ABSTRACT
The hearings were neither forum for acquiring knowledge nor orchestrated displays of power. While it may be argued that both committee chairs were favourably disposed to the bill, the legislation was too minor to warrant much effort to manipulate the hearings. One basis for the claim that US agricultural policy is democratically responsive is the system of congressional hearings. Hearings are to be a means of communicating knowledge to members of congress. This chapter suggests that way of understanding what occurs in hearings on agricultural matters: members of congress, with ideologies of their own, and steeped in congressional tradition, briefly encounter witnesses representing a wide range of ideologies. There were in fact three distinct parties in the hearings: opponents, proponents, and legislators. Proponents saw the legislation as finally making things normal, as fixing a problem that had become increasingly severe.
