Government Works Weekly #6
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
[NEW] Assistant Inspector General for Evaluations, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Office of the Inspector General [Washington, D.C. / deadline 3 July]
[NEW] Policy Analyst / Project Lead, Open Government and Citizen Participation, OECD [Paris]
[NEW] Policy Analyst, Open Government and Citizen Participation, OECD [Paris]
[NEW] Director of Democratic Institutions (and more), Roosevelt Institute [Remote]
[NEW] Director of Government Affairs and Senior Strategist (and more), Groundwork Collaborative [Washington, D.C.]
[NEW] Fall Internships (Various), Ballotpedia [Remote / U.S.]
[NEW] Voting Rights Program Associate (and more), Common Cause [California / U.S.]
Global Manager, Finance & Grants Administration, Centre for Public Impact [Multiple / Europe / deadline 5 July]
Executive Director, Basel Institute on Governance [Switzerland / deadline 12 July]
Senior Advisor, Civic Engagement (and more), Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation [Hybrid]
Vice President for State Network Strategy (and more), Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
Deputy Director, Center for Civic Design [Remote / U.S.]
Director of Curriculum and Design, Public Service Leadership Institute (and more), Partnership for Public Service [Washington, D.C.]
GAO Analyst Graduate Intern (Management and Program Analyst), Government Accountability Office [Washington, D.C. / deadline 27 June]
Associate Director, Special Projects, Elections & Voting (and more), Democracy Fund [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
Program Assistant, International Forum for Democratic Studies (and more), National Endowment for Democracy [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
Program Manager, Strengthening Democracy Initiative, SPLC [Washington, D.C.]
Senior Program Associate, Democracy Program (and more), The Carter Center [Hybrid / Atlanta]
Program Analyst, Democracy, Rights, and Governance Initiative, Packard Foundation [Berkeley, California]
And as I mentioned last week, jobs focused on voter mobilization and protection for the fall elections are, in a way, supporting a government that works.1
UPCOMING EVENTS – webinars, conferences, and other human things
25 JUNE: Coordinated Upstream Homelessness Prevention: Learnings from the City of Detroit's Centralized Access Model [Government Performance Lab]
25 JUNE: Launch of the new version of the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard [Open Ownership]
26 JUNE: Sammies Summer Series: Part 1: Improving the Customer Experience [Partnership for Public Service]
26 JUNE: Lowering Costs for American Families [Center for American Progress]
26 JUNE: White Paper Launch: "From Waves to Ecosystems: The Next Stage of Democratic Innovation" [Stavros Niarchos Foundation Ithaca Initiative at the University of Delaware]
2 JULY: Learning Webinar: Innovations in Mainstreaming Participation [People Powered, TAI, and Open Government Partnership]
11-12 JULY: Liberalism for the 21st Century [ISMA]
EYES & EARS – reading, podcasts, and other good stuff
[IN DEPTH] 2024 Trust Summit: The Role of Civil Servants in Democracy
On 11 June, The Partnership for Public Service held its second annual Trust Summit, this year focused on The Role of Civil Servants in Democracy.2 The Partnership also used the event to launch a new report (The State of Public Trust in Government 2024) and a new website (Protecting Democracy: Safeguarding the Civil Service). If you missed the live event/stream, a recording of the summit can be found on YouTube. Below I highlight a few of the (lightly edited) exchanges I found most interesting.
In the first session on Modernizing Government to Deliver for the Public, the moderator James Hohmann (Washington Post) asked Congressman Derek Kilmer (Washington) to explain why people have such a negative perception of government. Rep. Kilmer replies in part:
By and large, if you talk to our constituents they are content with the services they receive. Having said that, you know if you watch the nightly news, if you read the paper, if you look online, what gets the most coverage is things that go wrong…
Government at the end of the day, you know, the best definition I've heard is government has been described as the things we do together, the problems that we solve together.
Later in the exchange, they likened the government to a referee in a football game. When government is working, you don’t notice it. You only notice when it is doing a bad job.
In the next session on Public Perceptions of Government, Democracy and the Civil Service, Karen Tumulty (The Washington Post) talks with Max Stier (President and CEO, Partnership for Public Service). In the chat, Stier says:
We only have one tool for collective action as a society, our government…. To have a healthy democracy you need an effective government that is both “trustworthy” and “trusted”, and those are not the same thing.
Later, in a session on A Vision for a Better Government, Jenny Mattingley, Vice President of Government Affairs at the Partnership, says:
There is no one thing that’s making government work… it’s a whole bunch of little things… It boils down to, are government services easy for people to understand, to find, to use…. Where we can make it easier for folks, that’s making government work.
[LINK DUMP – SCHEDULE F@#*$]
As goals for a possible second Trump further resolve, we must remind ourselves what they have in mind regarding the role of civil servants in a democracy. Here is some recent coverage of Schedule F, impoundment, and other policy plans.
Trump’s Second Term: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver [HBO on YouTube, 20 June 2024]
The Public Opposes Trump's Plans to Politicize Public Services [Can We Still Govern? on Substack, 20 June 2024]
Beware the boring and bureaucratic [If you can keep it on Substack, 14 June 2024]
Schedule F looms over trust in government summit [Government Executive, 11 June 2024]
Opinion Trump telegraphs plans to neuter Congress, this time by seizing spending [Washington Post, 11 June 2024]
Trump’s Schedule F plan, explained [Protect Democracy, 11 June 2024]
Opinion Trump wants a government of amateurs — accountable only to him [Washington Post, 10 June 2024]
A bipartisan group of government experts warn about the risks of Schedule F [Can We Still Govern? on Substack, 23 May 2024]
[GOOD QUOTES]
The answer has become increasingly clear: Leading Silicon Valley techno-libertarians are against the state only insofar as it is not enriching them personally. When faced with the prospect of the government becoming a major client, once-principled opposition to state power dissipates.
Source: How Techno-Libertarians Fell in Love with Big Government [Quinn Slobodian in Project Syndicate]
The more hopeful takeaway is that social spending by the government can serve somewhat surprising roles, ones that go beyond simply improving living standards for people.
Source: Why Americans hate inflation — and its cure [Dylan Matthews in Vox]
One thing that many people get wrong is that so much anti-government messaging misses that DC is full of people who genuinely care about making the lives of their fellow citizens better, even as they find themselves battling against inflexible systems and outdated beliefs about how government should work.
Source: Some news, bridging the professional and personal [Don Moynihan in Can We Still Govern?]
In that spirit, here again are some links to orgs doing this kind of work: NextGen (e.g., organizing and field roles in multiple states); States United Democracy Center (e.g., Project Assistant, Truth in Elections); DNC (e.g., Civic Engagement and Voter Protection Program Manager); Voter Participation Center (e.g., Deputy Director of Research and Innovation); Movement Labs (e.g., Special Projects Director, Political Innovation); Equis (e.g., Associate Program Manager, Democracy); Center for Popular Democracy (e.g., Director of Advocacy and Mobilization); The Outreach Team (tons of field positions); Democracy Works (e.g., Director of Marketing & Communications); Shawmut Services (seems to be hiring for Revolution Field Strategies, Ethos Organizing, and others); and America Votes (e.g., GOTV Director).
This event was flagged as upcoming a couple weeks ago right here, so, you know, subscribe to this newsletter for more cool stuff.