Epistemic orientation predicts legislative effectiveness among members of the US Congress

Truth and evidence-based communication provide important foundations for democratic governance, accountability, and collective decision-making. Prior work shows that evidence-oriented language in US congressional floor speeches has declined since the mid-1970s, alongside broader changes in legislative productivity and polarization. This study shifts the analysis from congressional sessions to individual members of Congress to examine whether epistemic orientation varies systematically across legislators and whether it relates to political behavior and legislative effectiveness. Using the Evidence-Minus-Intuition (EMI) score, we measure the relative prevalence of evidence-oriented versus intuition-oriented language in congressional floor speeches and Twitter posts. We link these measures to