In “Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process,” Walter Oleszek states that, “Hearings are perhaps the most orchestrated phase of policymaking” (96). Congressional hearings are part of a larger political strategy to shape public opinion by shining light on an issue, grilling an official, or showcasing selected viewpoints. While hearings are conducted to look somewhat spontaneous (witnesses do appear before a panel of Congress members in real time), testimonies are prepared, submitted, circulated, and sometimes even practiced in mock sessions long before the C-SPAN cameras turn on. Often, the soft or piercing questions by Members come from scripts prepared beforehand. Hearings are thus not-too-distant cousins of plays—albeit, pretty boring ones.
Last week I attended a hearing on child nutrition programs held by the House Committee on Education and Labor. I wasn’t early for the hearing, which meant I didn’t score a seat and had to settle for the televised showing in an overflow room. Unfortunately the volume on the television was broken, and the crowded room strained to hear the testimony. Fortunately for me, hearings are pre-planned, and I had read the witnesses’ submitted testimony at a coffee shop over the weekend.
One exchange between by Rep. Kline, ranking Republican on the Committee, and Dora Rivas, the representative from the School Nutrition Association, during the question and answer portion of the hearing was a particularly theatrical moment:
[Regarding Rivas’s recommendation to revise the ‘time and place’ rule so that the Sec. of Agriculture can regulate all food on campus]
Rep. Kline: “So you want to regulate the bake sale?”
Rivas: “We want to expand the time and place rule, so that nutrition rules are consistent for all food on campus.”
(okay, I can’t find direct audio so that was paraphrased)
Kline was presumably trolling for a soundbite (the socialist Dems want to take away your banana bread!), a trap that Rivas purposefully evaded (though Rep. Kline would not be defeated; he concluded his questioning by stating, “So basically what I hear is that you want to regulate the bake sale”).
A few Members later, the topic of bake sales and banana bread came up again in Rep. Fudge’s questioning; only this time the foods were given a more impersonal, slightly menacing name: “competitive foods” – foods that battle with healthy foods in the struggle for children’s attention and taste buds. Congresswoman Fudge’s questions were short and to the point.
Rep. Fudge: Do you want to regulate competitive foods?
Rivas: Yes.
Rep. Fudge then turned her attention to Lucy Gettmen of the National School Board Association, the minority’s witness. Fudge attacked the underlying logic of Gettman’s testimony—that local decision makers are the best people to regulate school foods—by citing statistics that strongly suggest that local school boards are doing a miserable job in reducing junk food in schools. Gettman offered a jumbled, confused, and inadequate response (Point – Fudge!). Overall, the Q&A would have been scored a resounding victory for Rep. Fudge, except for the Pepsi can that was sitting on her desk – a shining silver symbol of contradiction anchoring the bottom-right corner of the camera frame.
There was political jockeying, with Members drawing lines in the proverbial sandbox, and positioning themselves strategically; there were bland questions and passionate testimony; and of course, there were calls for more funding by practically every witness. Hearings like this are supposed to cover the major issues of a topic, and in doing so they map out the boundaries of a particular political discourse.
What wasn’t discussed was perhaps just as strategic as what was. There was no discussion about HFCS. There was no discussion about the repercussions of an absent food culture. There was no discussion about working with the Committee on Agriculture to tackle the thorny issue of agricultural subsidies and the practice of dumping unhealthy surplus calories into the USDA’s school commodity program. There was no discussion about dismantling the powerful agroindustry monopolies that are the [genetically engineered?] seeds of America’s growing child nutrition problems. The radius of dissent was instead reduced to relatively minute disputes – finding more funding, reducing paperwork, maybe adding a few more veggies and some non-dairy milk options – a conversation confined to issues of little threat to the agroindustrial status quo.
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