Nine-Year Bipartisan Task Force Confirms That Bipartisan Task Forces Are Worth Having, Citing Itself As Primary Evidence

WASHINGTON — After nine years of sustained collaborative effort, the Joint Bipartisan Commission on Collaborative Government Effectiveness has released its landmark final report, concluding with high confidence that bipartisan task forces are an excellent use of government resources. The primary supporting evidence, the report notes on page one and again on pages 312, 489, and 701, is the task force itself.

"What we have demonstrated here is nothing short of historic," said Commission Co-Chair Representative Dale Whitmore (R-OH), who joined the task force in 2016 as a freshman congressman and is now technically eligible for a mid-career pension. "We assembled. We met. We continued to meet. And now, nine years later, we have produced a document confirming that assembling and meeting works. The data speaks for itself."

It does, in the sense that the data is mostly about the task force.

The Methodology, Explained

The Commission's research approach, described in Chapter Two as "empirically grounded and epistemically rigorous," involved convening biweekly sessions at which members of both parties sat in the same room and discussed things. In years three through six, they also exchanged emails. By year seven, a shared Google Drive folder had been established, which researchers describe as a "significant infrastructural milestone."

The report's central finding — that bipartisan cooperation produces results — is supported by forty-three appendices, a seventeen-page glossary defining the word "bipartisan" in ways that differ only slightly from one another, and a fold-out diagram showing the organizational structure of the task force, which at its peak employed twenty-six full-time staff, four rotating interns, and a man named Gerald who nobody could quite place but who kept appearing at meetings and seemed to know things.

"We controlled for every conceivable variable," said Dr. Pamela Osei, the Commission's lead methodologist, who joined the project as a postdoctoral researcher and has since received tenure, published two books, and celebrated the birth of a child who is now in third grade. "Except, I suppose, for the possibility that the task force's existence was itself the outcome rather than the mechanism. But that's really more of a philosophical question, and we've recommended a separate working group to look into it."

The working group has already been funded.

A Brief Timeline of Progress

For context, the task force was originally formed in 2015 to evaluate whether bipartisan commissions — which had been proliferating steadily since the early 1990s — were producing measurable improvements in policy outcomes or simply producing more bipartisan commissions. The answer, it turns out, is nuanced.

By 2017, the Commission had agreed on a definition of "effectiveness" that all members could accept, though a footnote on page 44 acknowledges that two members still have reservations about the word "measurable." By 2019, a preliminary framework for evaluating the framework had been completed. In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic briefly interrupted proceedings, though the Commission notes proudly that it adapted quickly by moving meetings to Zoom, where attendance actually improved because members no longer had to find parking.

The final draft was completed in late 2023. The additional fourteen months were spent resolving a disagreement about whether the executive summary should appear before or after the table of contents, and whether the phrase "going forward" should be hyphenated.

It should not, the Commission ultimately decided. This is on page three.

Reactions from the Field

Response from political observers has been, in the Commission's own preferred terminology, mixed.

"It's a remarkable document," said Howard Finch, a senior fellow at the Center for Governmental Process Studies, which is itself a bipartisan organization and therefore perhaps not ideally positioned to critique the findings. "The Commission has demonstrated, with admirable thoroughness, that it was capable of producing a report about its own capabilities. Whether that's the same as demonstrating that it was capable of improving policy is a question for another report. Which, I understand, is already in planning."

The Commission's Co-Chair from the Democratic side, Representative Angela Voss (D-MA), pushed back firmly on what she called "cynical framing."

"People keep asking what we actually changed," she said. "But that's the wrong question. The right question is: did we remain bipartisan for nine consecutive years without anyone quitting or throwing anything? And the answer is yes. Gerald threw a pen once, but we've agreed not to count that."

Gerald could not be reached for comment. His official role remains unclear.

What Happens Next

The report's final chapter — titled, with a confidence that the preceding 846 pages arguably does not fully earn, "A Path Forward" — recommends the immediate establishment of a new Joint Implementation Commission to translate the findings into actionable policy recommendations. The new commission, the report suggests, should be bipartisan, should meet regularly, and should be given sufficient time to do its work properly.

A suggested timeline of seven to ten years has been floated, though Commission staff note this is a preliminary estimate and the actual duration will depend on parking availability.

Funding for the new commission has already been requested. A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget confirmed the request is under review, and that a task force has been assembled to evaluate it.

Experts say this is encouraging progress.

"At the end of the day," said Representative Whitmore, gathering his materials after the report's official release ceremony, which was held in a conference room that had been booked for a different meeting and had to be vacated forty minutes early, "what we've shown is that when people from different parties commit to working together over a sustained period of time, extraordinary things become possible. Not inevitable. But possible. And I think that's a message worth spending nine years delivering."

The report is available on the Commission's website, which was last updated in 2021 but which staff describe as "functionally adequate."