The State of the Hearings · 119th Congress

Congress speaks 63% 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 – Jun 2026 · 57 hearing days in the record · 2.8 hearings per hearing day
The docket · Congress.gov
Hearings held
2,535
HSE 1,488 · SEN 1,047
Witnesses listed
4,009
named on the docket
The record · Synedi
Hearings transcribed
159
6% of the docket · growing
Hours attributed
306.4
57 hearing days
Words on the record
2,542,463
timestamped · attributed
Members heard
451
spoke on record
Witnesses heard
400
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
63%
Member share of attributed speaking time
Members — 151.4 h Witnesses — 89.0 h
Full-cmte chairs 19.5% of member time Ranking members 17.7% Subcmte gavels 46.9% Rank-and-file 15.9%
Synedi · who-does-the-talking · n = 240.5 attributed hours, 159 hearings · roles from official 119th rosters
Dimension · Members

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

The Airtime Ledger
Members × Disparity

Half the members on the record share 17% of the airtime.

0.49
airtime Gini, members
34.5%
held by the top 45 voices
0.37
witness Gini — witness time is rationed more equally than members' own
Synedi · airtime-ledger · n = 451 members
The Airtime Report
Members × Volume

No senator has out-talked Cruz on the record: 147 minutes across 17 hearings.

Senate · minutes on the record
Cruz147 · 17 hrgs
Grassley125 · 13 hrgs
Whitehouse122 · 16 hrgs
Moran107 · 13 hrgs
Peters84 · 15 hrgs
House
Issa144 · 11
Raskin99 · 9
Mast82 · 1
Meeks65 · 2
Smith60 · 5
The median member on the record: 12.7 minutes.
Synedi · airtime · n = 451 members
The Question Count
Members × Conduct

11,460 questions are on the record. Banks asks one every 14 seconds.

Questions per minute of own airtime · ≥15 min spoken
Banks4.18 /min
Kennedy4.11 /min
Fry3.54 /min
Mast3.15 /min
median member1.11 /min
A question is a question mark in attributed member speech — a hard count, not a judgment of quality.
Synedi · question-count · n = 201 members ≥15 min
Talkers × Askers
Members × Conduct

Airtime and curiosity are different careers. 201 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 = 201 members ≥15 min on the record
The Ever-Present
Members × Diligence

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

Hearings spoken in
Fischer19 hearings
Cruz17 hearings
Whitehouse16 hearings
Capito16 hearings
Blumenthal16 hearings
Showing up and speaking, room after room. Presence ≠ airtime — Fischer did it in 66 total minutes.
Synedi · ever-present · n = 451 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
Lankford217 wpm
McGarvey213 wpm
Slowest
Collins108 wpm
Cleaver111 wpm
Davis113 wpm
Median: 165 wpm. A measure of cadence, not content.
Synedi · words-per-minute · n = 269 members ≥10 min
Find your member
The whole roster

448 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 1733.553301,242
HSE Energy and Commerce 824.829198,996
HSE Appropriations 1323.425195,507
HSE Financial Services 820.425156,144
HSE Ways and Means 519.110143,484
SEN Commerce, Science, and Transportation 918.627145,383
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)62.8%
Foreign Relations48.7%
Small Business48.0%
Armed Services47.7%
Energy and Natural Resources47.3%
Committee on House Administration26.5%
Foreign Affairs14.7%
Rules8.1%
Markup-heavy rooms — few or no witnesses — sit at the bottom by design.
Synedi · listening-rooms · n = 28 committees ≥2 h attributed
Crosstalk
Committees × Conduct

The record holds 402 crosstalk moments. Foreign Relations runs the hottest room — one every 10 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
Foreign Relationsevery 10 min
Intelligence (Select)every 13 min
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensionsevery 17 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 = 121 hearings ≥60 spoken min
Dimension · Witnesses

4,009 witnesses were named on the docket. 400 are on the record — here is what the table looks like from their chair.

The Waiting Room
Witnesses × Time

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

36.7
median minutes
66+
the slowest tenth
1 in 8
spoke under 5 min total
Synedi · waiting-room · n = 416 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
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
Boozman12.9 min · 90 turnsBrooke Rollins · U.S. Department of Agriculture
Cramer12.5 min · 89 turnsJesse Tolleson, Jr. · Department of the Army
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
140 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 = 400
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. Tesla the most-named company.

Companiesby month →
Tesla51
Meta38
Amazon37
Intel34
Agencies
ICE467
IRS450
FBI346
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 · June

China ran 8× hotter in June than May.

Mentions per 10 hearing-hours · June vs. May · volume-adjusted
China
+704%
Medicare/Medicaid
+609%
Crypto
+298%
Drones
−30%
Housing
−90%
Veterans
−97%
Jurisdiction creep: Artificial intelligence came up in 7 committees in June; Drones in 6.
Synedi · topic-momentum · keyword series · volume-adjusted
Who Says It
Topics × Network

When Congress says "Tesla," it's Markey talking.

Tesla
51 mentions on the record
Markey9
Cantwell7
Duckworth6
3 cmtesevery mention →
Meta
38 mentions on the record
Hunt8
Durbin4
Blackburn4
4 cmtesevery mention →
Amazon
37 mentions on the record
Hawley16
Luján3
Biggs1
11 cmtesevery mention →
ICE
467 mentions on the record
Paul41
Hassan28
24
14 cmtesevery mention →
IRS
450 mentions on the record
Smith30
Neal17
Estes15
11 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
1,037
times "China" was said — more than Iran and Mexico combined (814).
countries · 119th
1,614
"yield back"s — the record's most-said procedural phrase.
phrases · 119th
579
invocations of "the American people." 22 "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
75
hearings on the record
84
176.0
hours
130.4
64.7%
member share of talking
61.0%
5,834
questions asked
5,626
1.8 min
median question turn
1.7 min
6.6%
turns past five minutes
9.3%
every 48 min
crosstalk cadence
every 29 min
35.2 min
witness wait to first word
37.8 min

All figures from the record (n = 159 hearings); a count, not a verdict.

Dimension · Geography

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

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
California865 · 44 mbrs
Texas552 · 33 mbrs
Florida397 · 26 mbrs
Ohio328 · 16 mbrs
New York325 · 20 mbrs
Loudest per member heard · delegations of 2+
Louisiana52.6 min/mbr
Rhode Island49.8 min/mbr
Iowa48.3 min/mbr
Maryland36.4 min/mbr
Vermont32.9 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

California and New York talk about the same things — 62.9% topic overlap.

Share of each delegation's issue talk · top delegations × top topics
Delegation VeteransChinaSoc. Sec.AITariffsCryptoMedicareDrones
California
Texas
Florida
Ohio
New York
Illinois
Wisconsin
Maryland
share of delegation's issue talk:<3%20%+
California × New York
the most alike delegations — 62.9% topic overlap. Hover for what they share.
between-delegation
California
where party lines split the delegation's agenda: 30.8% topic overlap between its parties. Democrats' top issue: Veterans; Republicans': China.
within-delegation · n = 1 state with both parties heard at volume
Medicare/Medicaid
the biggest chamber dialect: the House gives it 4.4× 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 — June 2026: 47 of 176 (27%)
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