Next on American History tv, the discussion on policymaking commissions inl American History. This talk from Purdue University was part of the conference called making American History. I am the associate professor of instructions, a legal historian who has written about president ial commissions and Administrative Law from law reform. We look forward to you can tell, todays session is being filmed by cspan, so do with that information as you will. Frank will be first. Yes, my name is frank popper. I teach city planning. Increasingly i take an historical approach to city planning. I do that with rutgers. The reason i am here, nearly half a century ago i wrote a small book for the 20th entry fund, now the Century Foundation in new york city, on president ial commissions and its one of the very few sources, i think, on them, and a they dug my ago, 49 yearold book they dug my 49yearold book. They asked if i would participate. President ial commissions have a long history in the United States. There have been a whole bunch of others in the more modern p eriod, but they essentially work the same way. The president appoints a bunch of notables. They meet. They hire an executive director. The staff writes much of the report and eventually it is released. Shortme spans can be as as six months or as long as three years. Nationallity literature has a couple meetings. Look at the overall nations running concerns. Running concerns would be race, the role of women, Public Health, the organization of the federal government. There was a filipino insurrection in the mid to late 19 century and eventually filipino independence in the United States had to decide how to arrange that or work with that and more recently, in terms of big turning points there have the three mile , 9 11, challenger rocket deepwater horizon not that long ago. These commissions give you a of how the sense nations elite has changed. If you look at the early of 20thcentury commissions there are very few women, very few blacks, very few latinos. Commissions tend to represent more and they tend to have more people from the sun as the region grows and becomes more prominent and national politics. Are onw poor people president ial commissions. You would say our middle class either. Thats one kind of National Literature. Nationalay to look at literature is the sense of national counterpoint. Cultural meaningful theriences that mark country forever. Things like have the kennedy assassination commission, the 9 11 commission. In these things are sometimes byated not necessarily politicians, but by a finer sense of the nations culture a more refined one, if you will, as actual pieces of National Literature that are reviewing in the wave theyll wolf is revealing or hamlet is revealing or the great gatsby is revealing. In the novel libra, the author describes the Warren Commission as follows is the joyce wouldl james have written if the move to iowa city and lived to be 100. The 9 11 commission, likewise has occasionally gotten that sort of treatment. The late, great harvard historian called it epic, not in hike, butof an epic the sense of an epic narrative, like beowulf. The miraculous deus ex machina intervention of beowulf tos they the American People or the towers from the attack and the lesson is clearly, the people themselves will have to come up with a response and this is what the response should be. Ok, two forms of National Literature. They may not have great circulations. Great impact,ake but they are in, they are out. There are accumulative profits. Theres the background of the beowulf Type Commission or the at thewulf commission baseline. The basic processes of for the literature, researching it, riding it, editing it are part of a more ,echanical nittygritty sorts but the end with sort of unclear outcomes, but clearly positive ones, too. In most of the they come upcases, with the sense that they accomplish things. Importantplish things. They may not necessarily achieve great public acclaim or knowledge in so doing. Theres a wonderful, wonderful ofcription of the mechanics how that particular commission worked and how it politics how its politics works from the inside and it will do a terrific job, i know because it recruited me. Thats how i know. The more recent history of is well, about what you would expect. Obama appointed a couple. Most notably the one on the deepwater horizon disaster in the gulf. Then more recently, trump made chris about appointing christie the head of an opiate commission. Along with the from kansas state about Voter Suppression. The kobach one crashed and burned pretty specifically. I should say no president ever appoints a commission on a topic that is going well. The topic has to be something , where not going well there are serious conflicts and that is another reason why they resemble literature. Would goe, likewise nowhere. There is this overlap. As i say, the Trump Commission of been rather disruptive previous patterns but i did notice a year ago in the atlantic, Henry Kissinger riding in article about Artificial Intelligence and concluding that this is a very weighty problem that requires guess what . Toresidential commission assess in terms of its likely effects. Form in theturn to sense that Henry Kissinger riding in the atlantic went back to the notables of the sort in theg writing atlantic with back to the notables of this sort that write these things. Theres an interim locking directive. A lot who were quite noticeable got pointed to multiple commissions. They were scored. Who else . There were a couple more like that. They were inward. Not very incestuous. Again, the kissing her proposal reverts to form in that sense. Maybe somebody in the room although therere are not that many of you will serve on it. You or someone here will write about it. If you want to think in terms of literature, consider shakespeares approach to richard the third. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Thank you all for being here. Thank you to nicole. Thank you for putting together this sorry, putting together this conference. Thank you to leah, nicole, and katie for putting together this conference. This is our Public Policy school. This is specifically in the context of equality. The commission was created by Lyndon Johnson. The commission has been mentioned before, but no scholar has explored this particular commission in depth. Lyndon johnson created it in 1968 and charged it with investigating any and every planned to meet the income needs of all American People. Challenge our income needs of all American People. Johnson said our challenge was to provide for americans to may need protection. It was specifically looking into universal bake basic income. Ecig income was not a radical idea during 1960s. There was a broad consensus across the political spectrum. That consensus include Martin Luther king jr. And milton friedman. Much of the interest was driven by the reality of the historical moment. In 1968 hadoverty focused on the long run creation of opportunities in employment, housing, and education rather than transfer programs. But that failed to eliminate poverty, which had been the expectation of Many Americans used inrhetoric johnson fighting the war on poverty. In 1960 nine, African Americans out of poverty rate of 32 compared to the white poverty rate. Factorsnumber of conspired to keep poverty rate hike, automation was a central culprit. Automation had uprooted americans for decades. In the cities, africanamericans those employment prospects. , thompson grew and others have written extensively about this phenomenon. They concluded that the promise employment remained relatively illusory. When Richard Nixon was inaugurated, they decided to the commission. Theushed forward with johnson Era Commission that focused on poverty, partly policy, and guaranteed income. That story is not worth one. Story is anission important one in the inception of our project. Researched Daniel Moynihans involvement in the family assistance plan. T never became law as it turned out, part of the basis for this proposed family systems plan could be found with on next commission maintenance. Investigative processes had not generally been the focus of. Cholars they focused on why they focused on these in the first place, was less attention to how the commissions reached their conclusions. They visited 17 cities and towns across the country. In each location, the commission convened local hearings and invited activists and advocates experienceabout the and circumstances of poverty. In addition, commissioners physically beat physically visited the homes of the poor. A set of interactions between commissioners, the poor, and their advocates, which were remarkable in three ways. In front made a case of commissioners for the value of their expertise about the lived experience of poverty, while challenging the professional authorities who had policy. Ctated poverty one witness testified that any would have policies no meaning unless they participated. Thinking and theorizing in an office somewhere is not enough to deal with a problem. Poverty policy needed to be shaped i those who had experienced policy firsthand. They challenged a system that had created significant barriers to employment. One witness told commissioner secure this to through persistent letter rating campaign. Campaign ghting letter writing campaighn. Third, by painting a week picture of structures and , witnesses challenged commissioners ideas that poverty was theverty consequence of individual choices. Where tobacco farms were the primary industry, mostly africanamerican Agricultural Workers faced low wages and sporadic unemployment. At the same time, owners punished workers who sought employment away from farms in months when there was no crop to cultivate. Families had to borrow from their employers to survive in the offseason. Activist testified the poor man had to buy the white mans money. He is enslaved. Four inentration of inadequate schools and numerous ther areas covered by testimony of witnesses and other cities and towns. There was another important element of the commission strategy. Commissioners visited the homes of the poor. The conditions in which the poor lived exasperated commissioners. Trained economist described the houses of the tobacco harvesters he visited unpainteded we saw wooden shacks up two or three or for rooms and which 14 people lived. In addition, cracked ck ofws and doors and a la Running Water exposed residents to disease and illness. Another discipline, sociology offers jules im sorry. Question. Sion poses a studying the commission poses a question. How and why did the home visits affect commissioners. Another discipline, sociology offers tools to answer those questions. The sociologist Irving Kaufman for example proposed that the circumstance in which people see conditions can cause them to see these conditions differently. He said the process, called keening plays a crucial role and our ability to determine what is going wrong going on. They argued that changing the framing of circumstances can motivate new kinds of action, new values are nurtured and old meanings and understanding jettisoned. It can galvanize decisionmakers to push for reform. While circumstances may not resonate with an extent lames it can have a significant impact. We see this phenomenon play out in the president of austrias commission on income maintenance. When Otto Eckstein was brought facetoface with the conditions of the poor, his perspective shifted. While he was skeptical about the usefulness of home visits, he was struck by what he saw in quincy. Said, provided an invaluable reference for understanding poverty. North carolinaom was also disturbed. He said, what i saw there, i have not seen any place else. The chairman of ibm called the conditions intolerable and appalling. This could be seen in the final they concluded that poverty was not the result of a personal failing, but being born to the wrong parents or lacking the ability to become not poor. Commission tothe recommend a basic income. How does the commission in form and reshape our understanding of political history . In the case of the commission on there were new dynamics that had an effect on policymakers. It helps to eliminate how those dynamics work. Second, i argue that the commission should push us to think about where social movements begin and where they in. Douglas mcadams wrote that the movementse not are much more ephemeral. In some ways men as the views of commissioners became realigned with those of the poor and their advocates, commissioners could be seen being a part of the late 1960s social movement that pushed for Better Outcomes for the poor. Third, and finally, it left behind a rich archival record of poverty, created by those who experienced it. In a bottom in a broader inse, they are provocative capturing the voice of ordinary citizens. These archives have led me to materialer source document the experience of nonelites is more plentiful than we have acknowledged. Should we be more vigilant about tracking down those sources in order to pursue the inclusion of all material voices in historicl analyses, even in administrative histories, with even greater attention paid to not privileging the voices of elite . Of elites . Thank you. Great. Im going to ask some broad questions. First, president ial commissions are a very conventional topic. I want to start by having our speakers talk about how will we rethink political history. Theres reports, theres memos. They are generally kept and preserved in a president ial library or at the National Archives. They have a start date and a end date. So the records are there and they are greats. Hey can be statements they can say that this is a great statement of what they thought they could say or what would be received well from the audience. Internalorts, they are still valuable for certain articulations of ideas. The disadvantages if we put president ial commissions at the center, we will put that at the thatr i wonder worry if expresses an importance that is not there . These institutions are created. They have a life. They have been executive director. They have a staff. They file a report. The report goes to the library and then it sort of sits there. They may not have altered political conversations or incentives on the topic. Thus, they can change the conversation in ways that i will get back to, but that does not always happen. In studyingwe get president ial commissions . How do they help us think about our broader political history story. Of legal history is focusing on where Decisionmaking Authority takes place. If there is actual Decisionmaking Authority, what should we do with these entities and what should we make of them . If no one is reading them, what do we do with this . Question that may be the intellectual history is a better approach them political his three . I dont believe that, but im on that out provoke conversation. I did this with the running concern commission and the turning point commission. ,heres multiple volumes appendices. In they do make a difference a way that some of the worthier, but more technical ones do not. Im not really an historian, but it occurs to me it is possible that historians might view commissions as really whatate barometers of people of the time were thinking . What kind of person gets a president ial commission, considered as a class of people are thinking and that can be you that can be useful regardless of what happens to their proposals. The documents that they were first drafts of the section that may or may not get written tells you a lot about the deliberations of the commission, and these may or may not come policy, but it can tell you what that person was thinking and that can be useful in itself. I have in my book some. Ecommendations i reread the thing with great trepidation. I had two recommendations i like that still work today. The people who were appointed to president ial commissions ought to have had some actual early with the problem they are talking about, and looking at president ial commissions all these years ago, with find very few people the all volunteer army who had ever then drafted. And the various Public Health commissions who rarely had any sign in their life of lacking medical care or whats another one . Commissions. Iot theres very little evidence i can find that any member of the commission had ever been affect awry ita of i or around or in the neighborhood of her riot, much less participated in a riot and i thought that somewhere there, there ought to be the experience that doug was talking about where, you know, harvard professors discover a kind of poverty that never showed up in this, in the statistics. Was there anyone from a Maintenance Commission that came from a poverty that ground that you know . Not that i know of. Not that i know. Discoveriesay the worked, so with this particular commission by design, those who had served on it had not taken a public position on income transfer programs and thought very little about it, the idea being they would have a clean slate coming into the commission. It sounds like they filled that slate very dramatically. Exactly. Ones, you the other one. Not see much of maybe one or two members. But they never seemed to talk about this and that the liberations of their commissions. Deliberations of their commissions. Interestinge most things that happens with a president ial commission a