Outsourced Congress: How Congress Relies on Outside Organizational Policy Information

In recent decades, in-house policy experience and expertise within Congress has fallen as members of Congress have shifted resources towards constituent-casework, communications and leadership functions and away from personal office or committee policy staff. Headcounts in the legislative support agencies at Congress's disposal have shrunk by over 40 percent since 1979. At the same time, American politics has seen an explosion of activity by policy demanding groups, and privately funded policy research and planning organizations. These organizations are able to serve as auxiliary service bureaus to staffers and members of Congress, strategically providing legislative subsidy in the hopes of affecting policy outcomes. In this dissertation, I develop a micro-level theory of information processing in Congress, in which individual congressional staffers serve as agents of members tasked with the challenge of learning about policy issues and making recommendations to their bosses in complex information environments. It is these individual staffers, I argue, that mediate the institution's need for policy relevant information and these potential sources of outside subsidy. Though dedicated public servants, congressional staffers are generally under-resourced, over-stretched, and frequently on the losing end of an information asymmetry with the policy-demanders that they meet and interests they must rely on for legislative subsidy. As a result, staffers serve less as policy or subject matter experts in their own right, and more as gatekeepers or selective aggregators, engaged in a process of search and evaluation of policy expertise produced by outside interests. The implication of this theory is that members of Congress rely on biased sets of information produced by outside, often ideological interests, and selected for them by constrained and bias-prone staffers. Using original survey data from the 2017 and 2019 Congressional Capacity Surveys, comprising the largest academic survey sample of congressional staff gathered to date, I investigate how congressional staff evaluate privately provisioned, outside policy information depending on the ideological nature of the information source. This work highlights the importance of these ideological networks of outside information purveyors. Finally, I use IRS 990 data from Washington D.C.-based think tanks to map the network of coordination between these subsidy providing organizations that is implied by their interlocking directorates. This dissertation contributes to a broader understanding of Congress by presenting and testing a micro-level theory of information evaluation within the institution, highlighting the importance of individual staffers and their motivations in the collective functioning of the institution. In doing so, it offers a theoretical bridge between scholars of the political organizations that produce these subsidies, and the scholars of Congress, as an institution which relies on them.PHDPolitical ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163019/1/zfurnas_1.pd

Design and implementation of a pilot orientation program for new NASA engineering employees

This paper describes the design and field testing of an orientation program for new employees of NASA Lewis Research Center's Engineering Directorate. A group of new employees designed the program using a series of TQM analysis techniques. The program objectives were: provide consistent treatment for new employees; assist management and clerical staff with their responsibility for orientation; introduce the employee to as many facets of the organization as possible; allow the employee to feel like a member of the organization as early as possible; maximize the use of existing services; and use up-to-date information. The major aspects of the program included: training of management and clerical staff; lab tours and briefings describing the organization; shepherding, using senior employees as shepherds; a handbook of information about the center and the directorate; a package of information about northeast Ohio; and social activities involving the new employees and shepherds. The program was tested on a pilot group of six new employees over a four month period and was considered to be highly successful by both the employees and management. Aspects of the program have subsequently been adopted for center-wide use

Artifact usefulness and usage in sensemaking handoffs

The complexities of sensemaking suggest that collaboration should be difficult, requiring a rich ecology of collaboration support. This can be a problem for handoff sensemaking, where one person must continue where another has left off, sometimes with only material artifacts as the basis of the handoff. A detailed analysis of essential attributes of sensemaking tasks, and elements identified in the computer supported collaborative work literature were combined to yield insight into handoff sensemaking and guide empirical work. A lab-study showed that handoffs relying only on artifacts from previous sensemaking could be successful. The lab studies also indicated timing and quality affects on the sensemaking handoffs, with different quality materials used differently, and early efforts possibly being particularly difficult to hand off. Design of support for sensemaking handoffs will have to take such effects into account.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78323/1/1450460219_ftp.pd

Interaction: Beyond retrieval

No Abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57316/1/14504301125_ftp.pd

Anecdotes Relating to White Cow or White Buffalo

NOTE.-The editor of this report was, during the life-time of “White Cow” or “White Buffalo, agent for the Omaha Indians, and familiar with the peculiar characteristics referred to by Mr. Fontenelle. A reference to two instances may not be an unpleasant digression. I was once sent for in great haste by White Cow, on an exceeding bitter cold day in December, the messenger stating the old Indian was about to die, and desired to make his will, appoint his successor, and such like. I went at once, and found the old man stretched out on a buffalo robe before a blazing fire, in his tepee. He quickly as possible arose to a sitting position, greeted me, lighted his pipe and passed it around - a universal custom, and indicative of friendship and good will. He then proceeded to state his case. He was old, sick, and expected never again to get up and around. He wished a twelve year old grandson, then in the mission school, to succeed him as chief. He wished to be buried or rather placed in a sitting position, on the high bluff of the Missouri river, back a mile or so from the tepee, his face to the river, that the spirit might continue to see the steamboats passing up and down that stream

Anecdotes Relating to White Cow or White Buffalo

NOTE.-The editor of this report was, during the life-time of “White Cow” or “White Buffalo, agent for the Omaha Indians, and familiar with the peculiar characteristics referred to by Mr. Fontenelle. A reference to two instances may not be an unpleasant digression. I was once sent for in great haste by White Cow, on an exceeding bitter cold day in December, the messenger stating the old Indian was about to die, and desired to make his will, appoint his successor, and such like. I went at once, and found the old man stretched out on a buffalo robe before a blazing fire, in his tepee. He quickly as possible arose to a sitting position, greeted me, lighted his pipe and passed it around - a universal custom, and indicative of friendship and good will. He then proceeded to state his case. He was old, sick, and expected never again to get up and around. He wished a twelve year old grandson, then in the mission school, to succeed him as chief. He wished to be buried or rather placed in a sitting position, on the high bluff of the Missouri river, back a mile or so from the tepee, his face to the river, that the spirit might continue to see the steamboats passing up and down that stream

Grant M. Furnas Interview

Transcript of an oral history interview with Grant M. Furnas by John Ernst on his experiences during the Vietnam War on June 21, 1997

Nitrogen and phosphorus budgets for the central Great Barrier Reef Shelf

Shelf-scale budgets were developed for the nutrient elements nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in the central Great Barrier Reef between Cape Tribulation (I 60 S} and Dunk Island (ca. 18°S). The intent was to quantify: I} stocks of nutrients (nitrogen (N). phosphorus (P) and silicon (Si}) naturally occurring in central Great Barrier Reef waters; 2) natural gradients and variability in water column nutrient concentrations; 3} natural fluxes of nutrients into and out of shelf waters for comparison with anthropogenic or anthropogenically affected nutrient sources