The 2000-01 Presidential Transition: Planning, Goals and RealityAuthor(s): Clay JohnsonSource: PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Mar., 2002), pp. 51-53Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1554762 .

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The 2000-01 Presidential Transition:

Planning, Goals and Reality he circumstances of the 2000-2001

presidential transition will never be repeated, or at least I hope not for the

sake of all concerned. Nevertheless, what we planned and what actually happened are highly relevant to future transition efforts. Most observers agree that the Bush-Cheney Administration got off to a strong start in large part because it made good use of the time available to it during the abbreviated transition period. Under- standing this may help future presidents- elect plan their own transitions.

Transition Planning

In the spring of 1999 I was Governor George W. Bush's appointments director, in charge of a small group that helped the governor appoint about 4000 people to different state boards and commissions and full-time positions. When the governor decided to run for president, he asked me

to succeed his chief of staff who was leaving to

by direct the campaign. He also asked me to develop Clay Johnson, a plan for setting up his

Executive Director, Bush- new administration; or as Cheney Transition he put it, "Develop a

Cheney Transition plan for what we should do after we win."

The first thing I did was read all that I could on the subject of presidential transitions. The Clinton transition difficulties had prompted a number of books, articles, and studies on the topic; so there were some good histori- cal comparisons and analyses to digest. In the spring of 2000 I also began to visit with the likes of Jim Baker, George Shultz, and Ed Meese, who had been involved in setting up and guiding previous adminis- trations at the highest levels. I thought the most important conclusions from all this input were as follows:

* Campaign leaders should not be in charge of the transition. Campaigns are about winning while transitions are about preparing to govern. Campaign leaders are unlikely to have any time to work on the transition before the election, as is necessary. Also, transition leadership cannot be working long hours to set up a new administration if they are also recovering from the election ordeal.

* The cabinet and subcabinet selection process needs to be most effective most quickly, and

more than a discussion about who's earned serious consideration just because of their political involvement. It is important to identify desired qualities and prospective candidates before the discussions with the principals begin.

* An administration should identify the cabinet secretaries by mid-December so they can be prepared for confirmation hearings prior to Inauguration Day, but it is more important to select senior White House staff by this time. Cabinet officers can only receive clear direction from the White House if there are senior staff members in place to do so. Also, it is said that the primary focus of the White House is to maximize the value of the president's time and voice: If the senior staff is not in place when the president is inaugurated, the value of his time and voice during the most critical "launch phase" of the administration is likely not to be maximized.

* The American public pays a lot of attention to how a president-elect acts prior to his or her inauguration, as they want to begin to understand what kind of president he or she will be.

* Congress and the career executives pay a lot of attention to how a new administration reaches out to and communicates with them: They hope for a lot of collaboration but fear an adversarial relationship.

* Incoming job seekers and advice givers can overwhelm a transition effort, causing the entire effort to be reactive instead of proactive.

Additionally, beyond these transition- specific matters, in any organization, but especially one that has to accomplish a lot in a short period of time, it is important to have a lot of accountability and clarity. Everybody has to know who is supposed to do what, with whom, by when.

Transition Goals

Based on this review of past efforts, we laid out the following goals for ourselves to prepare to assume all executive branch responsibilities on Inauguration Day: * Clearly communicate that we are aggres-

sively preparing to govern, that we are operating without hubris or triumphant partisanship, that we are experienced and not neophytes, that we are ethical, and that we understand that the presi-

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dent-elect is not the president until noon on January 20.

* Select the senior White House staff, an organizational structure, and decision-making process by mid-December.

* Select the cabinet secretaries by Christmas and have them briefed and ready for confirmation hearings by January 8. Also have in place by Inauguration Day an organization capable of identifying, clearing and nominating 165 or more people by April 30, which is as many as any recent administration has sent to the Senate by the hundredth day.

* Summarize all cabinet department priorities, issues, and facts, and the campaign promises related to each, in order to prepare the new secretaries for assuming responsibility for their departments.

Lines of comm"unication. President George W. Bush talks with Clay Johr the Oval Office. White House photo by Eric Draper.

* Prepare to proactively reach out to Congress, supporters, trade associations, well-wishers, and job seekers in order to show our interest in them and to connect with them in a manner and according to a timetable that was of our choosing. Especially establish a strong working relationship with Congress.

* Develop a preliminary 20-day, 100-day, and 180-day schedule for the president to guide the initial focus for his energies and time.

* Prepare to present the new administration's proposed budget changes by mid-February.

* Review the executive order and regulatory issues requiring immediate attention by the new administration.

Then-Governor Bush and senior campaign officials agreed to these goals around June of 2000, as did Dick Cheney in August. Parenthetically, no one working on the campaign wanted to or really could focus on transition issues; the transition discussions were promised to be brief or discussed over lunch.

In pursuit of these goals, before the election, we:

* committed to take in job applicant information by means of the Internet and a special website (instead of scanning resumes as

the Clinton administration had decided to do, to their conster- nation, as we learned); we committed to the development of the site and related software in August;

* estimated that the transition would cost about $8.5 million, which was about what the Clinton administration had spent eight years earlier and $4+million more than was to be provided by the U.S. Government to support the effort; hence we alerted the finance people about the need to field a direct-mail fundraising effort right after the election;

* drafted letters and emails to be sent at the start of the transition to donors, supporters, congressmen, senators, governors, and mayors about how to apply for or recommend someone for an

appointment, how to provide policy input, and how to volunteer;

* determined that we wanted only small teams to prepare briefing books for, and interact with, each cabinet department rather than assemble larger "transition teams" including lobbyists and job seekers. After the transition started we decided we

j.. . wanted to involve trade associations, lobbyists, and the like but only as advisors; we put together large advisory groups and let them advise the department policy teams as they saw fit, but did not let them interface directly with the departments.

Additionally, I talked to policy advisors and senior officials from previous administrations about the types of people we should look at for the different cabinet secretary positions, and specific people we might consider. I did not contact anyone to express our interest or determine theirs, but I collected about 200 names with which to begin the discussions with the president- and vice president-elect when appropriate.

In August, Governor Bush asked Dick Cheney to head the transition, because no one

ison in knew Washington better, had more credibility with Congress, or could better represent or communicate our preparedness for the responsi-

bilities at hand. The governor also came to understand the importance of having his chief of staff-designate on the ground, working to put the senior White House staff together the day after the election; Bush turned his attention away from the campaign long enough to offer the position to Andy Card a couple of weeks before the election.

The Transition Itself: Reality

The election, as everyone knows, just would not end. The legal maneuverings and chad counting in Florida occupied most everyone in Austin for the first few weeks after election day. Andy Card, though, began to formulate his thoughts about the senior White House staff and organization structure, with input from Governor Bush, Dick Cheney and campaign and governor's office officials. At least once per week we had brainstorming sessions about possible candidates for different cabinet positions. No candidate was contacted, but starting with the sugges- tions I had compiled before the election, we put together a short list of people to consider most seriously once the election was decided. I talked to a few people within the campaign and governor's office about the prospect of

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joining presidential personnel, but felt it premature to talk to anybody from Washington who could add DC savvy to our operation. We finalized the transition website and prepared to produce the letters and emails that we would send to supporters of all kinds, about how to interact most effectively with the transition, once (and if) it officially began.

When the count in Florida was certified by the Florida secretary of state, Dick Cheney pushed to open a privately funded transition office in McLean, Virginia. The election was not officially over at this point, which meant that government space and funds were not yet available to us. Nevertheless we considered it critical that we begin the transition. Dick Cheney assembled a small group to secure space, furniture, and computers, and had a longtime associate put together a congressional liaison group. The finance people set out to raise the necessary funds. A dozen of us flew from Texas to set up presidential person- nel and press offices and to organize the department policy teams. We stayed in twice-daily contact with the president-elect, campaign leadership and Andy Card in Austin. Everything was happening at warp speed. Within a week, with the invaluable assistance of the miracle workers who set up the office, we were effectively pursu- ing our outreach, press, department policy, and personnel goals.

Al Gore conceded the election on December 13. Within 10 days, the entire McLean operation moved to the government space at 1800 G Street, NW. We turned on the transition web site to answer commonly asked questions and receive applications... about 40,000 in a few weeks time, as it turned out. We also sent out the emails and letters to tell supporters how to connect with us. We were effectively managing the incoming flow of advice, requests, and job seeking, from the beginning.

Within days of Gore's concession to Governor Bush, Andy Card began to formally designate members of the White House senior staff, which was only about a week later than we would have hoped for in a normal transition. Andy had conference calls or meetings with this senior staff group, twice per day up to the inauguration, to get the group used to working together to maximize the value of the president-elect's time and voice, as they would once he was president.

We contacted cabinet secretary prospects and consid- ered different combinations of people. Because Bush and Cheney are decisive, the selection process went quickly; we had talked about the kinds of people we were looking for, and we had already pared down an initial list of prospects. Once we selected a finalist for a position, we were quickly able to assess any potential conflicts or clearance issues by having the finalist talk to Fred Field- ing, President Reagan's first White House Counsel, who oversaw the clearance process at the start of that adminis- tration. Fred's experience allowed us to go public with our choices very quickly after selection, sometimes in a matter of hours. Only one clearance problem developed during this period.

A volunteer confirmation "shepherd" was assigned to each secretary designate to introduce them to the relevant senators, help them with their confirmation paperwork, and prepare them for their hearing. All these shepherds had successfully managed the confirmation process for high-level appointees in previous administrations.

We also assigned a presidential personnel person to each prospective secretary, and made it very clear that we intended to put their subcabinet together in collaboration with them: We were going to do it with them, not to them, and vice versa. We explained our wish to talk about desired qualities for each position before we talked about specific candidates. It took us from a few days to a month to establish an effective personnel-selection process with each of the secretaries, but in the end both the president and the secretary felt very good about the subcabinet selections.

The secretary-designates spent a lot of time in Washing- ton during the last few weeks of the transition. We set aside offices for them in an area we called "Secretaries Row," with the benefit being that they got to know one another before the administration began.

We put together the department briefing books with a minimum disruption to the departments because of the small transition teams utilized. A fiscal swat team was convened to help the new OMB director-designate start to put the Bush-Cheney imprint on the federal budget. Additionally, individuals were charged to put together tentative post-inaugural presidential schedules and to review existing executive orders and pending regulations for possible modification.

Throughout the transition, the president-elect met with legislators and individual groups such as farmers, educa- tors, and technology executives who were interested in his priorities. The vice president-elect and the transition congressional liaison group interacted with legislators, welcoming their input, answering their questions and keeping them updated. The reality and the message were that this new administration was working hard with Congress to follow through on the promises that had been made during the campaign.

In all, we engaged approximately 800 people in the transition effort and spent approximately what we had budgeted, $8.5 million. We involved fewer people than either the Reagan or Clinton transitions, but we spent money on things that no one could have anticipated, like a couple of weeks of transition infrastructure before the election was actually finalized.

Conclusions

As the election went on and on and on, and the amount of time for transition to a new administration shrunk, we kept reviewing the goals we had identified for the transi- tion to see if there was anything that we should drop because there was not enough time to get it done. Every- thing on the list seemed doable and relevant to assuming the responsibilities of the executive branch on January 20. So we just made sure it all got done.

We did not work as much on the subcabinet selections during the transition as we had planned originally, but we caught up less than a month into the administration. We had a successful transition overall, because we were focused and had prepared to be proactive. It was very, very intense. Grown people, male and female, cried during this transition, sometimes on their way home from work, and sometimes in the office late at night. But as I under- stand it, grown people cry during a normal presidential transition, too.

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