those raised in other kinds of oversight activities. RESEARCH DESIGN To isolate the effect of ideological divergence on oversight, I compare changes in oversight of a particular agency by a particular legislator during a period that includes the transition from the presidency of George W. Bush to Barack Obama. I rely on a generalized difference-in-difference design implemented with the linear probability model below19: Contacti jt = α + γi + δj + φt + βDistancei jt + ζX + i, where γ i represents legislator fixed effects, which accounts for differences in legislative constituencies and congressional office culture, δj denotes agency fixedeffects accounting for the fact that some agencies perform functions inherently more likely to be over- 18 goo.gl/Dge79m. 19 Since baseline probability of contact is 0.36,it is not surprising that the results of a logistic regression are nearly identical. Another concern of LPM estimation is that it yields predicted values outside the bounds of 0 and 1. In this case, few yˆ values (about 16%) fall outside this bounds. Thus, I report the LPM results for ease of interpretation. It should also be noted that collapsing the dependent variables to dichotomous indicators results in little information loss, because of the relative infrequency of contact by legislator-agency dyad.About 83% of observations are five contacts or fewer.Thus, repeated contacts are very rare. All of the findings presented in the following section are robust to modeling the complete counts. I report one such robustness check in Table B2 of the SI. 880 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Shanghai JiaoTong University, on 26 Oct 2018 at 03:53:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000497