How many legislative hearings happen each year?

Across all state legislatures, state agencies, and Congress combined, thousands of committee hearings, floor sessions, and public meetings take place over the course of a year. Every active committee in every chamber, in every state, typically holds multiple hearings during its session, and that's before counting agency rulemaking hearings and public comment sessions layered on top.

The overwhelming majority of these hearings receive no traditional media coverage at all. A local news outlet might cover a handful of high-profile hearings on a major bill, but the routine committee work where most of the real negotiation and testimony happens generally goes unreported outside the room.

This is precisely the gap hearing intelligence closes: rather than relying on media coverage or being physically present, teams can access a live and archived record of hearings across the jurisdictions they track. USLege's archive has grown to 2.4 million hours of government video and counting as a direct result of covering this volume.

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Frequently asked

Are most legislative hearings covered by the news?

No. The large majority of committee hearings and public meetings receive no traditional media coverage, which is why direct monitoring matters for teams that need to know what was actually said.

How many hearings does a typical active committee hold in a session?

This varies significantly by state, chamber, and how active a given committee's subject matter is in that session, ranging from a handful to dozens over the course of a session.

Does hearing volume include agency rulemaking hearings, not just legislative committees?

In USLege's coverage, yes, agency public hearings and comment sessions are tracked alongside legislative committee hearings.

How can a small team possibly keep up with this volume of hearings?

By using AI transcription and alerting to surface only the hearings and moments relevant to their specific tracked issues, rather than attempting to watch everything.