The State of the Hearings · 119th Congress

Congress speaks 62% of the time at its own hearings.

The live read on what Congress says out loud — who gets the airtime, who holds the gavel, who asks the questions, what surges. Timestamped, speaker-attributed, and clipped to the moment, across the whole 119th.

Every number is a count, not a verdict — and every count has a clip.

Jan 2025 – Jul 2026 · 67 hearing days in the record · 3.1 hearings per hearing day
The docket · Congress.gov
Hearings held
2,641
HSE 1,546 · SEN 1,095
Witnesses listed
4,133
named on the docket
The record · Synedi
Hearings transcribed
205
8% of the docket · growing
Hours attributed
395.1
67 hearing days
Words on the record
3,241,377
timestamped · attributed
Members heard
483
spoke on record
Witnesses heard
513
at the table
What "the record" means — one moment, receipted
"they had that discretion. Reclaiming my time, do you have any other possible explanation for the way the administration wants to distribute these"
Levin, Mike Appropriations Committee · Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Requests for the Army Corps of Engineers (Civil Works) a · 2025-05-21 0:46:14 ▶ PLAY

Every stat below resolves to moments like this one — a speaker, a timestamp, a watchable clip. That resolution is the difference between metadata and a record.

1 big thing · Who Does the Talking
62%
Member share of attributed speaking time
Members — 193.0 h Witnesses — 117.0 h
Full-cmte chairs 18.7% of member time Ranking members 17.2% Subcmte gavels 48.5% Rank-and-file 15.6%
Synedi · who-does-the-talking · n = 310.0 attributed hours, 205 hearings · roles from official 119th rosters
Dimension · Members

483 members are on the record. Here is how the airtime really divides.

The Airtime Ledger
Members × Disparity

Half the members on the record share 15% of the airtime.

0.51
airtime Gini, members
34.6%
held by the top 48 voices
0.37
witness Gini — witness time is rationed more equally than members' own
Synedi · airtime-ledger · n = 483 members
The Airtime Report
Members × Volume

No senator has out-talked Grassley on the record: 167 minutes across 16 hearings.

Senate · minutes on the record
Grassley167 · 16 hrgs
Cruz155 · 18 hrgs
Whitehouse136 · 19 hrgs
Cassidy120 · 13 hrgs
Moran109 · 14 hrgs
House
Issa147 · 12
Raskin111 · 10
Mast100 · 3
Meeks93 · 6
Sessions91 · 5
The median member on the record: 14.9 minutes.
Synedi · airtime · n = 483 members
The Question Count
Members × Conduct

14,864 questions are on the record. Kennedy asks one every 14 seconds.

Questions per minute of own airtime · ≥15 min spoken
Kennedy4.33 /min
Fry4.28 /min
Banks3.82 /min
Fine3.66 /min
median member1.1 /min
A question is a question mark in attributed member speech — a hard count, not a judgment of quality.
Synedi · question-count · n = 241 members ≥15 min
Talkers × Askers
Members × Conduct

Airtime and curiosity are different careers. 241 members on the record, plotted.

lines mark the medians · hover any dot for the member's card · click a party to isolate it
Synedi · talkers-askers · n = 241 members ≥15 min on the record
The Ever-Present
Members × Diligence

No one has spoken in more hearings on the record than .

Hearings spoken in
22 hearings
Kaine20 hearings
Whitehouse19 hearings
Scott19 hearings
Blumenthal19 hearings
Showing up and speaking, room after room. Presence ≠ airtime — did it in 75 total minutes.
Synedi · ever-present · n = 483 members
Words per Minute
Members × Cadence

Kelly speaks at 219 words a minute — 2.0× the pace of the slowest voice on the record.

Fastest · ≥10 min spoken
Kelly219 wpm
Lankford218 wpm
Schmidt213 wpm
Slowest
Collins112 wpm
Davis113 wpm
Cleaver113 wpm
Median: 165 wpm. A measure of cadence, not content.
Synedi · words-per-minute · n = 311 members ≥10 min
Find your member
The whole roster

481 members, searchable and sortable.

MemberChMinHrgsQ
Dimension · Committees

Every room runs differently. The record can tell them apart.

The Workhorse Table
Committees × Volume

Senate Judiciary has put more on the record than any committee.

CommitteeHrgsHoursWitWords
SEN Judiciary 2043.862384,581
SEN Appropriations 1834.335277,278
HSE Energy and Commerce 1030.738246,125
HSE Financial Services 1127.634212,152
HSE Foreign Affairs 924.713188,000
SEN Commerce, Science, and Transportation 1020.031155,593
Longest single hearing of the Congress: 11.0 hours — Foreign Affairs, 2026-06-09.
Synedi · workhorse-table · committees on the record, by hours
The Listening Rooms
Committees × Conduct

Only one room on the record lets witnesses do most of the talking.

Witness share of attributed time · ≥2 h on record
Aging (Special)63.5%
Energy and Natural Resources49.4%
Small Business48.0%
Armed Services47.5%
Foreign Relations47.2%
Budget26.6%
Foreign Affairs23.9%
Rules6.4%
Markup-heavy rooms — few or no witnesses — sit at the bottom by design.
Synedi · listening-rooms · n = 29 committees ≥2 h attributed
Crosstalk
Committees × Conduct

The record holds 500 crosstalk moments. Intelligence (Select) runs the hottest room — one every 13 minutes.

4m 11s
between crosstalk events in the flashpoint hearing
Foreign Relations · 2026-03-24
How often the room talks over itself · ≥2 h on record
Intelligence (Select)every 13 min
Foreign Relationsevery 15 min
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensionsevery 19 min
Rulesevery 19 min
Timestamp overlaps + cut-off speech at handoffs — a conservative floor. A count, not a verdict: some crosstalk is clarification.
Synedi · crosstalk · n = 158 hearings ≥60 spoken min
Dimension · Witnesses

4,133 witnesses were named on the docket. 513 are on the record — here is what the table looks like from their chair.

The Waiting Room
Witnesses × Time

534 witnesses, one dot each: the median sat 37 minutes before saying a word.

36.6
median minutes
62+
the slowest tenth
1 in 9
spoke under 5 min total
Synedi · waiting-room · n = 534 appearances · clock starts at the gavel
The Exchanges
Members × Witnesses

The longest duels on the record: Cotton × Gabbard, 139 turns.

memberminutes of testimony drawn · witness
Cotton19.6 min · 139 turnsTulsi Gabbard · Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Salazar17.3 min · 137 turnsMichael Kozak · U.S. Department of State
Curtis14.6 min · 126 turnsMichael Kozak · U.S. Department of State
Cassidy14.3 min · 112 turnsCasey Means, MD · Department of Health and Human Services
Lee13.1 min · 195 turnsTheodore J. Garrish · U.S. Department of Energy
Hagerty13.1 min · 66 turnsElena Kagan · Supreme Court of the United States
An exchange = testimony a witness gives while a given member holds the question time.
Synedi · exchanges · turn-adjacency, on the record
At the table
Witnesses × Superlative

The longest uninterrupted answer on the record: Tulsi Gabbard, 22.1 minutes.

22.1 min
the longest answer — Tulsi Gabbard, Intelligence (Select), 2026-03-18
longest-turn
3 chairs
the median witness panel · biggest: 11 · 24% sat alone
panels
237 min
most witness minutes by one organization — U.S. Department of State
org-airtime
Most heard witnesses · search all 100
WitnessOrganizationMinApps
Synedi · witnesses on the record · n = 513
Dimension · Topics

What Congress actually talks about — named, counted, and traced to whose voice carries it.

Company & Agency Heat
Topics × Volume

ICE is the most-named agency on the record. Amazon the most-named company.

Companiesby month →
Amazon84
Google69
Tesla54
Apple44
Agencies
ICE613
IRS469
FDA466
Omitted: "Ford" (collides with surnames) · "Delta" (collides with river deltas / variants) · "Goldman" (collides with surnames). Ambiguous names sit out until they can be counted cleanly.
Synedi · heat-index · exact-name counts in attributed speech
Topic Momentum
Topics × Momentum · July

Veterans ran 6× hotter in July than June.

Mentions per 10 hearing-hours · July vs. June · volume-adjusted
Veterans
+462%
China
+124%
Tariffs
+90%
Fentanyl
−78%
Social Security
−91%
Postal Service
−100%
Jurisdiction creep: Artificial intelligence came up in 9 committees in July; China in 9.
Synedi · topic-momentum · keyword series · volume-adjusted
Who Says It
Topics × Network

When Congress says "Amazon," it's Hawley talking.

Amazon
84 mentions on the record
Hawley30
Omar12
Jayapal4
15 cmtesevery mention →
Google
69 mentions on the record
Cammack15
Trahan7
Obernolte2
12 cmtesevery mention →
Tesla
54 mentions on the record
Markey9
Cantwell7
Duckworth6
5 cmtesevery mention →
ICE
613 mentions on the record
Paul41
Hassan28
McClintock24
16 cmtesevery mention →
IRS
469 mentions on the record
Smith30
Neal17
Estes15
15 cmtesevery mention →
The layer under the Heat Index: not how often an entity is named, but whose voice carries it, and how far it spreads.
Synedi · who-says-it · attributed mentions, on the record
The margins of the record
Topics × Language
1,570
times "China" was said — more than Iran and Mexico combined (1,032).
countries · 119th
1,962
"yield back"s — the record's most-said procedural phrase.
phrases · 119th
794
invocations of "the American people." 25 "reclaiming my time"s, each one clipped.
phrases · 119th
"agentic"
entered the hearing record 2026-03-17 — Financial Services. First mentions lead the agenda.
first-mentions
Dimension · Chambers

Same Congress, two different rooms.

House
Senate
99
hearings on the record
106
222.9
hours
172.3
63.4%
member share of talking
61.0%
7,754
questions asked
7,110
1.8 min
median question turn
1.6 min
7.1%
turns past five minutes
9.1%
every 46 min
crosstalk cadence
every 31 min
34.4 min
witness wait to first word
38.3 min

All figures from the record (n = 205 hearings); a count, not a verdict.

Dimension · Geography

California does the most talking. Per member, it's Rhode Island.

Delegation airtime: every member-minute on the record, summed by home state. Shading is minutes per delegation member heard, so small states compete.

The Delegation Map
States × Volume
fewer min / membermore
Most delegation minutes · total
California1,033 · 47 mbrs
Texas691 · 35 mbrs
Florida546 · 26 mbrs
New York409 · 23 mbrs
Ohio388 · 16 mbrs
Loudest per member heard · delegations of 2+
Rhode Island61.5 min/mbr
Louisiana57.4 min/mbr
Maine50.5 min/mbr
Iowa49.3 min/mbr
Delaware44.0 min/mbr
Airtime follows gavels and tenure, not population — a count, not a verdict.
Synedi · delegation-map · n = 56 states heard on the record · hover any state
Delegation Dialects
States × Topics

Texas and New York talk about the same things — 78.7% topic overlap.

Share of each delegation's issue talk · top delegations × top topics
Delegation ChinaVeteransAITariffsCryptoSoc. Sec.MedicareDrones
California
Texas
Florida
New York
Ohio
Illinois
Wisconsin
Maryland
share of delegation's issue talk:<3%20%+
Texas × New York
the most alike delegations — 78.7% topic overlap. Hover for what they share.
between-delegation
Michigan
the most divided delegation along party lines — 30.9% topic overlap between its parties. Democrats' top issue: Postal Service; Republicans': Veterans.
within-delegation · n = 3 states with both parties heard at volume
Texas
the most unified — 46.7% overlap across party lines; both parties lead with Crypto / Veterans.
within-delegation
Postal Service
the biggest chamber dialect: the Senate gives it 41.9× the share of its issue talk that the other chamber does.
house vs senate
Synedi · delegation-dialects · member-attributed topic mentions, keyword series · a count, not a verdict
The record · docket vs. transcript

The docket knows a hearing happened. The record knows what was said.

Gray is the official docket — metadata from Congress.gov. Teal is the share where every word is transcribed, attributed, and timestamped.

official docket (Congress.gov) in the record — July 2026: 36 of 123 (29%)
The tempo · hearing-hours per week, 2026 · gaps = district work periods
Same weeks, by chamber · House ■ Senate ■
Committee tempo · hours by month, top five rooms