Bridging the Implementation Gap: Key Insights for Congressional Staff
On March 24, POPVOX Foundation and the Niskanen Center hosted "The Implementation Gap: Turning Legislative Intent into Executive-Led Outcomes," a panel featuring Jennifer Pahlka, senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, and Andrew Greenway, founder of Public Digital, who recently coauthored the report, “The HOW We Need Now: A Capacity Agenda for 2025." Moderated by POPVOX Foundation Cofounder and Executive Director Marci Harris, this discussion offered insights and solutions for Congressional staff taking on the challenge of translating legislative intent into effective policy implementation. This discussion was particularly timely due to the ongoing institutional response to last year’s overturning of the Chevron Doctrine and the recent reorganization efforts seen by the Executive branch across agencies.
This event took place in person in the US Capitol Visitor Center and was streamed virtually for district-based Congressional staff to attend. A recording of the livestream is available here.
The Implementation Challenge
As Congressional staffers know all too well, getting a bill signed into law is only half the battle. Pahlka and Greenway highlighted how they’ve seen firsthand the real challenges that take root when agencies interpret and implement laws — and how implementation gaps also commonly occur on the state and international level.
The discussion centered on sharing lessons learned and exploring how Congressional staff can craft legislation focusing on the goal of achieving their Members' intended outcome without creating a “cascade of rigidity,” the unintended regulatory inflexibility that leads to inefficiencies and waste.
Pahlka and Greenway explained that while political debate focuses extensively on what government should do, insufficient attention is paid to how government operates. This disconnect has resulted in implementation failures across policy domains, creating frustration for both policymakers and constituents. Pahlka compared this misalignment in goals and outcomes to the children’s game of “telephone,” where the policy intent is unintentionally lost in translation by the time it is being operationalized on the ground.
For example, Pahkla shared a story about an implementation mishap that was — thankfully — avoided but could have cost taxpayers millions regarding the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act. The law was designed to incentivize doctors to provide higher-quality care. One provision of the legislation aimed to give smaller practices the opportunity to enjoy advantages attainable to larger practices by forming "virtual groups." Agency staff interpreted this provision as a mandate to create a "Facebook for Doctors" and explored how to create this social media site. It took a detail from the US Digital Service reaching out to the House Legislative Counsel for consultation to clarify that Congress did not, in fact, want the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to build a Facebook for Doctors.
Key Obstacles to Effective Implementation
The speakers discussed several barriers that prevent legislation from achieving its intended impact:
1. Procedural bloat
Excessive regulations and requirements that slow government action and create unnecessary bureaucracy.
2. Disconnection between policy and implementation
Unintentional communication issues regarding the language used to create laws and regulations, and how those words are interpreted by implementers. These problems are rarely addressed due to lack of feedback loops or interactive communication and collaboration between the policy drafters and implementers.
3. Attempting too many goals simultaneously
When legislation tries to accomplish everything at once without clear prioritization or when additional regulations are layered on top of an already stressed, backlogged program.
Practical Takeaways for Congressional Staff
Obstacles causing the implementation gap can be addressed by legislative staff through a variety of ways. In drafting policy, conducting oversight, addressing casework, and creating policy feedback loops through interbranch relationship building, staff have countless opportunities to make government more effective and efficient. Pahlka and Greenway elaborated upon a few of these approaches:
1. Focus on outcomes, not processes
When drafting legislation, the panelists recommended focusing on the intended goal rather than prescribing specific implementation details that may work ‘in theory.’ This outcomes-driven approach gives agencies flexibility to develop effective approaches that work in practice while still maintaining accountability for results, more likely resulting in a policy’s intent being achieved.
2. Build legislative feedback loops
Policymakers should consider building programs with an iterative, product-management-like approach that incorporates regular reporting, pilot programs, or phased implementation. This will provide opportunities for adjustments based on real-world feedback and experimentation, leading to a test-and-learn approach.
3. Collaborate with implementers from the start
Teams at agencies and Congressional staff should find ways to build relationships through which to share practical insights that can identify potential implementation challenges during the drafting process, before a bill becomes law.
4. Use casework as a policy feedback mechanism
Constituent casework is a window into implementation problems. It is also one of the only feedback loops that Congress currently has to understand where policy intent is missing the mark. Learning from casework and trends that arise from constituents’ experiences is a rich starting point when looking to address existing inefficiencies.
5. Conduct oversight encouraging innovation
Congressional oversight of the Executive branch is vital for ensuring agency accountability in implementation. However, oversight focused solely on compliance squanders the opportunity for agency personnel (the implementers) to provide feedback about how a policy may be implemented more effectively, or simply, in a more common-sense way. When appropriate, Congress should consider shifting its oversight approach to focus on measuring actual outcomes by asking agencies about what they're learning, what's working, and what could be improved — not just whether they're following procedures.
Top Tip in a Post-Chevron Environment
With the Supreme Court's recent Loper Bright decision overturning the Chevron doctrine, agencies have less leeway to interpret ambiguous statutes. This decision makes it even more important for legislation to be clear about Congressional intent. However, the panelists emphasized that clarity does not necessarily mean more detail.
For example, if a Member’s office is drafting legislation that requires a website to be built, the legislation should be clear about the Member’s intention of the service the website should provide, not the specifics of how the website is built. This outcomes-driven approach allows implementers the flexibility to undertake an efficient and effective buildout of the website without getting caught up in unintentional red tape and burdensome legal compliance.
Next Steps
Watch the event! If you're interested in learning more about crafting legislation for better implementation outcomes, this event’s livestream was recorded and is on YouTube.
Read the full paper that Jennifer Pahlka and Andrew Greenway authored: "The HOW We Need Now: A Capacity Agenda for 2025."
Next Event - Join us!
This event was the first in a series focused on improving government efficiency and effectiveness. Keep an eye on POPVOX Foundation’s events page for the next event in the series and subscribe to the Future-Proofing Congress newsletter for event invites to be sent to your inbox.
