Congressional Oversight Reports as Legislative Branch Work Product and Research Resource
2026-08-29
The Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University Law School is in the process of creating the first‐ever comprehensive database of congressional oversight reports for all House and Senate Committees since the 106th Congress (1999–2000). In this article, we place these reports into the broader context of the tools Congress has to conduct oversight in service of its many legislative branch responsibilities under the Constitution. We also explain the development of the database. We conclude the article by discussing how the congressional scholars in this special issue use this database to examine how Congress conducts oversight, and we propose several additional areas for future study.