The nation\u2019s presidential candidates have been so busy politicking that they\u2019ve paid too little attention to their ultimate goal \u2014 governing.<\/p>\n
Only within the last two weeks have the campaigns of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump named the leaders of their transition teams. President Joe Biden didn\u2019t have a transition operation in place that Harris could use.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s late in the day,\u201d is Max Stier\u2019s sober assessment of the candidates\u2019 timing.<\/p>\n
As president and CEO of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, which started the Center for Presidential Transition in 2008, Stier has closely watched and participated in the unglamorous, unseen work of changing the nation\u2019s administrations.<\/p>\n
While the candidates are slacking in their transition duties, administration officials say their agencies are meeting government timelines. This week the General Services Administration (GSA), which has a leading role in presidential transitions, offered both candidates office space and services, which will be available when the campaigns are ready to use them.<\/p>\n
Although Election Day is more than two months away, time is critical because organizing a new administration is a mammoth task.<\/p>\n
The tardiness means transition leaders will have much to accomplish without much time. Harris chose Yohannes Abraham, who directed Biden\u2019s transition into the White House before serving as chief of staff and executive secretary of the National Security Council and then U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Trump named two transition co-chairs, Howard Lutnick, chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services firm, and Linda McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration when Trump was president.<\/p>\n
Since 2012, \u201cmodern presidential candidates have started their transition work substantially earlier, in springtime of the election year,\u201d Stier said at a press briefing, \u201cbecause of a recognition of the lift that is really involved \u2026 it is possible to try and catch up. But the reality is that both candidates have a lot to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither campaign responded to questions, so we don\u2019t know their excuses for their tardiness.<\/p>\n
Not knowing Biden would withdraw his candidacy until last month, Harris had a late start as a presidential candidate and all that comes with it. Unfortunately for her, she couldn\u2019t convert Biden\u2019s transition effort because he didn\u2019t have \u201ca real transition operation to inherit,\u201d Stier said during a phone interview.<\/p>\n
Trump should know the importance of an early start, but his two transitions, entering and leaving the White House, after the 2016 and 2020 elections respectively, were examples of what not to do. He had a good transition operation for 2016 led by former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, until Christie was abruptly fired soon after Trump\u2019s electoral college victory. Other staffers quickly were purged. Disruption and delay followed.<\/p>\n
No transition, hopefully, will ever be as calamitous as the one following the 2020 vote, when Trump would not admit he lost the election. Even before the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, a violent attempt to remain in office that Trump has been federally charged with instigating, \u201cthere were many instances,\u201d Stier said, of \u201coutright hostility or lack of cooperation\u201d toward the incoming Biden administration.<\/p>\n
By being late to the game, \u201cthe danger is they\u2019re not going to be prepared on day one,\u201d said Gail Lovelace, a former GSA director presidential transition. \u201cYou want them to be able to hit the ground running on January 20th at 12 noon,\u201d Inauguration Day.<\/p>\n
To facilitate that, GSA\u2019s Aimee Whiteman, the federal transition coordinator, wrote to Harris and Trump on Tuesday offering \u201cassistance and a variety of services, including office space, furniture, equipment, and other incidental services.\u201d<\/p>\n
Office spaces, with laptops and other technology, are ready for both candidates\u2019 teams in GSA\u2019s headquarters on F Street NW, allowing for some potentially politically charged elevator encounters. The space is large enough for at least 100 staffers per candidate, according to a report Whiteman sent to Congress in May. The agency has a $10.4 million budget for pre-election services in fiscal 2024 and requested $11.2 million for fiscal 2025, which includes $7.2 million for post-election, incoming administration expenses.<\/p>\n
Noting the expected hiring of 4,000 political appointees, including 1,300 needing Senate confirmation, and the preparation required \u201cto assume the massive responsibility of the operations and management and services of over 400 federal entities,\u201d Center for Presidential Transition Director Valerie Smith Boyd told reporters \u201cthe period between the election and the inauguration is just too short to do all of that work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, \u201cit\u2019s never too late,\u201d Stier added, \u201cYou have the time that you have. It is a much harder task when you effectively \u2026 cut it by \u2026 four months, in terms of what would be ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The nation\u2019s presidential candidates have been so busy politicking that they\u2019ve paid too little attention to their ultimate goal \u2014 governing. Only within the last two weeks have the campaigns of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump named the leaders of their transition teams. President Joe Biden didn\u2019t have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}