Congressional Investigations and the Electoral Connection

Abstract

opportunities to test these assumptions—and, by extension—the theories they support. We utilize one such historical moment to test existing theories of Congressional oversight of the bureaucracy. We leverage the 17th Amendment to evaluate the assumption that incentives motivated by the “electoral connection” drive members of Congress to investigate more vigorously during divided government. We show that the 17th Amendment “treatment” substantially increased the Senate’s propensity to investigate when encountering an opposition president.