One of the most important functions of Congress outside its legislative work is to conduct its investigations within the limits of its powers. This power is usually delegated either to standing committees and ad hoc committees set up for a particular purpose, or to joint committees composed of members of both houses. Investigations are conducted to gather information concerning the need for future legislation, to test the effectiveness of laws already enacted, to ascertain the competence and integrity of members and officials of various bodies of the other branches, and in rare cases to prepare procedures for prosecuting senior civil servants. Committees often use outside experts to assist with hearings and scrutinize controversial issues.
The power to investigate includes important collateral functions. One of them is to make public the progress of investigations and their results. Most committee hearings are public, known to the public, and widely covered by the media. Thus, congressional hearings are an important single mechanism that lawmakers use to inform the citizens of the United States about the problems of this country and to awaken the broader American public’s interest in addressing them. Congressional committees also have the power to compel recalcitrant witnesses to testify and to prosecute for insult to Congress witnesses who refuse to testify, and to prosecute for perjury those who perjure themselves.
Unlike European parliamentary systems, the selection and behavior of U.S. legislators has little in common with centralized party discipline. Each of the major American political parties is a coalition of local and state organizations that join together to form a national party, the Republican or Democratic Party, during presidential elections at four-year intervals. Thus, members of Congress owe their position to the voters of the locality or state that voted for them, not to the national party leadership or to their congressional colleagues. As a result, the legislative behavior of House Representatives and Senators tends to be individualistic and idiosyncratic, a reflection of the great diversity of the constituency they represent and the freedom that comes from the fact that these Representatives and Senators have managed to “chip away” at their personal constituency.
Thus, Congress is a collegial body, not a hierarchical one. Power is not distributed from top to bottom, as it is in corporations, but is distributed in every direction. There is only a minimal centralization of power, since the power to “execute or pardon” is very limited. Congressional policy is shaped by flexible coalitions, the composition of which can vary depending on the problem for which lawmakers join together in a particular coalition. Sometimes when there is pressure from various sides, from the White House to powerful economic and ethnic groups, lawmakers use the rules of procedure to postpone a decision and thus not alienate one or another powerful sector. An issue can be postponed on the pretext that the relevant committee has held too few public hearings. Or Congress may direct a body to prepare a detailed report before taking up the matter. It is also possible for both chambers to delay (“shelve”) a measure and thus successfully “kill” it without passing judgment on the merits.
There are informal and unwritten norms of behavior, often defining the task and influence of this or that member of Congress. “The “initiated,” i.e., House members and Senators who focus on their immediate lawmaking responsibilities, may have more influence on the sidelines of Congress than the “uninitiated,” i.e., those who seek recognition by speaking out on issues of national importance. Members of Congress are expected to be respectful of their colleagues and not to attack the identity of a congressman, regardless of the fact that he or she is an opponent and the political line he or she advocates is extremely distasteful to some. Members of Congress are also expected to specialize in only a few areas of legislative policy and not to claim to be an expert on the totality of the problems that arise in lawmaking. Those who adhere to these informal rules have a better chance of winning a seat on prestigious committees, or at least on committees that affect the interests of a significant portion of their constituents.