Newsletter – June 2021

I am now approaching five months since I retired, and I can’t believe that this is my fourth Speak Up for Good Government newsletter.

As mentioned last month, this month’s newsletter will be much more abbreviated than previous months. I just returned from an 18 day, 5000 mile vacation, spanning 10 states and 5 national parks. This month’s newsletter will not be a travelogue, but the travel, going through urban and rural areas and red and blue states did inform this month’s email. More on that to follow…

Although much of the month was spent traveling. I was able to complete one key Good Government activity. In last month’s newsletter, I mentioned my interactions with Issue One. Recapping from last month’s email, Issue One bills itself as the leading cross-partisan political reform group in Washington, D.C. They are working to “unite Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the movement to fix our broken political system and build a democracy that works for everyone.” I encourage all Speak Up for Good Government subscribers to review and sign their declaration.

Issue One’s Fix Congress Cohort Coordinator, made me aware of an upcoming hearing of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress on “Improving the Lawmaking Process & Evidence Based Legislating”. The purpose of the hearing is to discuss the need for impartial scientific/technology analysis in Congress, and potentially reestablishing an office to provide members, committees, and staff with analysis of complicated scientific and technological issues. With much appreciated guidance from Issue One’s Fix Congress Cohort Coordinator, I have submitted written testimony for this hearing to the Select Committee. Unfortunately, I found out late yesterday that this hearing has been cancelled with a potential reschedule date in October. There are currently no future hearings or virtual discussions listed on the Select Committee’s website. I have followed up with the Capitol Hill staff member that I sent my testimony to.

“Data-driven” legislation would be a very positive step. My testimony recommended that the committee broaden the scope to incorporate Quality Improvement methodology to improve the lawmaking process. I recommended establishing a Congressional Office of Quality and Process Improvement that would provide analysis to members of Congress and their staff and utilize Quality tools to produce world class legislation. I suggested that the office could focus on both the quality of the legislative process and on supporting the development of optimum legislation through data analysis, benchmarking (other industries, best practices in states and municipalities), process design and documentation, and development of success metrics. I will provide an update next month and will likely post my testimony on the Speak Up for Good Government website.

As I continue this journey and refine my work and role, I’ll be closely watching the work of Issue One and a new initiative that Issue One is helping to launch on July 1: The Partnership for American Democracy. If Speak Up’s Good Government Principles are largely included in the work of Issue One and/or The Partnership for American Democracy, my time might be better spent supporting their work rather than continuing as an “independent entity”. Over the next month, I will be attending the launch event for The Partnership for American Democracy, reviewing Speak Up’s Basic Principles, and reaching out to other organizations such as Voice of the People and the American Society for Quality’s Government Division. At minimum, I can leverage my expertise to advocate for a viable and over-arching plan and strategy for meaningful and measurable improvements in government effectiveness and accountability.

As implied in the second paragraph above, my time on the road offered me ample opportunity to reflect on the Good Government journey and how the perceptions and expectations of our federal government likely vary depending on region of the country, personal circumstances, etc. My assumption is that a strong perception of people living in a remote/rural area of South Dakota or Montana is that Washington D.C. is completely out of touch with the needs in those areas, and that they get very little benefit from the federal government. That assumption led me to do some research on allocation of federal dollars and the net flow of money to and from the federal government. The results actually fly in the face of a narrative that shaped some of the discussion around COVID-19 relief money. The "Balance of Payments Portal" compiled by the Rockefeller Institute of Government provides some surprising results regarding the states that receive more federal aid than what they pay in tax revenue. Take a look and judge for yourself.

In the queue for future months:

1. Refinement and further articulation of the basic principles that can be found on my web site

2. Review and update on timeline and objectives

3. Further exploration of metrics and a possible survey

4. Discussion and investigation of legislative and government processes

Take care and have a great month!

Allan

Newsletter – May 2021

Thanks to those that provided feedback following last month’s email and welcome to all of our new subscribers. We now have over sixty people on our distribution, I have begun posting documents on my website, and have posted information about this work on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

A reminder that this is a never-ending journey and I am in the very early stages of this marathon. I truly welcome help, advice, etc. along the way as I have very much to learn. Specific areas where I’d love input or help include newsletter format, website optimization, networking contacts, and editorial review.

The vision and principles that I have articulated reflect an enormous effort. I obviously can only work on and/or impact a small part of it. So my general approach is to seize on opportunities as they present themselves with the idea of helping where I can, informing where I can, and leading where I can.

I want to share a couple of themes from the last month. Hopefully you find this information useful and informative.

Quality of Legislation

(applicable to the problem solving, expert input, and commitment to excellence principles that I’ve articulated on my website)

Much of my career was spent analyzing problems and implementing solutions designed to address identified root causes. I don’t believe that federal legislation proposed by either party for police reform, gun control, or election security/voting rights will provide sustainable solutions or meaningful improvement. This month, I paid particular attention to police reform and the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Although increased accountability for “bad actors” is an important consideration, the fact that the problem has occurred in many regions throughout the country in a diverse set of municipalities, points to this being a systems and process based problem.

I’ve posted a document on my website that provides additional details, including the suggestion that just as healthcare has learned from other industries where failures have extremely catastrophic consequences, law enforcement can learn from healthcare! I have reached out regarding this concept to good government organizations, to my representatives in the House and Senate, and to the lead negotiators that are trying to craft a bipartisan compromise.

Also during this month I was fortunate to have a very informative conversation with leaders of Issue One. Issue One bills itself as the leading cross-partisan political reform group in Washington, D.C. They are working to “unite Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the movement to fix our broken political system and build a democracy that works for everyone.” I encourage all Speak Up for Good Government subscribers to review and sign their declaration. Last Thursday, I attended Issue One’s first in a series of webinars on Reimagining Democracy; and have a call this week with their Fix Congress Cohort Coordinator, who is working actively with the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.

The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress is a bipartisan committee that was established in 2019 and was re-commissioned this year. They have some outstanding recommendations, but I don’t see anything on their website about quality of legislation. I would love to influence the scope of their work to include “modernization” of the legislative process (i.e. quality of legislation). This will be a key component of my conversation with Issue One’s Fix Congress Cohort Coordinator.

Fact Checking

(applicable to availability of accurate and unbiased information principle)

I was very fortunate to attend PolitiFact’s “United Facts of America — A Festival of Fact-Checking” (four day webinar) and found it incredibly useful and informative. There are a number of outstanding fact checking organizations and there are an increasing number of individuals that are becoming proficient at fact checking, In addition, there are learning materials that are readily available to help everyone become proficient at fact checking. We all have a responsibility to check the validity of information we see and read rather than taking it at face value.

Although all of us need to “check the facts”. The process is not easy, and very few of us have the time and patience to do it on a consistent basis. My high school taught Consumer Education to help us avoid scams and become better consumers. “Consumer Education in the Social media Age” should be offered in all schools and should include fact checking as part of the curriculum.

Most of us have a tough time avoiding confirmation bias (gravitating toward information and news sources that reinforce our beliefs and opinions). There is active debate on the role that social media providers like Facebook have in policing the information posted on their platforms and active debate about the responsibility social media providers have for fact checking the posted information. Specifically there is much debate on revising section 230 which grants social media providers (with some notable exceptions), broad immunity on liability for the information posted on their platforms. Facebook employs machine learning technology to identify posts that need to be flagged or fact checked. They are constantly working to improve these capabilities. This is an important development, but at the PolitiFact Festival leaders from top journalism institutions noted that Facebook has typically been much too reactive in this space and could do much more to flag and fact check blatantly false or dangerous posts. It should also be noted that my understanding is that fact-checkers on Facebook cannot check political speech.

I have engaged in some spirited discussion on this topic. I look at Facebook and other social media platforms as somewhere between facilitators of communication (similar to a phone company) and news publishers (with many posts being akin to news reports from amateur journalists). I don’t think it’s fair or practical to hold Facebook and other social media platforms liable for the millions of posts on their sites, but I do think they should have some responsibility related to a subset of posts (authors with very large followings, items that are going viral, etc.). That responsibility could be as simple as a flag that prompts users to check the facts on their own, or prominent caution statements regarding the accuracy of selected posts that meet the criteria for fact checking. This already occurs to some extent, particularly when fact-checked posts are shared by Facebook users.

Facebook’s “advisory board”, while upholding the current ban on Donald Trump’s posts, indicated that the current ban is not sustainable. I would argue that selective censoring is problematic, and active and prominent fact checking would be more effective and be more in line with Freedom of Speech protections.

Much more to come on this topic.

Here are some links to materials from the PolitiFact conference:

Day 1 – Overview and importance of fact checking, criticism of fact checkers, interview of Gabriel Sterling, a Republican Georgia elections official who fact-checked Trump’s false allegations about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia

Day 2 – COVID-19 misinformation, interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci

Day 3 – Fact checking by social media companies and efforts to amend Section 230, interview with Senator Mark Warner

Day 4 – Truth and objectivity in journalism, interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour

United Facts of America You Tube playlist

Here’s some information on section 230:

Section 230 Business Insider summary (sorry about the ads you have to wade through)

Section 230: The Law at the Center of the Big Tech Debate | WSJ

Three page summary of proposed Safe Tech act which seeks to amend Section 230

I anticipate next month’s newsletter to be significantly shorter, as I will be embarking on some much anticipated travel.

Still in the queue for future months:

1. Additional details on timeline and objectives

2. Refinement and further articulation of the basic principles that can be found on my web site

3. Further exploration of metrics and a possible survey

Take care and have a great month!

Allan

Newsletter – April 2021

Thanks to the many people that responded to last month’s Speak Up for Good Government email. Your feedback will help me refine messaging, refine the scope of this work, and refine our short and longer term priorities. I have attached last month’s email for your reference.

My overall approach to this work will be to utilize Quality/Continuous Improvement principles wherever applicable. Leveraging those principles, this month’s edition focuses on “project definition," keeping in mind that this work will evolve and mature over time.

Project description – Designed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, we have strayed from that vision. Elected officials are employees of the voters. However, rather than acting as our employees, elected officials frequently focus their efforts on their donors, their party, and the next election. Objective of Speak Up for Good Government is to achieve meaningful improvement by the end of the decade in accountability and effectiveness of our Federal government.

Scope – Limited to Federal government (rather than state and local government). Limited to work that promotes basic good government principles developed as part of this project.

Key assumptions – There are thousands of "Good Government" organizations, but there is nothing that ties the efforts of those efforts into a broader strategy for achieving the accountability and effectiveness we should expect from our government and our elected officials.

Key constraints – One person effort with limited time and resources.

Key issues/risks – Even if there is broad agreement on the Speak Up for Good Government roadmap, there is nothing that compels our elected officials to enact these reforms.

Measure of success – It would be very difficult to effectively measure whether this work is improving legislative output and/or congressional approval, so I’m strongly considering a survey that assesses the extent to which the basic principles are being applied/complied with.

Approach during the first year:

1. A monthly one to two page newsletter that will:

   1. Refine and clarify “Speak Up for Good Government”

   2. Further define and expand on the good government principles I detailed last month

   3. Provide information on organizations that are supporting “Speak Up for Good Government” principles

   4. Provide information on what I learned and did in the past month

2. Outreach and networking with good government organizations and elected officials

3. A web site* and/or web presence that:

   1. Iteratively grows through my monthly newsletter

   2. Helps facilitate dialog and communication

   3. Provides links and info to good government resources and organizations

4. Support of existing efforts when those opportunities present themselves

   1. I agreed to become part of a legislator accountability team supporting All-On-The-Line’s efforts to minimize gerrymandering in the current redistricting cycle

Much more to come in succeeding months:

1. Additional details on timeline and objectives

2. Refinement and further articulation of the basic principles (listed below and in attachment)

3. Mobilizing support

4. Little victories!

Basic principles:

1. Free and fair elections where anyone that is eligible to participate can easily do so

2. Availability of accurate and unbiased information to help inform voting decisions

3. Shared commitment by all elected officials to problem solving

4. Respect for and embrace of opposing views

5. Legislative approach that allows for and empowers regional differences

6. Active partnership between the public and our elected officials

7. Expert input on legislative solutions

8. Strict rules to prevent conflicts of interest

9. A shared commitment to excellence, leveraging continuous improvement principles to drive government effectiveness

As many of you did last month, please review and provide feedback. Also, feel free to share with others and let me know of anyone else that should be added to this distribution.

Have a great month!