On April 26, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring and a democracy that is now in shambles, with not a single witness from the country itself. No congressional hearing on President Biden’s FY23 budget had any witnesses from civil society organizations.
Members of Congress are seemingly hearing from far fewer people outside the U.S. government, and that doesn’t bode well for good policymaking.
Since I arrived in Washington in 1996, I’ve seen Congress hold hundreds of hearings. There would be the men and women in suits from the Bush, Obama, or Trump administration, and sitting next to them would be a human rights defender, an atrocity survivor, an academic expert, or maybe someone running an organization that got U.S. government funding. Sometimes members would hear from these folks even before hearing from the secretary of State or Defense. The outside experts were treated with respect, their testimony considered important enough to set the stage for the official administration view to follow.
Until recently, it was considered de rigueur for legislators to hear from people who had no political angle, defensive or budgetary posture, or bureaucratic muzzle on their views.
The new trend of government-only hearings is alarming. Now, civil society witnesses are relegated to off-the-record briefings or the infrequent hearing where crickets can be heard in mostly empty Capitol rooms.
Consider that over the past two years (April 15, 2021 to April 15, 2023), the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee collectively held 179 full committee and subcommittee hearings open to the public. As our research uncovered, only 87 (or 48 percent) included at least one non-governmental witness. The House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs collectively held 23 open hearings, of which only two included at least one non-governmental witness.
If members of Congress are only hearing from people representing the president, they are missing big pieces of the puzzle they need to see to make good decisions about the role of the United States in the world. This month, the Agency for International Development administrator, Samantha Power, defended the agency’s budget request before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by noting that $32 billion would allow the development agency to make “transformative” change throughout the world. Yet Congress heard from no one on the receiving end of USAID programs. How can they accurately judge what transformation is possible?
Nothing can replace the sheer power and credibility of a person who has been affected by a U.S. policy or practice, or indeed the policies of a foreign government the United States is working to counter. During a recent House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party’s hearing on the treatment of Uyghurs in China, the testimony of two people who experienced abuses at the hands of the Chinese government was invaluable. Yet most hearings don’t include people like this, who can cut through politics and reorient the audience to the higher moral and strategic purposes of making policy.
Sure, members still put in time meeting one-on-one with human rights activists and experts. That’s an important and necessary part of their job, especially if they’re on committees like Foreign Affairs or Armed Services. But congressional hearings are different from bilateral engagements.
In fact, they are an essential part of U.S. democracy because they allow for public debate and can present a legislator with all sides of complicated issues. Hearings are also part of the Congressional Record, which means anyone can go back and understand what exactly was said and what was being considered in U.S. policy at any given time.
So, Mr. Chairman, what do you think? We have human rights defenders to send your way.
Nicole Widdersheim is deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch, and formerly served in the National Security Council and at USAID.