Who We are
Daniel Schuman is the Executive Director of the American Governance Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the institutions of American democracy.
A nationally recognized authority on the federal government, Daniel has built a career advancing accountability, transparency, and reform across all branches. His work centers on strengthening Congress, ensuring effective checks on executive power, modernizing government technology, professionalizing the legislative branch workforce, improving ethics and oversight processes, and empowering civil society to make government more responsive to the people it serves.
Daniel is widely regarded for his deep expertise in congressional operations, the appropriations process, legislative rules and procedures, and the broader architecture of government accountability.
He is the founder and editor of the First Branch Forecast, a widely read weekly newsletter on congressional capacity and oversight. He has spearheaded the creation and improvement of numerous federal transparency tools, including EveryCRSReport.com, which opened public access to more than 20,000 Congressional Research Service reports. Daniel also co-founded the Congressional Data Coalition, co-directs the Advisory Committee on Transparency, and convenes the OpenGov Roundtable, a longstanding civil-society forum on government reform. He also serves as an instructor in the Data Skills for Congress certificate program at the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.
Daniel frequently testifies before Congress and advises policymakers, journalists, and advocates on issues of transparency and modernization. His insights and initiatives have been featured in outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Roll Call, Politico, FedScoop, Wired, The Hill, and C-SPAN.
He earned his B.A. in political science and philosophy and his J.D. from Emory University.
Chris Nehls is Special Policy Advisor at the American Governance Institute, a non-profit organization focused on strengthening the institutions of American government.
For more than a decade, Chris has contributed to the democracy reform field as a writer, strategic thinker, and organization builder. He developed the strategic plan for the Democracy Fund’s Governance Initiative, the blueprint for its subsequent tens of millions of dollars in grantmaking in democratic institutional reform, transparency, and political depolarization. As a senior program officer, he provided essential early funding to several nonprofits and projects that improved the technological capacity, knowledge base, and funding of the Legislative branch.
Chris joined AGI after working with Demand Progress and the POPVOX Foundation, writing the leading congressional newsletter the First Branch Forecast and providing strategic planning and project support.
Before joining the nonprofit field, Chris worked at CQ-Roll Call as a researcher, contributing writer to CQ Weekly, and founding editor of its digital advocacy blog. He also launched a smart cities newsletter for FierceMarkets.
Chris earned a B.A. in English and History and a PhD in U.S. History from the University of Virginia. His work on early 20th Century political culture and nationalism is published in several journals and a essay collection.