Welcome to the first edition of What We’re Reading, a weekly roundup of pieces our team and working group members are following on the future of self-governance.
Here’s what caught our eye this week:
Why Congress may need more politics, not less. In Law & Liberty, Legislature & Legitimacy co-chair James Wallner argues that reformers have Congress’s dysfunction backward. Many treat it as a technical problem. But the real issue, he contends, is that lawmakers increasingly treat political disagreements as having objectively correct answers, leaving little reason to compromise. His proposed test for reform: not whether it makes Congress more efficient, but whether it helps lawmakers debate, amend, and work through their disagreements.
Using AI to widen public comment in Virginia. Administrative Process co-chair Kate Gage flagged a new tool that uses AI to help more residents weigh in on a proposed Virginia utility merger. It’s a concrete example of a question her working group keeps returning to: can technology make public participation more meaningful, rather than just louder?
America.gov launches. The federal government launched America.gov, billed as an AI front door to federal services. Service Delivery co-chair Marina Nitze, who helped consolidate VA's sprawl of websites into VA.gov, offered a pointed take: a better front door, AI-powered or not, won’t fix the underlying problems. The real work, she argues, is the unglamorous backend: documenting every program’s eligibility rules in one format, building a single authoritative source for each fact government needs, and testing whether systems actually apply the rules. Watch for a forthcoming Tech Viaduct paper from Marina and fellow Service Delivery co-chair Amira Boland that expands on the argument.
California moves to rein in AI-generated public comment. On the other side of the AI-and-participation question: California lawmakers are moving to crack down on AI used to flood public comment processes, after an AI-powered campaign may have helped sink a key air quality vote earlier this year.
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