The Day After DOGE
New Visions to Remake the Administrative State

Co-hosts
Richman Center, Columbia University
Common Good

Wednesday, April 23, 2025
9:00 AM to 1:30 PM

Registration and light breakfast at 8:15 AM

So far Elon Musk'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 will focus on the operational failures of the current state, and will include proposals to empower common sense solutions, make government more manageable, and clarify the role of oversight by courts.

Confirmed Participants

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

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

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

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

Paul Vallas
Former CEO, Chicago Public Schools and School District of Philadelphia; former Superintendent, Recovery School District (Louisiana)

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

Event Details