The bipartisan House committee considering methods of improving congressional operations turned its lens on constituent services Thursday, seeking ways to better help Americans solve problems and navigate government bureaucracy.
Each lawmaker has staffers assigned to help constituents work through these problems, but because the offices all act independently without any central coordination, there is little opportunity to recognize and respond to systemic problems such as slow response times by federal agencies. The Selection Committee on the Modernization of Congress hopes to address that gap.
“This kind of data can inform Congress’s oversight activities and help us get ahead of problems before they do real damage,” said the committee’s chair, Rep. Derek Kilmer. “These kinds of customer feedback loops are pretty standard in pretty much every business, and there’s a reason for that. They help companies improve their customer service, which then improves customer trust in the business.”
Kilmer acknowledged that government and business are not the same, but there are lessons Congress can learn. “The American people expect competent customer service,” he said. "And I think we owe it to our constituents to meet, if not exceed, that standard."
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The committee heard from three witnesses Thursday, each offering technology recommendations on how Congress can become more customer-friendly and centered around their experience developing higher standards of communication throughout all branches of government.
Anne Meeker, who managed constituent services for Rep. Seth Moulton before becoming director of strategic initiatives at the civic-engagement-oriented Popvox Foundation, suggested Congress build a more connected system between the House of Representatives’ central administrative office and caseworkers. She highlighted three issues that, if solved, would help local, regional and national offices better identify problems and open lines of communication that would lead to reform.
Firstly, she recommended a House-wide analytics system to identify and monitor casework trends. By categorizing and tagging individual case, Congress could identify state or regional problems and develop a better understanding of constituents’ needs.
She also proposed a plan to expand contact information for relevant agency staff to prevent cases from being lost and abandoned, a primary reason some constituent concerns are never resolved. Lastly, Meeker detailed an avenue for internal communication for caseworkers that would include in-person professional development, swapping of case studies and resources, and open access to the institutional knowledge required for good case management.
Meeker also noted the burnout that caseworkers often experience and recommended mental health visits and other support services to work through releveant obstacles. This system would hopefully strengthen the relationship between districts around the country and lead to an increase in bipartisan collaboration, she said.
Nina Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, detailed her experience implementing measures to more effectively solve taxpayer issues with the IRS. As a national taxpayer advocate within the IRS, she reported taxpayer concerns and problems to Congress, sometimes leading to legislation addressing these issues.
Olson explained that she worked with Congress to address taxpayer concerns would be met bby establishing advocacy offices in every state, accompanied by an open line of communication so constituents could get directly in touch with their case advocate. In turn, Congress was able to use that IRS division to identify problem areas with the agency and develop internal guidance to prevent future problems from occurring. Additionally, Congress required the advocacy department to issue two reports annually, a vehicle to raise concerns about taxpayer problems and make direct recommendations to lawmakers concerning administrative or legislative decisions.
Matt Lira, who was a special assistant to the president for innovation and policy initiatives during the Trump administration as well as a senior advisor to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, closed out the testimony, noting that casework can get lost in congressional shuffle.
“These [constituent] concerns are typically only one aspect of a broader portfolio rather than [Congress’] primary focus and responsibility,” Lira said. He emphasized the importance of modernizing Congress’ capabilities to meet the public’s expectations in the ever-evolving digital world, specifically through ensuring executive sponsorship of legislation, enhancing House-wide capabilities, and expanding the capacity of individual member offices.
Lira recommended that the House designate a senior official to coordinate improvements to House-wide constituent experiences as well as a point person to improve improve constituent services at agencies. Additionally, the House should publish a core set of digital tools for responding to the most common constituent services in order to remove extensive inefficiencies, give entry-level staff the opportunity to shift to higher-value work, and improve engagement between constituents and their representatives.
The hearing followed the recent release of the “State of the Congress 2022” report by the Congressional Management Foundation and the Partnership for Public Service. The report found that senior congressional staffers believe solving constituents’ problems should be the primary goal of members of Congress; however, most say Congress isn’t up to the task.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.