Evaluation II

Will break into small groups at 12:05.

For Tuesday, Karch & Rose, introduction, ch. 1-3.

Issue-Attention Cycle at work:  live ammo on movie sets.

• California
• New York

From last time:

Census data rest on self-reporting.  There is no method for verification.

The spike in Native Americans 

Survey: 34% of white Americans who applied to colleges or universities admit to lying about being a racial minority on their application

Constitutional reform (Schuck, ch. 12)

ALL POLICY INVOLVES TRADEOFFS

For discussion:

JAMA Study

Financial Incentives and Other Nudges Do Not Increase COVID-19 Vaccinations among the Vaccine Hesitant

Can financial incentives, public health messages and other behavioral nudges –approaches deployed by state and local governments, employers, and health systems – increase SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rates among the vaccine hesitant in the US? In mid-2021, we randomly assigned unvaccinated members of a Medicaid managed care health plan to $10 or $50 financial incentives, different public health messages, a simple appointment scheduler, or control to assess impacts on SARS-CoV-2 vaccination intentions and vaccine uptake within 30 days of intervention. While messages increased vaccination intentions, none of the treatments increased overall vaccination rates. Consistent with backlash concerns, financial incentives and negative messages decreased vaccination rates for some subgroups. Financial incentives and other behavioral nudges do not meaningfully increase SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rates amongst the vaccine hesitant.

Full text available for download here:https://www.nber.org/papers/w29403 

.................................

Thirumurthy, Harsha and Milkman, Katherine L. and Volpp, Kevin and Buttenheim, Alison and Pope, Devin G., Association Between Statewide Financial Incentive Programs and COVID-19 Vaccination Rates (August 27, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3912786 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3912786

 

To encourage COVID-19 vaccination, many states in the US have introduced financial incentives ranging from small, guaranteed rewards to lotteries that give vaccinated individuals a chance to win $1 million or more. We compiled information on statewide incentive programs along with data on daily vaccine doses administered per 100,000 individuals in each state. Leveraging variation across states in the daily presence of incentives, we used difference-in-differences regressions to examine the association between these incentive program indicators and vaccination rates. Difference-in-differences analysis showed that 24 statewide incentive programs were associated with a non-significant relative decline in daily vaccination rates of 8.9 per 100,000 individuals (95% CI [-64.3,46.5]; p=0.75). Furthermore, there was no significant difference in vaccination trends between states with and without incentives in any of the 14 days before or after incentives were introduced. Lotteries and other incentives offered by 24 states were not associated with a significant change in COVID-19 vaccination rates. More substantial incentives or mandates may be necessary to raise vaccination rates.

Evaluation I

For Thursday, Schuck, ch. 13.

James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy (New York: Basic Books, 1989), ch. 9, cited in Schuck, 323-324

Outputs: what employees do on a day-to-day basis.

Outcomes: how the world changes because of the outputs

	Outputs are visible to managers	are hard for managers to see
Outcomes are easy to measure	production organization (tax system) simple repetitive stable tasks; specialized skills.  Easy to stress measurable outputs & outcomes over hard-to-measure (satisfaction)	craft organization (Forest Service, wartime military) application of general sets of skills to unique tasks, but with stable, similar outcomes. Relies heavily on ethos and sense of duty of workers.
are hard to measure	procedural organizations (OSHA, peacetime military -- see Powell passage below) specialized skills; stable tasks, but unique outcomes. SOPs are especially important	coping organization (colleges, police departments) application of generic skills to unique tasks, but outcomes cannot be evaluated in absence of alternatives.  "

Colin Powell on working the numbers:

If, for example, you are going to judge me on AWOL rates, I’m going to send a sergeant out by 6:30 a.m. to bloodhound the kid who failed to show up for 6:00 a.m. reveille.  The guy’s not considered AWOL until midnight.  So drag him back before then and keep that AWOL rate down.  I vigorously set out to better every indicator by which my brigade was statistically judged.  And then went on to do the things that I thought counted.

Issue One: Capacity

• Congressional agencies
• Inspectors General

Issue Two:  What do we measure?

•  "Passing" and outcome measures

Issue Three: Causality

• An alternative explanation for the drop in crime. (And an updated analysis)

Issue Four:  Reactivity

• Teaching to the test
• Compstat
•  Juking the crime stats in real life?

The spike in Native Americans 

In episode 42, members of the Soprano crime family meet Chief Doug Smith, a sleazy casino operator.

SIL: No offense, chief, but, uh... you don't look much like an Indian.
SMITH: Frankly I passed most of my life as white, until I had a racial awakening and discovered my Mohonk blood. My grandmother on my father's side, her mother was a quarter Mohonk.
TONY: And all this happened when the casino bill got passed, right?
SMITH: Better late than never.

Survey: 34% of white Americans who applied to colleges or universities admit to lying about being a racial minority on their application

Six- Page Paper

 Choose one:

• In chapter 11, Schuck lists a number of policy successes.  Having read Stone, you know that one person's success story is another person's horror story.  Explain an alternative frame for one of Schuck's policy successes, showing how a critic would take a dimmer view.  Which side would you agree with?
• Pick an example of policy feedback since the 2016 election.  Explain how an existing policy has created the political conditions for its own survival, growth, decay, or evolution.  Examples could include the Affordable Care Act, renewable energy, Head Start, SNAP, SSI, and farm subsidies -- among many others.
• Pick any chapter of Responsive States and write an update.  That is, how have the patterns that Karch and Rose describe persisted or changed in recent years? Do shifts in the partisan composition of state governments require revision of the analysis?
• Write an essay on any relevant policy topic, subject to my approval.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Instructions

• Document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head.
• Essays should be double-spaced and no more than six pages long. I will not read past the sixth page.
• Cite your sources with endnotes in Chicago/Turabian style. Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
• Turn in essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Friday, November 12. I reserve the right to dock late essays one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

Bureaucracy

 Most of it is not in Washington:

But there is a catch  (Schuck, 324-325):

Duplication and Overlap:  The Case of Disability Employment:

Political appointees v. Careerists

Iron Triangles, Issue Networks ... and "The Deep State"

Layering (Schuck, 317).  Why? Control  -- the case of MMWR

James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy (New York: Basic Books, 1989), ch. 9, cited in Schuck, 323-324

Outputs: what employees do on a day-to-day basis.

Outcomes: how the world changes because of the outputs

	Outputs are visible to managers	are hard for managers to see
Outcomes are easy to measure	production organization (tax system) simple repetitive stable tasks; specialized skills.  Easy to stress measurable outputs & outcomes over hard-to-measure (satisfaction)	craft organization (Forest Service, wartime military) application of general sets of skills to unique tasks, but with stable, similar outcomes. Relies heavily on ethos and sense of duty of workers.
are hard to measure	procedural organizations (OSHA, peacetime military) specialized skills; stable tasks, but unique outcomes. SOPs are especially important	coping organization (colleges, police departments) application of generic skills to unique tasks, but outcomes cannot be evaluated in absence of alternatives.  "

Kludges

For ordinary citizens, bureaucracy is a wilderness of acronyms

Another flowchart

Law

For Thursday, October 21: Schuck, ch. 10

Finding the law:

• Statutes: US Code or state law
• Other legislative documents
• Regulations
• Federal Register
• Code of Federal Regulations
• State law codes
• Other executive documents
• Presidential executive orders, 
• Signing statements
• Gubernatorial executive orders
• "Bill jackets" (New York)
• Court decisions
• US Supreme Court
• Lower federal courts
• State courts

Reasons for administrative regs:

• Statutory ambiguity as a legislative lubricant.
• Recognition of conditions that will change (e.g., the composition of pollutants)

The children of Bill:

The Reg Map 

(Stone:  "Who gains the right to participate in decisions?")

Complexity, Simplicity, and Accountability in Statutes and Regs

Attorney Sam Mazzeo explains the problem with "Plain English" law.

Another reason for complexity:  assuring vertical and horizontal equity.

Centralization, Decentralization, and Discretion

• Local knowledge v. broader view
• Experimentation v. standardization
• Local autonomy v. "grassroots tyranny"

Interia and Finality

Lincoln:

We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I ought perhaps to address you a few words. We do not propose that when Dred Scott has been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, will decide him to be free. We do not propose that, when any other one, or one thousand, shall be decided by that court to be slaves, we will in any violent way disturb the rights of property thus settled, but we nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule, which shall be binding on the voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall be binding on the members of Congress or the President to favor no measure that does not actually concur with the principles of that decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a political rule in that way, because we think it lays the foundation not merely of enlarging and spreading out what we consider an evil, but it lays the foundation for spreading that evil into the States themselves. We propose so resisting it as to have it reversed if we can, and a new judicial rule established upon this subject.

Implementation

For Thursday, Schuck ch. 9.

For next week (after break), Schuck ch. 10.  For next week's reflection, please send me your suggestions for the remainder of the course, both on content and course format.

Finishing policy selection: 

Rights:

• Private right of action and litigation costs.
• Equality costs:  affluent, educated parties and repeat players (Stone 345) have an advantage.

Expanding the number of people with a perceived stake in the program will increase political support.  Examples?  

But program expansion comes with an implementation cost.

Implementation and TMMP

From the government point of view:  the complexity of joint action (pp. 107-108 of Pressman) and multiple decision points.

Exercise:  assume that there are 10 decision points (way low) and a 90% chance of success on each (way high).  What is the chance of final success?

Government from the point of view of the average person:  the classic set of charts on "Understanding Systems That Affect Families"

In 2013, The Washington Post offered an excellent graphic illustrating implementation problems with the Obamacare website, Heathcare.gov:

A related federalism issue:  implementation usually depends on local officials or regional offices, which may have limited resources or different perspectives (Schuck 236)

Local elected officials have a great deal of autonomy.  LA County Sheriff on masks and vaccines.

Locals may adapt in perverse ways.  See this clip from The Wire, which alludes to one we saw on 8/31 -- juking the stats.

Problems of Regulating Behavior

Mr. Hamilton, meet the Sopranos

Federalist 21:

When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four .'' If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. 

Problems of subsidies (including preferential treatment as well as monetary payment)

Perpetuity:  rent control in NYC.

Recipients would have engaged in the desired behavior anyway (Schuck 258).  Example:  carpool lanes.  Jones 2021:

Many cars utilizing carpool lanes are filled with passengers that would have been carpooling regardless of incentives to do so; think of parents taking their children to school, or families going to the store together. Only 10% of carpools in major cities are “induced” by HOV lanes.

Research 2021

 Watch this clip from The Wire.  It is the best description of research, ever.

The Internet Archive -- if there is a broken link to what you need, this site might help you find it.  (A newsworthy example, the International Chiropractors Association scrubbed this anti-vaccine diatribe from its website: http://www.chiropractic.org/?smd_process_download=1&download_id=3683

Great stuff at Honnold Library -- which students usually overlook! (password required)

• Nexis Uni:  news sources and law journals
• Political science journals
• Dissertation abstracts (search for "California" and "redistricting" in abstracts, and you will see a couple of Rose Institute names)

General Statistics 

• The Census 
• Census voting data
• Historical apportionment map

Public Policy and Finance

• Federal Budget
• Congressional Budget Office
• Congressional Research Service
• Government Accountability Office
• Policy Commons (login required but free)

California and General State Politics

• Public Policy Institute of California -- California surveys and policy analysis
• California bills and laws 
• LAO -- Legislative Analyst's Office -- analysis of CA issues
• NCSL -- National Conference of State Legislatures -- analysis and data on state issues
• Partisan compositon of legislatures
• Open States -- bill information for all state legislatures

Elections, Parties, Campaign Finance

• Precinct-level national map of the 2020 election and 206
• Open Secrets -- Center for Responsive Politics site for federal campaign finance information
• FEC -- Federal Election Commission
• FCC Public Inspection Files (ad buys on broadcast stations)
• US Presidential Election Atlas -- just what the title says, great historical data
• Precinct Map of the 2016 Election -- every precinct in the country
• US Elections Project -- turnout data
• California Elections Data Archive -- local elections in CA
• Join California  -- elections in CA
• California ballot measures -- archive going back to 1911

Public Opinion

• Polling Report -- an aggregation of national poll data
• Gallup -- the best-known US pollster, delivering new numbers daily 
• Pew Research Center
• 2016 exit poll
• 2018 exit poll
• 2020 exit poll

Policy Research, Policy Instruments

One time only -- Tuesday's class will be virtual:

https://cmc-its.zoom.us/j/92228697468

Meeting ID: 922 2869 7468

For Tuesday, read Stone ch. 16, Schuck, ch. 8.

In-person class resumes on Thursday, October 14, when we shall discuss Schuck, ch. 9.

=========================================
One-stop platform for policy reports, briefs, academic studies, and other policy resources: https://policycommons.net/ (You need to set up an account, but it is free.)
 
Researching federal policy:

• Get background from CQ Library .
• CRS reports here and here

Other possible sources include:

• Statements of Administration Policy -- indications of whether POTUS will sign or veto.
• Congress.gov (http://www.congress.gov/) -- official site for bill summary and status
• GovTrack (http://www.govtrack.us/) – unofficial site for congressional information
• ProQuest Congressional (http://congressional.proquest.com/profiles/gis/search/basic/basicsearch ). -- many congressional documents including searchable Congressional Record. If your computer will not accept this URL, go through the library web page (http://library.claremont.edu). Click “databases,” then the letter “P,” then “ProQuest Congressional.”)
• Committee web pages, which usually contain testimony and text of reports. See http://www.house.gov/committees/ or https://www.senate.gov/committees/index.htm
• ProPublica tools and websites at https://projects.propublica.org/represent/

California and General State Politics

• Public Policy Institute of California -- California surveys and policy analysis
• California bills and laws
• LAO -- Legislative Analyst's Office -- analysis of CA issues
• NCSL -- National Conference of State Legislatures -- analysis and data on state issues
• Partisan compositon of legislatures
• Open States -- bill information for all state legislatures

Review from September 9:

Which instrument?  "A policy may be cost-ineffective because it uses the wrong tool" (Schuck, 54).

• Direct bureaucratic administration (public schools)
• Government corporations and GSEs (Postal Service)
• Regulation (admin. rules)
• Insurance (FDIC; FSLIC and RTC)
• Information (websites)
• Taxes and Tax expenditures (mortgage interest)
• Grants and contracts (see the true size of government)
• Loans and loan guarantees (SBA)
• Vouchers
• Private cause of action

Rules in general (Stone 299):  

• Simplicity v. precision
• Flexibility v. stability
• Neutrality v. justice

Not a new problem.  With eerie prescience, James Madison foresaw current problems when he wrote Federalist 62:

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed? 

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY.

Problems with Judicial policymaking.  

Knowledge: "At the bottom of the information chain are judges, who typically know little or nothing about the policy considerations, technical concepts, and political values that underlie the legal texts that they review" (Schuck, p. 171)

• Example: Courts and the teen brain.
• Remedy: specialized courts and special masters

Adjudication is focused, piecemeal, and reactive and involves rights.

Instruments of policy affect one another. Special education is a good illustration:

• 1972: The U.S. District Court, District of Columbia rules in Mills v. Board of Education that DC could not exclude disabled children from the public schools. The U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in PARC v. Pennsylvania struck down various state laws excluding disabled children from the public schools.
• 1973: The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 bans discrimination in federal programs and services and all other programs or services receiving federal funds. Section 504 says: “No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States, shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
• 1975: With the Mills and PARC cases as a template, The Education of All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142) requires free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive setting. This Act later gets a new name: The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The law s authorizes the federal promise to provide 40 percent of the excess costs of serving students with disabilities, but during the next 36 years, Congress never appropriates more than 20 percent.
• 1977: After a year an a half, Bureau for the Education of the Handicapped issues regulations implementing the law. Meanwhile, Congress holds oversight hearings and passes additional legislation.
• 1977-82: States and local educational agencies issue their own regulations on special education.
• 1982: In the Rowley case (458 U.S. 176 (1982)), the US Supreme Court rules that "free appropriate public education" means only "some educational benefit."
• 2017: In the Endrew F. Case (580 US _ (2017)), SCOTUS rules that school districts must offer children an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that is reasonably calculated to enable each child to make progress appropriate for that child’s circumstances.

Second Assignment, Fall 2021

Choose one:

• Pick any significant domestic legislation that President Biden has signed or is pending before Congress. Applying what you have learned from reading Schuck so far, explain what could go wrong with its implementation.
• Schuck published this book seven years ago. Pick any chapter and write a brief afterword. That is, how have developments since 2014 confirmed or disconfirmed his analysis?  (As an alternative, you may do the same with any chapter of the Stone book.)
• Write on any relevant implementation topic of your choice, subject to my approval.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Instructions

• Document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head.
• Essays should be double-spaced and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page.
• Cite your sources with endnotes in Chicago/Turabian style. Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
• Turn in essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, MONDAY, OCTOBER 25 [NOTE DATE CHANGE]. I reserve the right to dock late essays one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

Interest and Decision

 For Thursday, read Stone, ch. 13 and 15.

I welcome ideas and suggestions for the next essay assignment.

Thursday's class will take place as usual.

On Tuesday, October 12, we will do class live (with recording) via Zoom.  We will resume in-person class on Thursday, October 14.

...................................................................

E.E. Schattschneider:  "What happens in politics depends on the way in which people are divided into factions, parties, groups, classes, etc. The outcome of the game of politics depends on which of a multitude of conflicts gains the dominant position."

Revisiting a table from 9/16: A variation of the table on p. 239 of Stone

"Policy issues don't determine the kind of political contests that occur; instead, politics shapes the way policy issues are portrayed and perceived in the first place" (p. 241).

Policy design: broad-based benefits v. narrow benefits

• FDR and Social Security
• Disability policy

"Deserving" or sympathetic recipients

It is about perception, not just objective reality.

• Loss aversion
• Public attention

Politics also shapes the choice of venue:  

                        Federal        State                Local

Legislative            Congress            Legislatures                County/City

                                                        Initiatives                    School boards

Executive            POTUS                Governor                    Mayors/execs

                            Fed agencies        St agencies                  Local agencies/officials

Judicial                SCOTUS                State Courts                 Local courts

Choice of venue depends on:

• Legal jurisdiction
• Political advantage (influence in that box; ability to fly under the radar)