Video: Democracy in the balance?

Policy experts at every level of government require solid facts and data to come to the best decisions for their constituencies. However, especially as the second Trump Administration took over executive agencies in 2025, the data world has faced unprecedented new challenges. These include funding cuts that limit agencies' ability to gather and maintain data, frequent leadership changes that disrupt continuity, increased constraints on accountability and oversight, and disruptions in key statistical divisions. The combination of these challenges has made it significantly harder for policy professionals to rely on consistent, high-quality data.

Some of these issues were explored recently in an illuminating webinar which is part of the Democracy and Public Service Initiative, a partnership between the National Academy of Public Administration and the Bridge Alliance. The panel was moderated by Democracy and Public Service Initiative Fellow Joel Gurin, President and Founder of Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE). “It is a fraught issue and one where we need to seek a lot of creative solutions,” Gurin said.