The Day After DOGE

New Visions to Remake the Administrative State

Co-hosts
Richman Center, Columbia University
Common Good

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

So far the Trump administration’s DOGE initiative has focused on cutting programs and terminating civil servants, not reforms to improve public performance. But there's broad public and expert opinion that government operating systems are overdue for overhaul:

  • Many areas of government are bogged down in red tape that impedes public performance and discourages private initiative.

  • Civil service has become a sinecure instead of a merit system.

  • There's no clarity over the role of courts in reviewing executive actions.

This forum focused on the operational failures of the current state, and included proposals to empower common sense solutions, make government more manageable, and clarify the role of oversight by courts.

You can watch the forum here:

Introduction and Panel One: Change Operating Philosophy: From Red Tape to Human Responsibility

Panel Two: Make Government Manageable Again

Panel Three: The Role of Courts

Participants

Mitch Daniels (via Zoom)
Former Director, U.S. Office of Management and Budget; former Governor of Indiana; President Emeritus, Purdue University

Marc J. Dunkelman
Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University; author, Why Nothing Works (February 2025)

Francis Fukuyama (via Zoom)
Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Philip Hamburger
Maurice & Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Philip K. Howard
Chair, Common Good; author, Everyday Freedom (January 2024)

Jeremy Kessler
Stanley H. Fuld Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Zachary Liscow
Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Thomas W. Merrill
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Gillian Metzger
Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law, Columbia Law School

Linda Miller
Chair and Co-Founder, Program Integrity Alliance

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili
Founding Director, Center for Governance and Markets, University of Pittsburgh

Santi Ruiz
Senior Editor, Institute for Progress

Charles F. Sabel
Maurice T. Moore Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

David M. Schizer
Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law and Economics and Dean Emeritus, Columbia Law School

Ilya Shapiro
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute; author, Lawless (January 2025)

Mene Ukueberuwa
Editorial Board Member, The Wall Street Journal

Michele Zanini
Co-founder, The Management Lab; author, Humanocracy (August 2020)