1. Transcripts and detailed information about the 2011 defense authorization hearings can be accessed at the website of the Senate Armed Services Committee (//armed-services.senate.gov/hearings2011.cfm?h_month=6&#month).
2. In terms of scope, Aberbach (1990, 2002) focuses on hearings and meetings that are primarily devoted to overseeing the bureaucracy. Other researchers highlight the salience of less manifest activities, such as constituency casework and hearings not convened for the purpose of conducting oversight (Johannes 1979 Johannes, John R. 1979. Casework as a Technique of U.S. Congressional Oversight of the Executive. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 4: 325–51. August[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Ogul 1976 Ogul, Morris S. 1976. Congress Oversees the Bureaucracy: Studies in Legislative Supervision, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. [Google Scholar]). In terms of timing, oversight has been conceived of as legislative intervention in agency decisions that have already been made (Hall and Miler 2008 Hall, Richard L. and Miler, Kristina C. 2008. What Happens After the Alarm? Interest Group Subsidies to Legislative Overseers. Journal of Politics, 70: 990–1005. October[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), as well as review that occurs during program and policy implementation (Aberbach 1979 Aberbach, Joel D. 1979. Changes in Congressional Oversight. American Behavioral Scientist, 22: 493–515. May/June[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Researchers have also argued that legislative activities taken in anticipation of bureaucratic behavior can operate as forms of oversight (Ogul and Rockman 1990 Ogul, Morris S. and Rockman, Bert A. 1990. Overseeing Oversight: New Departures and Old Problems. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 15: 5–24. February[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).
3. Research utilizing principal-agent theory highlights the fact that oversight—whether of the police-patrol or fire-alarm variant—is not the only approach that legislators take to managing authority delegated to the bureaucracy. Legislators regularly turn to administrative procedures, such as notice and comment rulemaking, public disclosure requirements, and evidentiary standards, as means of imposing constraints on bureaucratic behavior (McCubbins, Noll, and Weingast 1987, 1989). Research suggests that administrative procedures, by circulating information and inducing delay, enhance the effectiveness of oversight by facilitating intervention on the part of legislators and constituents earlier in bureaucratic decision making.
4. The overarching police patrol-fire alarm metaphor has proven quite popular as a means of orienting research on decision making under separate powers. In the context of American politics, the metaphor has been used to structure inquiries into the role of interest groups in lower court confirmation processes (Scherer, Bartels, and Steigerwalt 2008 Scherer, Nancy, Brandon, L Bartels and Steigerwalt, Amy. 2008. “Sounding the Fire Alarm: The Role of Interest Groups in the Lower Federal Court Confirmation Process.”. Journal of Politics, 70: 1026–1039. October[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and the consultation mechanisms that state legislators impose on environmental agencies (Potoski 1999 Potoski, Matthew. 1999. Managing Uncertainty Through Bureaucratic Design: Administrative Procedures and State Air Pollution Control Agencies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 9: 623–39. October[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Potoski and Woods 2000 Potoski, Matthew and Woods, Neal D. 2000. Designing State Clean Air Agencies: Administrative Procedures and Bureaucratic Autonomy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 11: 203–21. April[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Globally, researchers have pointed out that fire alarms are often overlooked instruments for projecting policymaking influence across institutions in both presidential systems such as Chile (Siavelis 2000 Siavelis, Peter M. 2000. Disconnected Fire Alarms and Ineffective Police Patrols: Legislative Oversight in Postauthoritarian Chile. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 42: 71–98. Spring[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and parliamentary systems across Western Europe (Saalfeld 2000 Saalfeld, Thomas. 2000. Members of Parliament and Government in Western Europe: Agency Relations and Problems of Oversight. European Journal of Political Research, 37: 353–76. May[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).
5. Hamilton's remarks, which can be accessed at //www.ignet.gov/pande/leg/lhremarks.pdf, were made at a workshop designed to train legislators and staff members in the conduct of programmatic oversight.
6. The Policy Agendas Project tracks hearing activity in the post-war period (//www.policyagendas.org/page/datasets-codebooks#congressional_hearings).
7. As detailed below, these hearings do not constitute a probability sample of hearings, but rather a purposive sample selected on the basis of committees and time periods. For these committees and time periods, the hearings under study comprise the universe of hearing activity.
8. The committee typology—reelection, policy, influence—was originally developed (in a House context) by Fenno (1973 Fenno, Richard F. Jr. 1973. Congressmen in Committees, Boston, MA: Little, Brown. [Google Scholar]) and more fully elaborated by Deering and Smith (1997 Deering, Christopher J. and Smith, Steven S. 1997. Committees in Congress, Washington, DC: CQ Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Deering and Smith do not identify a separate “power/influence” category for Senate committees, but note that only Finance and Appropriations are so regarded by newly elected senators in considering committee appointment requests. Armed Services falls in the mixed “constituency/policy” category in the Senate but squarely in the constituency category in the House. And that latter assignment is consistent with Adler and Lapinski's (1997) demand-side approach to committee composition—where Armed Services falls in the “high demand” category alongside Agriculture and Interior (now Natural Resources)—and with Krehbiel's (1991) analysis in which Armed Services is a consistent “homogeneous preference outlier.” Cox and McCubbins (1993, 197–98) dissent somewhat from this categorization, judging Armed Services to have “mixed externalities” rather than “targeted” externalities. Nonetheless, Cox and McCubbins note that that Armed Services became much more targeted during the 1970s (hence the mixed category) than it had been earlier. Of course, our samples commence in the late 1970s. For our purposes, the two defense panels have the added advantage of including foreign and defense fire alarms to the mix of oversight triggers being considered, while Armed Services remains defensibly within the constituency category.
9. In the late 1970s, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee absorbed the functions of the District Committee and Post Office and Civil Service Committee. Similar jurisdictional expansion occurred in 1995 for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Committee names have changed on a number of occasions over the past several decades. In 1999, for example, the House National Security Committee was renamed the Armed Services Committee, restoring the name it had held for decades prior to the 1995 Republican takeover. In 2005, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee was renamed the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Throughout, we refer to committees by their official names during the 108th Congress, the most recent period for which we have collected information about hearing activity.
10. With such lags in mind, we identified the hearings for a particular Congress by starting with the CIS volumes for the appropriate years (e.g., 1987–1989 for the 100th Congress) and then reviewing four succeeding annual volumes. This coding rule implies that we do not observe hearings that were printed five or more years after they occurred. The number of missing hearings is in all likelihood trivial, as either no hearings or only a handful of hearings appear in the fourth-year succeeding volumes.
11. Following CIS convention, each volume entry is considered to be a distinct hearing, regardless of duration. For example, both the W-4 form and defense authorization hearings are classified as individual observations.
12. United States House of Representatives, Armed Services Committee, “Oversight Plan,” //armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/oversight-plan.
13. Although the House and Senate closely resemble one another in the relative prevalence of police patrols and fire alarms, the chambers exhibit differences in overall levels of hearing activity. The House held 1,996 hearings, a substantially higher total than the 1,216 hearings conducted by the Senate during the four Congresses under study. In addition, hearing activity in the Senate diminished appreciably over time, a trend that was not manifested in the four parallel House committees.
14. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee conducted fewer police patrols, relative to fire alarms, than any other committee in the analysis. Even in the context of this committee, however, 78.1% of the hearings were police patrol in orientation.
15. As highlighted earlier, these instruments notably include administrative procedures (McCubbins, Noll, and Weingast 1987 McCubbins, Mathew D., Noll, Roger G. and Weingast, Barry R. 1987. Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 3: 243–77. Autumn [Google Scholar], 1989 McCubbins, Mathew D., Noll, Roger G. and Weingast, Barry R. 1989. Structure and Process, Politics and Policy: Administrative Arrangements and the Political Control of Agencies. Virginia Law Review, 75: 431–482. March[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).