MPA TG 1st year core, weekend 2

Seminar Group's Definitions of Public Administrator

Seminar Group's definitions of the people.

Getting your feet wet!

"Public Administration is doing collectively that which cannot be so well done individually."

Be of service: “Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.” Sacrifice according to the ethic of your craft.

Shafritz, Russell, Borick (2012). Introducing Public Administration. 8th Edition. Chapter 1.

Government & Governing:

Government= structure/form.

Governing= doing/function.

Through the systems of government and day-to-day work of governing, public administrators inform & make decisions.

But what is valued?
What are government decisions based on? What should governing decisions be based on?

What should governments base decisions on?

Which of these debates did you hear some of our guest speakers talk about?

Major Debates in Public Administration.

Divide between the classical approach and the challenge approach.

Henry walks you through most of these in his discussion of the 5 paradigms of PA.

Classics are the "old model" of PA as Denhardt noted.

I disagree with both Henry and Denhardt. The classical approach is not "over". These practices in government are not in the past.

Classics: Efficiency, Facts, Objectivity, Administration (Experts), formal authority, sameness (rational model), Scientific/Quantitative Evidence ….. vs….

Challenge: Effectiveness, Values, Subjectivity and Politics, informal authority (the faces of power), otherness (difference), Qualitative Experiences

Defining the Classics: Public organizations should operate with power located at the top to maximize efficiency. Public administration should be about value free, neutral professionals who are experts that maintain bureaucracy. Army of experts. Made a clear distinction between politics (legislation that follows the public will and values) and administration (the execution of law by value free experts).

Defining the Challenge: The aim of the challenge is to show what is wrong with the world and as it is and to help improve it. They question whether an effect is morally or politically desirable. Recognize that social constructions exist= we cannot know “facts” separate from interests. Emphasize the imbrication of theory and practice. The goal of the challenge is to bring about social and political change.

Both the classical approach to PA & the challenge approach are simply management approaches to getting things done in public service….. make decisions based on what?

Which areas will you have to make your own choices about in the workplace the most? Which do you favor in decision making? What will you base your choices on? What will you let in or keep out?

What events brought about the challenge? Government of the classics had three major external forces acting on it: 1) WWI, 2) the depression/New Deal, and 3) WWII.

The New Deal got us out of the depression and placed public administration in the daily lives of citizens through hands on improvement projects to re-build this country. The aftermath of the war forced public administrators to be human. They could not ignore the gravity of the human atrocities in WWII and realized that it was humans with subjective values that would have to prevent a WWIII. The objective, rational, controlled bureaucracy would have to change. Normally, change in government is very slow. But in these situations, government had immediate and major needs of its citizenry to respond to . So tons of agencies and commissions started cropping up to respond to the real human issues at hand: jobs, hunger, polio, race relations. Government had to help government to help the people. Government still wanted to be efficient, but mainly they wanted to be effective.

What happened? Well the efforts and events of the 1940's through 1970's made bureaucracy and bureaucrats definitely change forever, but they also became completely overwhelmed and inefficient and ineffective. Bureaucracy grew so big, it became the 4 th branch of government. There were so many rule making and regulatory agencies and commissions that the right hand did not know what the left was doing. Because government could no longer handle the work they had created for themselves, they looked outside of government for help. This is where privatization and non-profits came in to assist government in doing what was necessary to meet the needs of an ever growing citizenry.

Most decisions are based on either a universal truth or subjective contextual truths.

Big "T" truths are absolute universals that can be applied to all things.

Little "t" truths are those realities that can “depend” on the context and therefore the “truth” is not fixed or finite. It is subjective and as infinite as the people who may have the experienced the truth in question.

Big “T”ruth (singular): struggle between religion and science; both are beliefs about how the world really works and about the types of creatures we are… one set of "answers" must be accepted as the “T”ruth…the final word… the absolute reality…. objectively.

Little “t”ruths (plural): accept errors exist. One generation’s truths so often become the next generation’s falsehoods. Subjectivity. We have the ability to imagine new realities.

Who will inform your decisions?

Who offers you information that you accept as knowledge?

How many of you believe that life exists beyond our planet (belief in aliens)? But if I told you I just saw an alien in the hallway, would you believe me? Would you accept that sighting as evidence to inform your knowledge about extraterrestrials?

We study PA because it can help us sift through differing world views. Our own and those of others. World views can influence our motivations for decision making.

The ways we think effect the ways in which we act and react. Like a picture, thoughts are “framed” or informed by our world view and then we see the picture by reasoning our way through it to find meaning.

We frame our initial responses to issues based upon the world view we’ve formed over time (our epistemology). After that first reaction, we then reason through issues based upon where we deem "T"ruth or “t”ruths come from. Our frames of reference and our lines of reasoning inform each other in a continuous feedback loop.

“Knowing” comes from accepting or rejecting information filtered by your world view. Knowledge is the basis for ideas generating governing systems, policies, programs, services, and evaluations.

Think about all of the authors you've read so far. Their world views shaped the "knowledge" they conveyed.

Story of Christmas morning. Relied on personal experience so much that bike assembly instructions were ignored.

“Theory does not simply reflect life; it also projects life.”- Denhardt

(Jorgensen writes about bureaucracy in ch. 6)

Bureaucracy: Max Weber (1864-1920) was a sociologist who observed the division of labor in a pin factory and he developed his "ideal type" theory of work. In the post-industrial revolution world, he admired the manufacturing industry's top down hierarchy, formal authority, rational, efficiency, expertise/specialization, and accountability.
Result: he argued to impose the “one best way” procedure on the whole workforce, universally, in any organization or place. If there was one best way to accomplish a production task on an assembly line then there was one best way to accomplish the task of setting up organizations= bureaucracy.

Rational decision making ("Rational-Choice"): relies on concepts from economics and psychology. An individual makes a rational decision by assessing all of the alternatives known to them and selecting the one decision that will maximize his or her utility (value) and maximize the attainment of objectives. This assumes that perfect information is available to the decision maker, that all the alternatives available have one and only one clear meaning, and that all alternatives have a common denominator to be weighed against each other. Assumes an objective, market, model of society and a closed environment for decisions to keep chaos and politics out.---see classic PA theorists such as Herbert Simon, Frederick Taylor, Luther Gulick, Max Weber, Charles Goodnow.

Incremental decision making ("Incrementalism"): groups of decision makers formulate small goals and consider only a limited number of options. A decision is rarely, if ever, made from scratch. Start from current situation and small changes are more likely than dramatic or revolutionary changes. Favors status quo over radical change because small changes are always possible at the margin. Favors the power of communication through argumentation due to the intersubjective meanings and understandings of options available to decision makers. This practice entails "muddling through" issues in context. Consensus may only be reached through the better argument and clear understanding of meanings and consequences. ---see theorists such as Charles Lindbloom and Jurgen Habermas.

Direct democracy, sometimes called "pure democracy," is a form of democracy in which the people themselves, rather than elected representatives, determine the laws and policies by which they are governed.

Direct democracy is the opposite of the more common "representative democracy," under which the people elect representatives empowered to create laws and policies.

While the United States practices representative democracy, as embodied in the U.S. Congress and the state legislatures, three forms of limited direct democracy are practiced at the state and local level: ballot initiatives and referendums, and recall of elected officials.

Source: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/Direct-Democracy.htm

We frame our initial responses to issues based upon the world view we’ve formed over time (our epistemology). After that first reaction, we then reason through issues based upon where we deem "T"ruth or “t”ruths come from. Our frames of reference and our lines of reasoning inform each other in a continuous feedback loop.

“Knowing” comes from accepting or rejecting information filtered by your world view. Knowledge is the basis for ideas generating governing systems, policies, programs, services, and evaluations.

Think about all of the authors you've read so far. Their world views shaped the "knowledge" they conveyed.

There are many paths to carry out the functions of Public Administration. Two of the major ones are laws and money.

Federal law always preempts state law if there are laws in conflict.

State law can go above and beyond Fed law in guaranteeing rights, but states can't do less than Fed law requires. (WA Declaration of Civil Rights RCW 49.60.030 added breast feeding in public 2009.)

State law can cover what is not enumerated in Fed law.

Perhaps the most complicated interaction in Federal Indian Law is that between the tribes and the states. The Supreme Court in Worcester v. Georgia, (1832) attempted to establish a bright line rule disallowing any state authority in Indian Country. This rule has been eroded over time, however, and while Worcester still provides a benchmark, other analytical methods are employed to determine whether a state's purported exercise of jurisdiction is valid. One such method was introduced by the Court in Williams v. Lee, (1959). Williams involved a state court's attempt to exercise jurisdiction over a breach of contract claim brought by a non-Indian store owner against a Navajo couple for an alleged failure to pay on an on-reservation store account. The Court held that the state had no authority to exercise jurisdiction over an on-reservation transaction if to do so would "infringe on the right of reservation Indians to make their own laws reservation Indians to make their own laws and be governed by them." Subsequently, the Court identified an additional ground for denying state jurisdiction: federal preemption, against a backdrop of tribal sovereignty.

http://thorpe.ou.edu/guide/robertson.html

Washington has a bicameral system (two chambers)

Senate (49 members)
House of Representatives (98 members)

Legislature is part-time

Term limits in WA:
Representatives 2 years
Senators 4 years

Like every state, WA gets 2 Senators in Congress.

Based on our population, WA has 10 legislative districts, so we have 10 representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/WA

U.S. House of Representatives: 435 members, based upon the population of each state, must be at least 25 years old, U.S. citizen for at least 7 years, 2 year term in office, can impeach officials. Federalist papers 55 & 56 state 1 representative for every 35,000 people. Now due to population growth it is 1 for every 700,000.

U.S. Senate: 100 members, 2 members for each state, must be at least 30 years old, U.S. citizen for at least 9 years, six year term in office.

Many voters complain that the initiative process has been taken over by "special interests". But could Tribes be a special interest lobby?

In 1912, Washington became one of the first states to adopt the initiative and referendum
process, thus securing the rights of citizens to make and remake their laws, and to provide a check over the decisions of their Legislature.

Today, if Washingtonians are dissatisfied with certain laws or feel that new laws are needed, they can petition to place proposed legislation on the ballot. It is because the electorate can initiate legislation that the process is termed the INITIATIVE.
With the ability to initiate
laws, the electorate can either place a proposition directly on the ballot or it can submit the proposed law to the Legislature at the regular legislative session, thereby allowing the elected
representatives an opportunity to enact the proposed legislation themselves instead of placing
the matter on the ballot.

The REFERENDUM allows citizens, through the petition process, to refer acts of the
Legislature to the ballot before they become law.
The referendum also permits the Legislature
itself to refer proposed legislation to the electorate for approval or rejection.

https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/Initiative%20and%20Referenda%20Man...

How a Bill Becomes a Law:
A bill may be introduced in either the Senate or House of Representatives by a member. This is a Referendum.

It is referred to a committee for a hearing. The committee studies the bill and may hold public hearings on it. It can then pass, reject, or take no action on the bill.

The committee report on the passed bill is read in open session of the House or Senate, and the bill is then referred to the Rules Committee.

The Rules Committee can either place the bill on the second reading calendar for debate before the entire body, or take no action.
At the second reading, a bill is subject to debate and amendment before being placed on the third reading calendar for final passage.

After passing one house, the bill goes through the same procedure in the other house.
If amendments are made in the other house, the first house must approve the changes.

When the bill is accepted in both houses, it is signed by the respective leaders and sent to the governor.

The governor signs the bill into law or may veto all or part of it. If the governor fails to act on the bill, it may become law without a signature.

http://leg.wa.gov/legislature/Pages/Bill2Law.aspx

What is a RCW? (legislative branch) These are statutes (laws) passed by the legislature or a vote of the people.

A standing body of statute law on a particular area, which is added to, subtracted from, or otherwise modified by individual legislative enactments. The Revised Code of Washington (RCW) is the compilation of all permanent laws now in force. It is a collection of Session Laws (enacted by the Legislature, and signed by the Governor, or enacted via the initiative process), arranged by topic, with amendments added and repealed laws removed. It does not include temporary laws such as appropriations acts (budgets). There are currently 91 RCW titles.

What is a WAC? (executive branch) Administrative Regulations (rules) written and adopted by executive branch agencies. Regulations are a source of primary law in Washington State. The WAC codifies the regulations and arranges them by subject or agency. There are currently 516 WAC titles. (as compared to only 91 RCWs) RCWs can affect the entire population, or just a group. WACs essentially govern a state agency.

For example, when the legislature passes a bill it becomes law and is written into an RCW. Within the original bill that became a law now written as an RCW, the legislature can write into the law to either create an agency to enforce the law, or they can direct an existing state agency to enforce that law. Also, within the original bill, the legislature can instruct the agency to create rules for how the agency is going to manage the law. Once the bill becomes law and is an RCW, the agency writes a WAC and follows the rule making process to create its rules, within the authority granted by the legislature. (typically 90 days from law to WAC, but could be less if mandated)

Practitioners transform "data" into information and policies.

Arguably, practitioners' values about what counts as "data" can influence what pieces of data are even considered. Not to mention the impacts of values on analyzing data to produce information.

We are the sieve.

Census:
Distributes more than $400 billion in federal funds to local, state and Tribal governments each year based on census data. U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Native Americans are usually the least participatory in the census. (understandably) But a lot of dollars are tied to census counts. It is vital to be counted as Native American so we can be “seen” in politics, services, and public monies.

Census is mandated by U.S. Constitution Article I, section 2 for representation. First census in 1790. Representatives per state is based on population. Shift of 12 reps in 2010: WA gained 1, TX gained 4, OH & NY both lost 2.

At time of first census it was 1 representative for every 35, 000 people. Now it is 1 representative for every 710,000 people due to population growth and total # of representatives in the U.S. House is capped at 435. So, we have 435 Congressional districts across the U.S. One representative for each district. Each district has 710,000 people in it. (Ex. Population of U.S. is 309 million. Divide that by the number of seats in the House of Reps= 435. The result is 710,000. That's how they draw voting districts.)

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/WA

Changes in 2020 to save money and increase self-response: http://www.census.gov/library/infographics/invest-now.html . Savings of $5 billion. Response options via e-mail, text, social media, and online. They are also going to pilot test language support. Access existing government data to reduce need for door knocking. If your info is already in another government database (HUD, VA, HHS, SSA, IRS) then the census doesn’t need to bug you.

What?: Official name: “Population and Housing Census”. That is its purpose: count people within a housing domicile.

Procedure: count all persons residing in country (309 million in 2010; 330 million by 2020).

Document: set of ten questions mailed to each household (140 million households); door-to-door follow up if not mailed back.

Why?: (Census Bureau: “good policy demands accurate data.”),

What Data U.S. Census Bureau Collects & When: Population & Housing Census - every 10 years, Economic Census - every 5 years, Census of Governments - every 5 years, American Community Survey – annually.

How Data are Used: used to define legislature districts, school district assignment areas and other important functional areas of government. To make decisions about what community services to provide. Changes in your community are crucial to many planning decisions, such as where to: provide services for the elderly; where to build new roads and schools; or where to locate job training centers.

Who?: All persons in the country on April 1, 2010. Citizen or not, Incarcerated, Institutionalized (psychiatric facility, nursing home, hospitals, treatment centers), Military base.

Not counted: Homeless persons in shelter or not, persons in domestic violence shelters, & persons traveling/living outside U.S..

Response required by law. Refusal or false information= $500 fine. (Up until 1976 you could be imprisoned for 60 days.) Census is “counting”; not research. Participation is mandated by law (per Title 13 US Code). This same law also requires the Census Bureau to keep your answers confidential and only allows them to be used only to produce statistical summary data. In other words, the Census Bureau does not publish data that would identify individuals until 72 years after the date of the census.

Census 2010 Ten questions:

1. How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?

2. Were there any additional people staying here April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1?

3. Is this house, apartment, or mobile home: owned with mortgage, owned without mortgage, rented, occupied without rent?

4. What is your telephone number?

5. Please provide information for each person living here. Start with a person here who owns or rents this house, apartment, or mobile home. If the owner or renter lives somewhere else, start with any adult living here. This will be Person 1. What is Person 1's name?

6. What is Person 1's sex?

7. What is Person 1's age and Date of Birth?

8. Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?

9. What is Person 1's race?

10. Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else?

According to the 2010 Census, 5.2 million people in the United States identified as American Indian and Alaska Native, either alone or in combination with one or more other races.

The American Indian and Alaska Native in combination with other races population experienced rapid growth, increasing by 39% since 2000.

With 44% of Natives mixed with another race, American Indians claim the second-highest proportion of mixed-blood people in America (Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are the first).

Why? First time ever nationwide marketing campaign, summits with tribal leaders, and community based efforts to get responses through PSAs and tribal member efforts. Be counted!

PSA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3sPEYHOJI&list=PLQClmmlh9YeOfzxK3FFfDeqqs...

Testimonials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhwNv2nrtis&index=6&list=PLQClmmlh9YeOfzxK3...

Efforts to get accurate counts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzd_cp6r5nY

2010 Census Questionnaire Reference Book

U.S. Department of Commerce BUREAU OF THE CENSUS

http://www.census.gov/2010census/partners/pdf/langfiles/qrb_English.pdf

What questions should be asked on the census?

Should we challenge the census given so much $ is tied to it?

Is the role of government Social Engineering?

Social constructions about race and ethnicity are perpetuated by the definitions of terms used in public policies and are thereby reinforced among the general public. We only see what we know. In this way, public administrators are effectively engaging in social engineering: constructing society.

Thank you!