December 19, 2020

A Media Analysis of 2020 Congressional Research Service Reports: Who Does The CRS Cite?

What sources does the Congressional Research Service use to inform lawmakers? We analyzed nearly 2000 CRS reports to find out.

A Media Analysis of 2020 Congressional Research Service Reports: Who Does The CRS Cite?

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is often called "Congress's think tank," and operates as a nonpartisan public policy research institute. CRS reports often rely on external sources to inform lawmakers. To create a systematic account of what kinds of sources and resources they use, we analyzed 1874 reports released or updated in 2020.

We broke references down into two categories: link to websites and direct links to PDFs on the web. Generally, the CRS uses PDF links for substantive documents and web links for news stories or more transactional information about legislation. We made a further distinction between .gov domains and other domains in order to track government vs non-governmental sources.  

Top Non .Gov Domains

Unsurprisingly, national papers like The Washington Post and The New York Times were quoted prominently. Business publications The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal were also referenced significantly. Only one blog made the top 25 – https://www.scotusblog.com/.

Major cable outlets did not make the top 25: CNN was ranked 32, Fox News was ranked 353, and MSNBC was not referenced in the data set.

Domain Count Rank
scholar.google.com 733 1
www.washingtonpost.com 262 2
www.nytimes.com 244 3
www.law.cornell.edu 183 4
www.wto.org 169 5
www.ft.com 143 6
www.wsj.com 116 7
www.reuters.com 101 8
supreme.justia.com 94 9
www.politico.com 93 10
www.scotusblog.com 81 11
www.bloomberg.com 80 12
www.who.int 80 13
www.ncsl.org 76 14
twitter.com 69 15
thehill.com 66 16
www.nber.org 65 17
www.brookings.edu 63 18
www.newyorkfed.org 63 19
casetext.com 63 20
www.npr.org 58 21
www.taxpolicycenter.org 57 22
www.google.com 57 23
www.defensenews.com 57 24
www.urban.org 53 25

Top .gov Domains

Overall, .gov domains were cited much more regularly than other websites. In our data set, the 14th ranked website – the IRS – had as many references as The Washington Post.

Domain Count Rank
www.congress.gov 1351 1
uscode.house.gov 909 2
www.supremecourt.gov 875 3
www.crs.gov 594 4
www.sba.gov 460 5
www.justice.gov 454 6
www.whitehouse.gov 448 7
www.fema.gov 428 8
www.govinfo.gov 369 9
www.fda.gov 367 10
www.cdc.gov 304 11
www.gao.gov 302 12
www.federalreserve.gov 269 13
www.irs.gov 261 14
www.ssa.gov 236 15
www.state.gov 217 16
www.hhs.gov 196 17
www.federalregister.gov 184 18
www.epa.gov 183 19
www.cbo.gov 175 20
cdn.loc.gov 163 21
www.cms.gov 159 22
constitution.congress.gov 152 23
media.ca7.uscourts.gov 150 24
www.census.gov 145 25

A large number of CRS references are direct links to PDF files. Among these, .gov domains are predominant. GovInfo.gov, a workhorse of federal information, and the Government Accountability Office are top sources. Here are the 25 most frequently cited domains for PDF sources:

Domain Count Rank
www.govinfo.gov 264 1
www.gao.gov 226 2
www.supremecourt.gov 162 3
www.sba.gov 131 4
www.congress.gov 116 5
www.whitehouse.gov 101 6
www.cbo.gov 89 7
www.irs.gov 68 8
www.federalreserve.gov 65 9
www.fema.gov 53 10
www.ssa.gov 52 11
docs.fcc.gov 52 12
ustr.gov 47 13
www.gpo.gov 46 14
www.fdic.gov 37 15
files.consumerfinance.gov 35 16
www.justice.gov 34 17
www.cdc.gov 33 18
cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov 29 19
home.treasury.gov 27 20
www.cms.gov 26 21
www.treasury.gov 25 22
ecfsapi.fcc.gov 25 23
www.nber.org 24 24
www2.ed.gov 24 25

Most Linked PDF Resources

The specific documents cited by CRS also provide an interesting map of policy problems this year. Notable examples include the intelligence community assessment of Russian election interference and a report on China's trade and intellectual property practices.

Here were the top individual PDF resources linked by CRS reports:

PDF URL Count Rank
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Section 301 FINAL.PDF 8 0
https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/aboutsbaarticle/FINAL_SBA_FY_2018_CBJ_May_22_2017c.pdf 7 1
https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/FY17-CBJ_FY15-APR.pdf 7 2
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08226t.pdf 6 3
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/a11.pdf 5 4
https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/aboutsbaarticle/Congressional_Budget_Justification.pdf 5 5
http://www.gao.gov/assets/650/648285.pdf 5 6
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2020-04/hr748.pdf 5 7
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/budget_fy21.pdf 4 8
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf 4 9
https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-09/fema_watermark_report_06-2020.pdf 4 10
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-03-24/pdf/2020-06253.pdf 4 11
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-03-24/pdf/2020-06217.pdf 4 12
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/M-20-16.pdf 4 13
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2020/tr2020.pdf 4 14
https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf 4 15
https://www.pbgc.gov/sites/default/files/2017_pension_data_tables.pdf 4 16
https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/1-FY 2016 CBJ FY 2014 APR.PDF 4 17
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2020-04/HR6201.pdf 4 18
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905-2.pdf 4 19
https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/SBA-Paycheck-Protection-Program-Loan-Report-Round2.pdf 4 20
https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017report.pdf 3 21
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_calendars/MonthlyArgumentCalNovember2020.pdf 3 22
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-116HPRT38679/pdf/CPRT-116HPRT38679.pdf 3 23
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Report_On_France's_Digital_Services_Tax.pdf 3 24
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/04/f73/doe-fy2021-budget-volume-3-part-2.pdf 3 25