Closing the Feedback Loop: Key Takeaways for Building Better Casework-Policy Collaboration
Congressional offices sit on a goldmine of information about how federal programs actually work — or don't work — for real people. That information flows through casework teams every single day, but too often it stays siloed in district offices as overstretched caseworkers and underresourced legislative staff struggle to free up capacity to collaborate.
On June 24, POPVOX Foundation’s Casework Navigator program partnered with the Niskanen Center’s State Capacity team to host a panel discussion for Hill staff on how caseworkers and policy staff can collaborate to leverage constituent services data and insights in policymaking. You can watch the panel here.
Panelists included:
Anne Meeker - Deputy Director, POPVOX Foundation
Crystal Gilbert - Director of Constituent Services, Rep. Barry Loudermilk [R, GA]
Eric Johnson - Senior Adviser for Defense and Foreign Affairs, Rep. Barry Loudermilk [R, GA]
Ashleigh Padgett - Legislative Director and Deputy Chief of Staff, Rep. Barry Loudermilk [R, GA]
Yuri Beckelman - Chief of Staff, Rep. Maxwell Frost [D, FL]
Kaj Gumbs - Manager of Government Affairs, Niskanen Center
Lawson Mansell - Health Policy Analyst, Niskanen Center
Here are the key takeaways for different roles in congressional offices.
For Caseworkers: Your Data is Policy Gold
Recognize patterns early. As Crystal Gilbert from Rep. Loudermilk's office explained, when you suddenly go from handling five postal cases to twenty, then thirty, then having 1,500 in a year, that's not just bad luck—that's a trend that needs immediate attention. Trust your instincts when something feels off, and actively look for trends that might represent systemic problems.
Build relationships before you need them. The most effective caseworkers cultivate relationships not just with agency liaisons, but with their own office's policy staff. As Gilbert noted, “never hesitate to make that relationship with your DC staffers.” These relationships become crucial when you hit walls that require escalation.
Collaborate across party lines. Some of the most effective casework happens when offices share information across the aisle. As Gilbert observed about working with Democratic offices in Georgia: “It's not about who gets the win; it's about helping people.” Caseworkers’ nonpartisan networks can play an important role in identifying offices on both sides of the aisle to work on addressing systemic policy issues.
For Legislative and Policy Staff: Casework is Your Early Warning System
Casework provides the "problem" and "victim" for your policy solutions. As Yuri Beckelman noted, when pitching policy ideas, “the hardest part is someone who is impacted by it, and if you are getting pitched by a constituent that ‘I'm someone that this impacts me,’ you have solved the biggest problem part of, ‘why does nobody care about this issue?’”
Spot trends before they hit the news. Caseworkers often see emerging problems like VA appointment wait time problems or baby formula shortages before they hit the news. This can give offices extremely valuable lead time to prepare actions and messaging before getting caught back-footed, but requires that teams find regular opportunities to review casework data and spot new things.
Use casework to validate or challenge assumptions. Before assuming a policy will work, ask caseworkers how similar processes actually function on the ground. As Eric Johnson discovered, "I can think from the policy side this is going to work, but when I ask about how does that work with this visa or this immigration pathway, they say ‘Yeah, that's not going to work at all.’”
For Chiefs of Staff: Creating the Culture for Collaboration
Treat departments professionally. Beckelman emphasized the importance of a “departments model” where “my job is to help my directors be successful.” When casework is treated as a professional department rather than a service function, staff are more likely to share insights that can inform policy.
Create multiple channels for information sharing. Don't rely on just one method—monthly all-staff meetings aren't enough. Successful offices use end-of-week emails, informal hallway conversations, and even social media to ensure information flows. As Beckelman noted, “people accept information differently, so you want to give them multiple channels.”
Build in formal feedback mechanisms. Rep. Loudermilk's office holds weekly meetings between casework and policy staff, plus annual retreats where teams present on trends and outcomes. These aren't just nice-to-haves — they're essential infrastructure for collaboration and relationship-building.
Consider unconventional staffing arrangements. Johnson's role as a policy staffer based in the district office gives him unique insight into both policy development and real-world implementation. While not every office can replicate this exactly, the principle of breaking down the DC-district divide is valuable.
The Bigger Picture: Technology and Systemic Change
The panel also highlighted exciting developments that could transform how casework data is used. House Digital Services is developing “CaseCompass,” a tool that will allow offices to voluntarily share anonymized casework trends, helping spot national patterns while protecting constituent privacy. This represents a shift from viewing casework as purely reactive service to seeing it as proactive intelligence gathering. Offices that embrace this approach don't just solve the “symptoms” of structural challenges — they identify and address the root causes of those problems.
The most effective Congressional offices don't see casework and policy as separate functions — they see them as complementary parts of a feedback loop that makes government work better for everyone. As Kaj Gumbs from the Niskanen Center put it, this partnership is “transformational” because “you can take one constituent's problem, not only solve it but turn it into a statutory solution." That's the kind of government we all deserve—one that learns from experience and gets better over time.
Transcript
Lightly edited for length and clarity.
Anne Meeker: Thank you all so much for being here. We are delighted to have folks in person and on our live stream. I'm Anne Meeker, I'm Deputy Director of POPVOX Foundation. I am a former caseworker, former director of constituent services, and folks who are used to tuning in for our casework navigator webinars hear my spiel all the time so I don't need to get into it. But it is such a pleasure - this is a bit of an unusual occurrence for us being able to do one of these events in person and so we are so grateful to folks for joining us and folks for tuning in on the live stream.
So for our team at POPVOX Foundation, we have been working on kind of a bet the last few years that's driven a lot of our work around constituent engagement and inter-branch mechanisms feedback loops. And that bet is that Congress is sitting on an enormously rich trove of super valuable information about how federal programs are implemented, how they are run, how constituents experience them, how can they work better. But Congress has not so far invested in really truly leveraging that information.
And of course I am talking about casework.
But also as a former caseworker I know this is an enormous challenge. This is really difficult. Caseworkers and policy staff live in genuinely two different worlds and so bridging that divide, finding ways to build those working lasting relationships between DC and policy teams can be really difficult. And so it's always a treat when we get to kind of bring folks from both sides of this world together to talk about how do you build those relationships and how do you build those feedback loops within offices, how do you make that work.
So today I'm so excited for our panel focusing on exactly that question. We are so honored to partner with the Niskanen Center on this whole series of events on closing this feedback loop, building implementable policy, and especially this one — not least because I found out that Niskanen has two not just one but two former caseworkers on their staff which must be part of why they are so effective and have been named DC's most interesting think tank.
So please help me welcome Kaj Gumbs, who's the manager of government affairs for the Niskanen Center social policy team where he works on housing, healthcare and transportation. He previously served as government affairs associate for the Ferguson Group and prior to that was a legal legislative fellow in the office of Congressman G.K. Butterfield after which he was hired full-time as the office's community outreach and constituent services liaison handling casework related to the DOJ, Bureau of Prisons, Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission and US Department of State. Welcome, thank you so much for being here.
Kaj Gumbs: Good afternoon everyone. I know it's hot outside. Thank you. Quickly before we jump into the panel, we wanted to give a little background about the Niskanen Center, our government capacity and how casework can help to close the feedback loop that we hold. The Niskanen Center is a think tank that promotes policies that advance prosperity, opportunity and human flourishing guided by the belief that a free market and an effective government are mutually dependent.
We have policy teams working across climate, immigration, criminal justice and mine social policy. And most recently we added our state capacity team, with Amanda here today. And so our state capacity team focuses on four areas of government reform: hire the right people and fire the wrong ones, reduce procedural bloat, invest in digital infrastructure, closing the feedback loop around policy outcomes.
Like Anne said, my name is Kaj Gumbs, I am the government affairs manager for the Niskanen Center's housing and transportation healthcare portfolio. I have the distinct honor of serving as your co-host with my colleague Lawson and Anne today. I could not honestly be more excited. For two years I had the privilege of serving with Congressman G.K. Butterfield. In 2019 while working in the district our DC staff was actively helping leadership draft and whip votes for the No Surprises Act, and one of the funniest things about it was that we had staff meetings and our district staff was constantly wondering why our DC staff wouldn't ask us for any information. And one day they said in a meeting that they were having problems getting stories about constituents having problems with No Surprises for two months. We had been tracking that from the hospital right across the street but no one ever asked us.
So we're trying to find ways to close the feedback loop and that's one of the stories that I come with, and I'm excited to hear what our panelists have to say today.
So this is our third event in the series of events that POPVOX Foundation and the Niskanen Center are co-hosting about the implementation gap. We're exploring ways that Members of Congress and their staff can address problems of government capacity and help to build our government's ability to effectively implement the policies that it passes. This event is focused on that fourth pillar about closing the feedback loop. We can think about the feedback loop between the legislative branch writing policy and conducting oversight, the executive branch implementing policy and constituents who are experiencing government programs and policies. But we can also zoom in to our individual offices and trace that feedback loop between your legislative staff, committee staff conducting oversight federal programs and the way your constituents are experiencing these services and which outcomes come from casework.
Ladies and gentlemen I appreciate you for your time, I'm looking forward to this amazing panel, and I'll turn it back over to you.
Anne Meeker: Awesome, thank you so much. I really want to echo just that beautiful framing that there's kind of the double feedback loop that we're talking about here - the feedback loop within individual Member offices between the district and DC staff and then overall that big picture feedback loop and how we can really get into really driving that feedback cycle. So appreciate that beautiful framing, thank you.
And let me just do a quick intro because we're going to bring him up later but we're also joined by Lawson Mansell, who is the health policy analyst working on supply side healthcare solutions at the Niskanen Center. Previously worked as research associate at the Brookings Institution where he authored reports on regional and health economics and prior to that as a general portfolio caseworker with focus on Social Security and Medicare for South Carolina's first congressional district. We'll bring you up for a full panel in a second.
Okay, so: today we are incredibly honored to be joined by a wonderful panel of folks who really know what they're talking about with building and creating and maintaining these feedback loops between district and DC.
I regularly call casework teams across the country just to chat about, “hey how do you make this work? this is a tough job, tell me everything about how you do it.” And I had the incredibly good fortune to talk to the team from Representative Loudermilk's office a few months ago and they frankly blew my mind, and I have not been able to stop thinking about some of their stories afterwards. So we are so honored that they flew in to join us - some of them flew in to join us today.
But we have joining us Crystal Gilbert who is the director of constituent services for Representative Barry Loudermilk. Crystal has 15 years of congressional experience starting under Representative Tom Graves. Prior to joining the Graves team she worked at the county and state level and spent 12 years in paralegal services.
We also have Eric Johnson, senior adviser for defense and foreign affairs for Representative Loudermilk. Eric leads the congressman's national security policy portfolio including defense, foreign affairs, intelligence, veterans affairs and defense appropriations. He started on the team in 2017 as a field rep and continues to probably be one of the very rare policy staffers based in the district office which we are absolutely going to talk more about in a second.
And then finally Ashleigh Padgett, deputy chief of staff and legislative director to Congressman Barry Loudermilk. In her current role she leads the congressman's legislative team and the implementation of his legislative priorities. Her legislative portfolio includes Congressman Loudermilk's financial services committee work as well as tax and trade policy and she previously handled the congressman's work for the Committee on House Administration. We are huge fans of her foundation, thank you for taking time away from this very busy week to be here.
And then finally last but not least: the last piece of this giant puzzle is that the landscape for caseworkers and tools caseworkers have access to for developing casework data, analyzing casework data is very rapidly changing, and about to change dramatically later this year due in no small part to the incredible work behind the scenes of the former Select Committee on Modernization of Congress and the current Committee on House Administration Modernization Subcommittee.
So with that we are delighted to have Yuri Beckelman currently serving as chief of staff for Representative Maxwell Frost. Yuri began his career as a staff assistant to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. His extensive experience includes role as staff director to the Select Committee on Modernization of Congress and deputy chief of staff to Representative Mark Takano advocating for enhancing Congress's science and tech capabilities. So he also brings not only the Committee on Modernization side but also the management side as a chief of staff for a new office.
So I want to say again thank you all so much for being here. Let me come over so we can actually have a proper conversation.
Getting started here, team Loudermilk, a couple months ago you all and I sat down to talk about just how does your team translate casework issues to legislation and policy work. And you had a story about working with USPS that just blew my mind. But before we have you guys tell that story and dive in, can you just give us a little bit of background on how your policy and your casework teams work together?
Crystal Gilbert: Sure, thank you. I need some background about our casework team and how we work. So in the district we have two other caseworkers beside myself, and at the moment we do pretty much split up the agencies like a lot of offices do. So I like to catch everything, so I tend to work any federal agency we may have to, but we have staff for Social Security and staff for Veterans and Immigration. So we work together, we run maybe any time 300 active cases for our district, and we enjoy the challenge doing that.
And as we've talked about the last few years, especially since COVID, we've gone from crisis to crisis to crisis, so casework has been very different in the last five years than it has been previously. I think that's where we really solidified our work together because I have really come to a point where I depended tremendously on the legislative staff and try to also push information to them as much as I can.
And this point was mentioned earlier but I think it goes without saying the communication in our office - it's informal but it's also formal in our weekly meetings because yeah sometimes the two sides aren't talking to each other or aren't sure kind of what's top of mind for people. Also our office is very unique in that Eric does travel back and forth between the district and DC so he brings to the district intimate knowledge of what's going on in DC and vice versa up to us. So I think that has been like Crystal said as we've gone from crisis to crisis to crisis that's been essential to making sure we're able to adapt.
Eric Johnson: Yeah just to echo off that we have a really good process where the constituent services team is able to share information with us. They track across all of our different portfolios across the same issue set that we have. They'll tell us this issue is coming up with passports, back when the passport center was closed, or when during COVID when we had all the issues with small business, they were flagging with our legislative director at the time that handles small business and tax would bring those issues to his purview and saying for me and Ashleigh now. So we feel like we have a really good system.
Anne Meeker: Actually Yuri I wonder if I can put you on the spot also — so it sounds like a lot of kind of the culture of creating a district and a DC staff that work together is really set by obviously the Member, and then obviously management. It seems like a lot of that is often set very early in the congressional office's history. Can you tell us just how you approach that as a chief?
Yuri Beckelman: Yeah I mean there's a couple of tiers here. The first one I was really proud of is we have very much a “departments” model. As a chief of staff I am not the legislative director, I'm not the director of casework, I'm not communications director, right? Like my job is to help my directors be successful and that means my district director, deputy district director really run their show and they're really proud of the work that they do and they want to showcase it. So that's the first level of professionalism when you have a department that is treated professionally as part of the team, it helps.
Additionally you want to set up systems for people to share. That's facilitated retreats, things like that early on. But the last thing I would like to note I think where a lot of the breakdown between offices is because we are so set on one way of information being delivered. So I'll give you an example right - casework gets shared at every all-staff meeting which happens once a month and you know you say you don't know anything about casework, but you should have listened at the all staff meeting right? Like that's just not how people communicate and learn. And we spend all of our time lambasting people for not meeting our expectations. But similarly to how people learn differently in school, they also accept information differently, so you want to give them multiple channels. That includes all of that verbal connection, it includes an end of the week email with an interesting list of casework issues that have come up or policy issues, and it includes social copy that gets into everyone's feeds - like the more touch points you can get the more likely you're going to get someone when they are ready and willing to accept an “aha moment” of this is happening, and I'm going to internalize what my teammate is saying, what's happening in the district and turn it into something that I can use.
Anne Meeker: Love that. So we've already gotten a little bit into the how, and now we really want to focus in on the why - what is the advantage that's created by that working feedback loop. So I've teased this so much — would you guys tell the USPS story, what happened?
Crystal Gilbert: So when you've done casework for a little bit of time you know what to expect every week. You're going to have a couple of VA, a couple of immigration, you know what's going to come across your desk. But those red flags that happen, that's when you really have to take a moment.
So in early January 2024 I received, in one day, maybe four or five postal cases — which is odd. We may work normally 25 postal cases a year, it's not a big push in casework for us. Some of that was strange. The next day it doubled and then it continued to do that and so immediately I was like what am I missing? What has happened in the system?
One of the stories that we told you, one of the first cases that I had was a gentleman — his family had cremated a family member, and he had been divided up three ways and shipped through the postal system and two-thirds of him was lost. And you just can't make this stuff up sometimes. And so this is important to me, I'm like this is important to these people to find this and what's going on.
So while I was trying to dig through and figure it out, when you're neck deep in casework you don't have time to look into the policy and the legislative challenges, so my go-to is whichever legislative assistant is in that department. So Eric was postal, and I said "Eric, we got a problem, I need to know what's going on. People are losing documents, passports were lost, taxes were late so we had penalties assessments, it trickled down tremendously to major casework problems in just a matter of weeks."
And so we're pushing it to the casework side what we can and we'll have a case - we can summarize up and tell you really in the end how we solved one good case. So then I turned it over to Eric and let him take over and see what he could find.
Eric Johnson: Yeah so we identified that the Postal Service there was this Delivering for America reorganization program that they were undergoing, this nationwide reorganization, and we had not been made aware of it beforehand, that it was about to start in Georgia. It had already taken place in Richmond, had taken place at one other location but the Atlanta region was going to be the largest rollout.
And we figured out very quickly because of those trends that we can see, where like Crystal said, you're going to have only a handful of postal cases occasionally and it's usually just lost mail or taking a extended amount of time, and you can work with the postal service and they'll help you identify where the package may be. This started becoming 20, 30, 40. We set up a extra process to where Crystal would flag for me, well for all of our team, so that the Congressman could see, to pull out of the daily report of what calls were receiving to just postal so that we can see that instead of the couple a month it was 15 a day, almost 15-20 a day.
And it wasn't just complaints, it was these specific issues that we're having, of going from just across town, which usually would take two or three days to weeks and weeks and weeks. People at the time were losing IRS tax returns, both the submission and the checks coming back, taking probably two or three months I would say.
So that started in January so before it hit the press we were already seeing the trends and I was already on the phone with the Postal Service once Crystal flagged it for me. Luckily we had a good relationship with them that I could get on the phone, have a Zoom call and figure out what the issue was. We started working as a delegation because it wasn't just the congressman's district, it was the entirety of Georgia. We started working with and flagging for other offices around the country that “hey, this is coming your way, be prepared.”
It ended up — it still hasn't fully resolved itself — but the trend has gone significantly downward in the amount of cases that we're getting. It resulted in, I'd say, that took from about January to late 2024, and the amount of cases that we were getting, but that resulted in a closer relationship with the postal service that we had had previously.
This is separate from I think the case that you're going to be able to provide for them, but we had a different neighborhood then that's something that you we would get previously is that it might be one neighborhood that was saying we have a bad postmaster or we have a bad delivery driver what can you do about that? To the entirety of the district and the entirety of the state was saying our mail is delayed.
But there was this one case, because of that good relationship that we developed - we weren't berating the postal service publicly or privately, we were just saying get us the information, we may or may not believe it, and we're going to challenge you on that and hold you accountable, but it resulted in this one neighborhood, this one HOA that had some delivery issues, and we were able to talk to the postal service. They couldn't resolve it, but they provided some suggestions so they were legally prevented from fixing the problem and we were able to work with a third party provider to get them a solution and resolve the issue, and that's all because we took the bad experience and built it into something.
Crystal Gilbert: We did have one case where as Eric said sometimes and you will experience this when you receive a response you look at that response you're like no that's not the response. So I had a gentleman that contacted us and he mailed the package the week before Christmas and a couple months later it's still not received in California. So I'm a visual learner — you talked about different learners — so I have a printed out map, I printed out a map of the United States and I went through six pages of tracking to see where this package was. I could see it was actively in a postal system, so I made my inquiry and my bounceback from our liaison was "Oh we can't find it, it's insured, they need to file a claim." And I'm like "I can see it."
And so I put everything together and this is where, Ashleigh — I mean, this lady got a dog out of China during COVID, she is amazing — we worked together. So I was like, “Eric, I need you to take this from a DC angle.” So he reached out with the documentation. This package had been in the mail for 54 days, traveled back and forth across the United States six times, I've got them mapped out for sure, and within two or three days of Eric reaching out at a higher level, the package was delivered, whereas I had really just been blown off.
And that's that's just the mentality that you kind of get, is a little bit jaded as a caseworker. You just don't always like the answers you get, and keep getting, but that's where our team is, again, we've solidified this, it's almost an automatic go-to now, when something happens in the office. We're just trying to work together just to get the constituent the help that they need as quickly as we can, but that is how sometimes when I hit a wall, and I'll admit it, I still want it fixed, I'm more than happy to turn it over to somebody.
Anne Meeker: Actually incredible — like do you all see why I can't stop thinking about this case? It's insane! There is a missing body, it goes through oversight, if you hit it before the press got it — like this is just such an insane and perfect microcosm of everything that can happen that can go right when casework and policy teams talk to each other.
Yuri Beckelman: I want to add my like favorite version of escalating too —“oh you can't find it? I'm going to go over there, and we're going to look through this together.” I definitely made that threat — I'm like, “give me the address, I'm going over there.” Obviously, that's not really my plan, but if that's what's going to make them move, right? That's fine. “You can't pull this up? I'm going to come over there, we're gonna do it together.”
Anne Meeker: Oh yeah, I’ve definitely gone to get a 1940’s marriage record out of county archives in person for a case before.
And Ashleigh, I'd love to get your thoughts on this too, because I think for a lot of teams where that dynamic just doesn't work quite as well sometimes, the challenge is also that DC and district work on different time frames. DC is so fast, and you are so just working around session, you're working around votes, like sometimes your timing is out of your control — whereas on the district side, timing is also out of your control when you suddenly start getting this wave of cases, but those two may not sync up. So as a legislative director how do you think about fitting district priorities into the work that your team is doing on the policy side?
Ashleigh Padgett: Well I think from our boss that's kind of — it comes from the top. So you know his priorities are what the district priorities are, and I think in a time where you do have so many competing priorities, that's kind of our north star. But yeah I think having as long as we've been on the team, that also our longevity helps to be able to kind of manage expectations, prioritize what's truly important.
Yuri Beckelman: Yeah and if a bill comes from the district, it's the dream right? Like that's what you're hoping for, like, it's like the bat signal that opens and you stop whatever you're doing and you take it, right?
Eric Johnson: You know being the defense staffer I have to throw in some type of acronym, so RDT was the acronym that I wanted to use - Rapid Development Team. And the Congressman really lets us have a full runway to go off. We don't have to get any approval beforehand if we want to pursue an idea. We can take it through research, we can talk to outside groups, we can talk to other offices and then whenever it finally feels like it finally needs his sign off, then we can go take it to him. He lets us have the full runway to do what we need.
Anne Meeker: Awesome, that really echoes Yuri's point about just respecting the autonomy of each team.
Yuri Beckelman: And I want to add on something — like why it's so valuable beyond how you are serving your constituents. We all get that, right? And you want to be reactive to the people who put you in office, but let's put that aside for just a moment, even though it is the most important thing. If you are trying to develop policy, it should be based around a problem that exists, not a problem that you are worried might, at some point, exist for some people, right? So I like to teach this class called “Comms and press for legislative staff,” and legislative staff are like, “why don't people care about this thing?” and the reason is because it's not a real problem. If you're pitching a news story, all news stories are written the same way, they're broken into a format of problem, victim, validator, solution — and your part in this whole thing is a solution. The hardest part of all of these is someone who is impacted by it, and if you are getting pitched by a constituent that, “I'm someone, this impacts me” — you have solved the biggest problem. That's just 101 on doing good policy.
Anne Meeker: Yeah and that actually hits on something that will be changing for caseworkers shortly. Yuri, relating back to your work on the Select Committee on Modernization and the CHA Modernization Subcommittee that also came up previously in this story, which is casework data. To be able to tell when you really have a problem — yes sometimes it's that one story, it's that one constituent who says I have two pieces of my relative missing, which just you’ve got to take, that's too important to not run with — but sometimes you kind of want to say, “well, is this just a one-off? Is this a trend that shows that there is something systemic and there is something structural here?” Can you tell us a little bit about the Select Committee's recommendation for the congressional data dashboard?
Yuri Beckelman: Yeah, well we start with a couple of stories - the most egregious example of this in my time on the Hill, I've been here about 20 years, was there was a massive backlog of VA [health appointments]. It was so huge, and it was being entirely covered up. It was leading to deaths, it was a huge scandal, it led to the resignation of a Secretary of the VA and it came about because people were reporting it. And yes, a large chunk if not majority [of cases] in some offices are VA claims, so it's hard to get the signal from the noise of "well this is just more than normal" or "are there just more veterans because of timing from separation?" We don't know. But it led to a major scandal and major reforms at the VA and how they handle claims. So that's super important.
You look at our office — we have similar issues. We have passport issues that everybody else has, but our passport issues are more specific in that Florida, one of the largest states in the country, has one passport office for the entire state, versus similar-sized states that have two or three. We are in Orlando, the only time you can get a passport appointment is in Miami during a weekday — this is crazy. So that focused our office. Obviously our big ask was we want a passport office in Orlando — that's a big ask — but we also asked early for more weekend hours. I think they were doing three hours once a month on a Sunday, which was unreasonable. And we got our hours and then we got a passport office. We made the case for it, so that was a really big win.
But when I was on the Modernization committee, the issue that stood out to me was we were discussing the shortage of baby formula. Congress was melting down about it -— "how could we not see this coming?" — and all the offices were saying, "Well, we've been getting emails about this, people have been complaining to us, and it's not something that normally people complain about."
And we were sitting around thinking, "Well we had all this data, but we didn't do anything with it. Now we're being super reactive, and we could have been proactive." This would have been easy for us to get ahead of. It was a facility shutting down, and we should have spotted it earlier and taken action earlier.
And so we started developing this idea. First we identified the problem that we just don't have the information in a formatted way where we can spot trends. And I'm a legislative staffer and now chief of staff, and a big part of our job is spotting trends. Some of it is the fire drill that happened yesterday, but some of it is, if you're really good, "in six months I think we're going to be discussing this, so let me put down a marker on that issue." And you get it wrong two out of three times, but when you do get it right, you are now the person on the issue. So spotting trends is a big part of what we do as legislative staff, and we wanted to channel that into how we use our casework, how are we better able to spot the signal from the noise. And so we came up with this idea that we should start aggregating the data that's coming in in a way that we can use.
Now the big problem we ran into in the Modernization Committee — and this sometimes slowed us down, never stopped us, but it slowed us down — was not partisanship, it was nihilism. It was just "oh, that won't work" or "I would never do it because the other person wouldn't do it."
So we stepped back and said "well, let's just let the nihilists pull themselves out of this." They don't want to participate, they don't have to participate. So offices that are more forward thinking, while still protecting PII private information, would be able to opt in and share information about trends that are happening with casework.
And that led to a recommendation to build a tool, a piece of software that would do that, and it's under development. I don't know exactly where it is — Anne, you probably know more about where it is right now — but that was the idea: that we should be using information that we already have in more thoughtful ways.
Anne Meeker: And then for your team, so you mentioned how you're working with data — I'm just curious for you guys, forecasting when this tool becomes available, when the data aggregator becomes available, do you expect that's going to change how you track your casework trends, how you talk to your delegation about casework trends? How do you expect that's going to change things?
Crystal Gilbert: I think that — and Eric will have to follow along because I don't know exactly where we're at with the postal service itself — we were one of three states that this happened to and it was a nationwide rollout. So with this ability, we could be reporting their numbers and then that can activate other offices to see, "oh is this postal change coming to our state, how can we do this proactively, how can we work with the postal service." It would be a way to be proactive if other offices across the US could see what's happening in the southeast, and ask, “does this come to us?” So I don't know if that's continued, but that's a great way that we could put our efforts together then we could help everybody with that.
Eric Johnson: Yeah, so during 2024 the postal service performance data is public. They have a whole dashboard where we can track it and I would tell them "of course, I'm hearing only the negative stories, I'm not hearing the successes” — maybe they're hearing the successes — but I would tell them, “your dashboard says you're at 80%, it's a two week lag. I'm telling you right now in a month we're going to see it drop to the 30s." And so we were trying to give them as much data too, so it was a give and take. I think that's what eventually resulted in the good relationship later. But I still don't think they fully resolved the problems, but they see now that at the time their data was wrong. They thought "this is all going well," and what they saw from us they eventually saw in Maine, they saw out west, they saw it all over the place.
Anne Meeker: That's such an important point, and I think that's maybe a little overlooked sometimes in this conversation about casework data, which is sometimes the pushback — to your point on nihilism — sometimes the pushback on the aggregator is "well, the agencies already have that data, Congress can just go get it from the agencies." But to your point, this is real time, independently sourced and verified performance data, which is the holy grail for oversight. So that is really genuinely different than what you're getting from the agencies.
Yuri Beckelman: Yeah, I will say getting information from agencies is its own beast. That was actually something modernization covered. If you ask an agency, they all have different answers for you, and it's not just for us — it's also people who have statutory authority to demand information from them. We found — so let's go through this list: CBO could get the information but only a static shot of it, and they had to have it compartmentalized in their office, so they had to check the same way they got it. GAO could get it if they went to the facility to get it downloaded there — that changed during COVID. CRS could get it, but sometimes they had to sue to get it. It was just ridiculous, and they all provided it in different formats and yada yada. So for them this is the future too — and they've worked on it a little bit. It started with the Digital Service and trying to aggregate it a little bit better.
Anne Meeker: Awesome, so, again just to absolutely double triple underline and emphasize this point: what caseworkers have is exactly what policy staff are sometimes looking for and it's out there — the only thing you need to do is just go ask. But it is a little bit more complicated than that. And so again, coming back to team Loudermilk, just how you guys work together. I know you've mentioned definitely that this is emphasis from the top — that your Member really values this work, and that you guys are a team that's been around for a long time, you've had the time to build up these relationships. But the other thing I really wanted to focus on, Eric, was your particular position as well. We touched on this a little bit — that you are based in the district, which is unusual for a policy staffer. Does that change the relationship between casework and policy at your team?
Eric Johnson: I think it does. I have the benefit of being one of the few staffers that is from the district, so that helps. I know the area and have lived there pretty much my entire life. And then I started as a field rep, so I had that relationship for about a year before I moved into this position. So there's the benefit of being from the district and in the district previously before coming up here. You know the territory.
Then being up here for several years, I left during COVID and went back to Georgia. We were trying to do our best to be as responsive as possible. We felt that the best way to do that was be on the ground, and since COVID I went back down to Georgia. After, I had a conversation with the Congressman, that I think this is working well. I handle defense — we have a base in the district. I can just go straight over to the base and ask questions instead of email or call, and get to know the leadership there. And I liaise with the state government, go down to the General Assembly occasionally, keep the Congressman's relationships going around down there. So it's worked well.
I think I have talked to a couple other offices — as I'm working up here, I try to come up here about one to two weeks a month — and occasionally there are offices that I think would love to have that, it's just sometimes unworkable. But it gives me the ability to see the casework firsthand and I can walk right down the hall and talk to Crystal. I also handle immigration, I handle VA. Crystal's been handling immigration for years, one of our other caseworkers is a veteran, I'm not a veteran. So I can ask questions. When it comes to policy, yes, I know where to go in the code, I know how to talk with agencies, I know the legislative process. But I can go down to them and ask for examples and firsthand knowledge. And I can think from the policy side "this is going to work," but when I ask about "how does that work with this visa or this immigration pathway," they say "yeah that's not going to work at all" or sometimes they say "it'll work." But it does give me a better handle, firsthand knowledge of it, whereas I would have to go to CRS or I go to the agency, and of course the agency is going to be biased. But I feel I can get a better handle of the situation from them.
Anne Meeker: Yeah, really helpful. So again, just the access to information is very different. Almost less limited in certain ways in the district.
Eric Johnson: Yeah, and during the repatriation process during COVID and during Afghanistan during the withdrawal, I was right down the hall from her. She was handling the visa process, the SIV visa process. So as we're handling the policy debate up here, I'm seeing firsthand the cases she's receiving of people who have assisted the US trying to get out of Afghanistan. And then of course with the bombing at Abbey Gate, I was right there next to her to say "this process is over." So it I think it's worked well and it can be a unique case, but there's some stuff there for Congress to see that there is beneficial to handle or to have maybe a DC staffer go down.
Now if I wasn't here, if I wasn't in the district, we've always had a policy, an internal policy, of sending people from DC down to the district to go and meet the local chambers on a regular basis, not just rely on them flying up here. And I think some of the DC staff has been able to see — whenever the local chambers do come up here, I try to come up here too, so that relationship continues. But I am biased, but I do like our situation.
Anne Meeker: That’s wonderful. Since our legislative folks had to step away, Kaj and Lawson, we’d love for you to talk a bit about the casework-to-policy pipeline. You’re in the think tank world, so I’d love to hear your reflections or reactions to what you’ve heard so far.
Kaj Gumbs: Yeah, my background’s a little different—I'm part of that rare pipeline of going from full-time caseworker to policy staff. There have been a lot of great points raised, and it’s exciting to see an office modeling this kind of partnership.
In terms of transformational power, I think the biggest value is in idea generation. Often, a legislative staffer might ask a caseworker, “Are you hearing anything about this issue?”—and that’s helpful. But more importantly, legislative staff are constantly searching for something unique, something their member can lead on. That’s where this model becomes transformational.
You can often identify issues before the media or a congressional hearing does. Offices can become a kind of regional incubator—spotting something early, sharing it with legislative staff, and turning one constituent’s problem not only into a solution, but into a statutory fix. It’s not just about solving that one case—it’s about identifying larger, systemic solutions. That’s transformational.
Anne Meeker: Yes! I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard a caseworker say, “They just put us in charge of this thing...” In my fantasy world—
Lawson Mansell: Yeah, I’ve agreed with everything up here. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about offices like Congressman Loudermilk’s, and others like Congressman Butterfield’s, is that they maintain relationships between legislative and district staff.
On the casework side, most constituents don’t hear about their members through policy wins—they hear about them through what casework staff have done. Casework is the engine that keeps members in office. It’s helping someone get a passport expedited, or a family member transferred within the Bureau of Prisons. Those things matter.
There’s a grassroots component to all of this that some offices—certainly not most, but some—have lost sight of. The focus becomes: “What are we doing in D.C.? How fast can we pass it? How fast can we campaign on it?” And in the process, they leave out caseworkers—the people who actually know the community stakeholders and often help build bipartisan bridges that can’t be built in Washington.
For example, in North Carolina we worked with Hope Reins, a horse therapy sanctuary using rescue horses. We partnered with Senator Tillis’s office—an office we didn’t usually collaborate with—and helped secure a $250,000 USDA grant for veterans and Gold Star families dealing with PTSD. That’s a rural initiative you don’t usually hear about, but we didn’t campaign on it. We just said, “This is something we did together.” Constituent casework made that possible.
Anne Meeker: Absolutely—and I’m really glad you brought up the bipartisan aspect. That was something I wanted to ask the panel about.
We’ve talked about how caseworkers and casework data can be siloed between offices. But what’s not always visible from D.C. is how extraordinarily collaborative caseworkers are across the country — on both sides of the aisle. Crystal, especially in the context of the Afghanistan withdrawal, I know this came up a lot. Can you talk a bit about how caseworkers are organized, and how that helps build bipartisan relationships?
Crystal Gilbert: That moment was just an influx of information, happening instantly. I knew — based on what Eric was telling me — that I might have days, maybe just hours, to help people get out. Eric was starting to discover, and I started to see, that caseworkers were forming Microsoft Teams chats across offices and organizations. We were sharing information as fast as we could to help as many people as possible. It was like we had this whole undertow happening that I don’t think most members of Congress even realized. We were starving for information — and it wasn’t Congress’s fault; there was just too much happening all at once. It was fight or flight.
That collaboration continues. There are still Teams chats and groups working together.
What I love about casework is that it’s apolitical. We all get those calls — "I’m a Republican" or "I’m a Democrat, are you really going to help me?" And the answer is always, "Yes, I am." We’re here to help people, full stop.
We’ve worked closely with Democratic offices in Georgia. I was at an event a couple months ago hosted by Senator Ossoff, and a constituent asked me, "Do you work with Democrats?" And I said, "These are some of my great friends—I’ve worked with them for years." That’s one of the joys of casework. I actually think government works pretty well in that respect.
Over the last few years, caseworkers have really started pushing together, trying to share more information. It’s not about who gets the win—it’s about helping people. That means a lot, because for a long time, finding good information felt like being in a desert.
Anne Meeker: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a powerful example of how technology—and necessity—is changing how casework operates. It’s not static. Casework is actively evolving.
And if caseworkers and policy staff can figure out how to evolve together in ways that are mutually reinforcing—well, then we’ve really got something.
I want to make sure we leave time for audience questions. Any questions for the group?
Audience Member 1: I appreciate that you're learning from constituents about where problems are. But do you ever talk with agency folks to figure out the root of those problems? Like if passports aren’t being processed, is it a tech issue, staffing, capacity, or funding? Do you ever go to the agency and ask “why” after hearing from constituents?
Crystal Gilbert: I do try to dig into that. A lot of times, agencies are actually proactive in telling us when they’re struggling. The VA has often said, “We can’t hire people — you need to tell your member.” That’s when legislative staff become critical, since they can escalate to a higher level than I can. But yes, if there’s a dysfunction and we can fix it, I want to know about it.
Kaj Gumbs: Casework often exists in a bit of a silo — caseworkers might only interact with an agency liaison, who may not be in touch with the policy side of that agency. But legislative staff usually have relationships with the policy folks. So when there’s strong collaboration between casework and legislative teams, you can start to bridge those gaps and close the feedback loop.
Anne Meeker: Exactly. This comes up a lot in our conversations about state capacity—how Congress learns from the executive branch and vice versa. Legislative teams usually talk to legislative affairs staff, but it’s often hard to get to someone who will tell you what’s really going on. Caseworkers often have those field office relationships built up over years. They can sometimes get a different — and often more accurate — story.
Crystal Gilbert: I won’t name names, but yes, sometimes agency staff vent to us. That’s the value of those long-standing relationships. We also have great contacts with the governor’s office — if a call comes in about a state issue, we loop them in immediately. But we’re also seeing these relationships disrupted. With some recent OPM changes, we lost long-standing liaisons almost overnight. So we turn back to our caseworker forums and say, “Okay, what do we do now?” It’s a cycle — boots on the ground reporting back to headquarters, helping us all adjust.
Anne Meeker: And that loop should feed back into the legislative side too—caseworkers saying, “I’m hitting a wall with this agency,” and asking how we can help fix it structurally.
Katie Worley: I fall into what someone earlier called the “nihilist” category. I’ve done this work so long that I sometimes just keep my head down and push through. A few weeks ago, I was stuck on a time-sensitive case—no one was helping me. I finally reached out to a legislative staffer, who connected me to someone on Committee. I had an answer the next morning.
So two questions. One: how do you know when something is just noise versus a trend worth escalating? And two: I think you said you have weekly meetings with legislative staff. What does that look like? Who talks? What do you share?
Crystal Gilbert: That’s a tricky one. Sometimes it only takes a couple of days to know. You go from five passport requests one day to 30 the next, and a year later you’ve got 1,500. That’s a trend.
But other times, something more subtle pops up — maybe a VA issue that’s slipped through the cracks. I try to think critically when something crosses my desk. I call it the “red flag test.” One red flag? Maybe not. But five red flags in a single case? That’s a problem.
Our team gathers every morning around 9:15. We sit, vent a bit, and support each other — this job is hard. People call in upset. There’s crying in casework, even though I say there isn’t. And when I’m burned out, it’s harder to spot trends. So maintaining that camaraderie helps.
And yes, we have weekly meetings during session — mostly legislative-focused, but that’s okay. It’s my time to hear about bills and offer input. I might say, “I’m seeing this too,” or ask questions. We also hold annual retreats, set goals, and brief the Congressman. And honestly, we have fun — this might get unprofessional, but my office is down the hall from Eric’s, and sometimes I just yell down the hall.
Never hesitate to build those relationships. When you see red flags, don’t wait — catch up and reach out.
Eric Johnson: I think you know it’s a trend when it starts to feel abnormal—just too many cases with the same issue. But we also value the oddball cases, the outliers. They can be just as important.
For example, that cremated remains case — it was so unusual, the agency actually wanted to work it because it wasn’t mundane. Agencies get interested in outliers. So yes, we need both the patterns and the weird one-offs.
We all want to help our bosses move quickly. If you spot something early — before the press does — you can prep your comms team and have a solution ready.
Crystal Gilbert: Yes! I’ve called the VA or USPS and said, “You’re about to be on the news — let’s fix this now.” And we do. Agencies don’t want bad press. Relationships matter.
Eric Johnson: And being in the district helps. I know how things move up here in D.C., and I can offer context when staff or constituents call. I’ve covered every policy area except ag and finance, so I can usually help translate. That way, the district office doesn’t always have to call D.C. for a one-pager or talking point.
Anne Meeker: That’s great. One final plug—the data aggregator we’re building could be a powerful tool for spotting trends, especially in high-volume offices. We hope it’ll help surface those patterns early.
Folks, we are at time, but I think we can take one more question. If you need to head back to legislative duties, feel free. We appreciate you being here. Let’s get to these last couple questions.
Lauren Vernon: Thank you. I’m Lauren Vernon from Representative Stansbury’s office. I’m the Legislative Director, and the Congresswoman is actually moving out to the district this month—so this is all really timely.
We’ve seen that our caseworkers often have better insight into what’s needed on the ground, especially when it comes to big legislative packages. Can you talk about how casework informs things like appropriations or infrastructure packages?
Eric Johnson: Sure — give me a second to think back. One example is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. When I started, I was a field rep, and we worked closely with local business associations and Chambers of Commerce. Every day we heard about specific issues. Our Legislative Director really emphasized the importance of flagging those issues and elevating them to committee staff or leadership.
We were successful in getting some of those issues included. It’s not always direct casework, but the district is the front line. People tend to call the district office first—not D.C. Sometimes that’s because they believe we’ll actually pick up the phone.
I can think of examples like Army Corps of Engineers issues — we fed those into the appropriations process. I didn’t work on the farm bill, so I can’t speak to agriculture, but we’ve had wins from base-level outreach. Once, a base reached out needing funds, and because we had that relationship, we were able to help. Before I moved back to Georgia, we didn’t see that type of outreach as often.
The district team is crucial in surfacing needs. Otherwise, all Congress hears from are lobbyists. But when a small business owner reaches out about a narrow section of the tax code, that’s real and immediate. And it’s exciting for the policy team—we only get a shot at these big bills every few years. It tests your skills and relationships, which is part of what makes the job rewarding.
Anne Meeker: Absolutely. I’ll also say that those giant bills can feel overwhelming, especially for teams that are already swamped. But they’re also opportunities to fix long-standing issues.
I’m looking at Jeremy [Dillard] over here because we’ve talked a lot about this—like with the VA and overpayments tied to dependent benefits. Turns out only two teams nationwide handle those, and delays create big problems. That seems like an appropriations issue.
Helping caseworkers recognize those patterns—structural problems that can be addressed through big bills—is a valuable skill. You don’t always need a standalone bill; sometimes it’s about knowing what you can attach to a bigger legislative vehicle.
But that’s huge. Good luck with your move!
Katie Worley: One last question: this reporting or data aggregation system you’ve been mentioning—what will that look like for us? Is it automated and linked to our databases, or is it a separate reporting structure?
Anne Meeker: Great question. I’d encourage you to talk to House Digital Services—they’re building the system, it’s called Case Compass. It’s in a pilot phase right now and progressing well.
The idea is that teams opt in — it’s not mandatory. The data is anonymized, so no constituent PII goes in. It’s pulled from your system and standardized through House Digital Services’ new data schema.
Because every office tracks casework differently, the schema helps unify the data for analysis. The goal is a shared dashboard where trends can be identified across offices. Again, it’s a pilot, but if your team wants in, House Digital Services might still be accepting participants.
As we wrap up—if you’re interested in joining that pilot, please talk to House Digital Services. Thank you all for your time today. Huge thanks to Team Loudermilk for traveling to be here. Thank you to the Niskanen Center team—it’s been a real pleasure working with you on this series.
And thanks to all of you for taking time out of your day. Hope you’ll stick around and ask more questions!
