Government Works Weekly #3
Welcome to your weekly roundup of opportunities, events, and information about how government works—and how government can work better—to improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities.
APPLY YOURSELF – jobs, internships, and other ways to get involved
JOB: Program Officer, Global Programs & Partnerships, Open Government Partnership [Belgium or Washington, D.C.]
JOB: Associate Director, Special Projects, Elections & Voting (and more), Democracy Fund [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
JOB: Program Assistant, International Forum for Democratic Studies (and more), National Endowment for Democracy [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
JOB: Vice President, Modernizing Government (and more), Partnership for Public Service [Washington, D.C.]
INTERNSHIP: GAO Analyst Graduate Intern (Management and Program Analyst), Government Accountability Office [Washington, D.C.]
UPCOMING EVENTS – webinars, conferences, and other human things
3-7 June: 2024 UN Behavioural Science Week [United Nations]
4 June: Learning Webinar On Innovations In Democracy: Inclusive Democracy [Part of a series of webinars by People Powered, Open Government Partnership, and Trust, Accountability, and Inclusion (TAI) Collaborative1]
11 June: 2024 Trust Summit: The Role of Civil Servants in Democracy [Partnership for Public Service]
12 June: Public sector capacities for transformative public policies [Part of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Forum 2024 – Rethinking the State2]
EYES & EARS – reading, podcasts, and other good stuff
REPORT: Mission Critical: Statecraft for the 21st Century – A report—situated in the UK context but with broader applicability—that looks at how a mission-driven approach to government could better address today’s challenges.
“... by reframing government’s role away from just ‘fixing markets,’ a mission-oriented approach recognises that public sector institutions can create value as well as redistribute it.”
[UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, May 2024]
SUBSTACK: How to Investigate the Federal Government – Santi Ruiz over at the excellent Statecraft newsletter just wrapped up a great series on Congressional support agencies.
As a former GAO staffer, I am particularly fond of the final installment on the Government Accountability Office. In the interview, Managing Director of GAO’s Office of Congressional Relations Orice Williams Brown says of GAO’s relationship with Congress:
“I think the relationship has really evolved. When I started at GAO in 1990, I would say it was much more adversarial. Now, and we've always said this, but I think more agencies tend to believe us when we say, “we're from GAO and we're here to help.”
That really is how we approach it. We take seriously our mission: to support the Congress in exercising its constitutional responsibilities, but also to look for ways to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government on behalf of taxpayers and the American people.
We enter a conversation with that spirit. We don't do gotcha audits. We are clear with the agency about our key questions. We ask them questions. We also review documents and conduct physical inspections. We have a closeout at the end of the engagement, where we lay out all of the facts as we understand them based on the evidence that we have collected.
We also give agencies an opportunity to comment on our draft reports, and we include their comment letters in our final published product. So they have an opportunity to weigh in. I think that many times, they understand and see the value of GAO and appreciate the fact that we can actually help them achieve their goals and make government work better.
I think everyone wants to do the right thing by — most people want to do the right thing on behalf of taxpayers. Many of them see that GAO can be an effective partner in that space.”
Earlier Statecraft pieces in the series covered the Congressional Research Service, the Congressional Budget Office, and the late Office of Technology Assessment.
Additional reading: Brookings3 and others have also done great work on congressional capacity and the importance of a strong, knowledgeable, and independent Congress for solving problems and making government work.4
[Santi Ruiz, Statecraft, May 2024]
For other events in the series, see: https://www.peoplepowered.org/news-content/invitation-learning-webinars-on-innovations-in-democracy.
For other events in the forum, see: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/iipp-forum-2024-rethinking-state.
See, for example, Molly E. Reynolds, Improving congressional capacity to address problems and oversee the executive branch (4 Dec. 2019) or its work on Vital Statistics on Congress (last updated Nov. 2022). In general, this blog is a big fan of the work done by Brookings’ Governance Studies program and the Center for Effective Public Management.
Washington Post opinion columnist Catherine Rampell has two recent pieces that describe, in different ways, how Congressional Republicans might not be working towards these ends. See: The GOP’s fight to hide the cost of its next tax cut has already begun (30 May 2024) and The reward for Republicans who try to solve problems: humiliation (23 May 2024).