Distinguishing between which new administration officials have been officially named -- and which ones are merely rumored -- can give anyone a headache. In order to alleviate the confusion, NationalJournal.com has compiled a list of the 36 new appointees who have been announced by Barack Obama's camp since his election on Nov. 4.
Notice that some major names and positions are missing, including Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of State, Tom Daschle for Health and Human Services secretary and rumored Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. None of these appointments have officially been announced, but many expect announcements to be made after the Thanksgiving weekend. Here's a rundown of the major announcements, cataloged by announcement date, as of Wednesday.
There's a Lincoln biography under President-elect Barack Obama's arm, and it's not the one you think.
On Saturday night, the president-elect was photographed carrying Fred Kaplan's Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer as he left the Chicago home of friend and booster Penny Pritzker. The book traces Abraham Lincoln's self-education, from his love of the Bible and Shakespeare to his development as a writer and avid reader.
Kaplan, who said he supported Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy but was quickly won over by Obama when he became the nominee, was "thrilled" when he saw photographs of his book tucked under the president-elect's arm. He noted that for all the Obama-Lincoln comparisons, their educations couldn't have been more different: Honest Abe was almost entirely self-educated, while Obama attended the nation's best schools, from the Punahou School in Hawaii to Columbia University to Harvard Law. But that's not the end of the story, Kaplan added.
President-elect Barack Obama has used this short week to dominate the news cycle with announcements on how he intends to fix the ailing economy. Speaking in Chicago today for his third consecutive midday press conference, Obama revealed his plan to create a special advisory panel led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.
Obama said his new President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, modeled on President Eisenhower's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, would bring together experts "from diverse backgrounds outside of government -- from business, labor, academia and other areas -- who will bring to bear their wisdom and expertise on the formulation, implementation and evaluation of my administration's economic recovery plan." He explained the need for such a group by acknowledging that "sometimes policymaking in Washington can become too insular." It is crucial that the White House get input from people around the country about how its economic recovery plan is playing out on the ground, he said.
Volcker, the Fed chairman from 1979 to 1987 and a close adviser to Obama throughout his campaign, will serve as the board's chairman. Obama praised Volcker as "one of the world's foremost economic policy experts" and someone who has provided "keen insight into the global nature of this particular crisis."
"He pulls no punches. He seems to be fairly opinionated," Obama quipped, elicitng a chuckle from Volcker.
Austan Goolsbee, another close adviser to Obama, has been tapped as the board's staff director and chief economist and will act as the "primary liaison" between the group and the White House. Obama also announced that he intends to appoint Goolsbee as one of the three members of the Council of Economic Advisers.
The rest of the board's members will be selected over the coming weeks, the president-elect said.
Challenged by a reporter on whether the Clinton administration officials surfacing on his team represent the "change" he promised during his campaign, Obama insisted that his goal is to find people who combine experience with fresh thinking. It is the president's job to provide the vision for where he wants to take the country, and to select a team that can carry out those plans, Obama said. He added that Americans would probably be alarmed if he chose, for example, a Treasury secretary with no Washington experience to steer the country through the current economic crisis.
Obama also told the press that his family will be doing its part to stimulate the economy this weekend, as they plan on getting some Christmas shopping done. "Malia and Sasha have already put their lists together," he said, attempting to inject a note of optimism into his comments. While Americans are alarmed about their family budgets, "people should understand that help is on the way," he reassured viewers. "I hope that everyone understands that we are going to be able to get through these tough times, but we're just going to have to make some good choices."
John Brennan, reportedly Barack Obama's top choice for director of the CIA, withdrew his name from consideration in a letter to Obama on Tuesday after the liberal blogosphere erupted in protest. A top adviser to George Tenet when he held the agency's top post under President Bush, Brennan is associated with some of the Bush administration's most controversial policies, including harsh interrogation methods and warrantless wiretapping. The left seems to be responding to the news with jubilation. Here is a sampling of reactions from liberal bloggers.
Glenn Greenwald calls Brennan's withdrawal "the best political news I've heard since the election." "It's unclear if it was Obama or Brennan who was the catalyst for this decision, but either way, it's to be celebrated," he adds.
Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft gloats: "In case people were wondering, THIS is why you do not wait to express your 'concern' about issues and personnel."
Digby is "gratified that liberal blogs are considered critics with enough stature to sink a potential CIA chief." He acknowledges, however, that this probably "has more to do with Obama's foreign policy. He simply cannot be seen around the world to be backtracking on torture, Gitmo and the rest."
Daily Kos' mcjoan agrees that "morally and politically, this is an extremely positive development." At a time when the new administration's focus should be on the economy, mcjoan argues, "Brennan is a distraction Obama didn't need to have, and his confirmation hearings would have been ugly, not only over the torture issue, but because Brennan was a full-throated supporter of telco amnesty and warrantless wiretapping."
Gun Toting Liberal accuses Brennan of "playing victim" and presents a mock version of his withdrawal letter.
President-elect Barack Obama wants to keep his BlackBerry, he told Barbara Walters, because "one of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day" (Chicago Tribune).
Saddled with low morale and a string of high-profile failures, the Food and Drug Administration will be looking to the new administration for an infusion of cash, manpower, technology and leadership (Washington Post).
After his chairmanships were nearly stripped from him, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn., has been effusive in his praise for Obama, calling his actions since Election Day "just about perfect" (AP).
Obama will tap former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to chair a new White House advisory board charged with stabilizing the financial markets and pulling the nation back from a recession (Wall Street Journal).
What Vice President-elect Joe Biden's role in the Obama administration is shaping up to be is more trusted confidante than task-master for a particular set of issues (New York Times).
The oil and natural gas industry's new top lobbyist doubts Obama can slash American consumption of oil by 10 million barrels a day by 2030 (Washington Times).
Some union advocates are dismayed that Obama is not giving labor a higher profile as he cobbles together his economic team, especially considering the millions of dollars unions spent getting Obama elected (Politico).
"Test The Mettle Of This Guy"
Obama will keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates at his post, making it the "first time a Pentagon chief has been carried over from a president of a different party" (New York Times).
Obama will tap retired Marine Gen. James Jones to be national security adviser, according to Democratic sources (AP).
John Brennan, a CIA veteran whose links to controversial CIA programs drew scorn in the liberal blogosphere, withdrew his name from contention to be the agency's next director (New York Times).
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev appears to be providing Obama with the "generated crisis" that Biden warned about during the campaign, as tough talk is emanating from Moscow and the Russian navy is beginning joint exercises with Venezuela's military (Politico).
Lean Times
Obama vowed Tuesday to trim wasteful spending from the federal budget to help pay for new programs aimed at rejuvenating the economy (New York Times).
Obama's new budget director, Peter Orszag, likes to find common sense solutions to problems that don't always involve spending money (Wall Street Journal).
Inauguration Conflagration
Obama plans to limit contributions for his inaugural festivities to $50,000 a person and bar special interests from donating entirely (New York Times).
Can't get tickets to the real thing? Check out the inauguration rehearsal on Jan. 11, complete with music, a parade and a fake swearing-in (Washington Post).
Barack Obama's announcement of Peter Orszag as his nominee to head the Office of Budget and Management -- a pick that was first broken by Lost in Transition last week -- and his pick of Rob Nabors as OMB deputy director have received accolades from leaders of key congressional panels.
"[Orszag] is a talented economist who has provided invaluable information and insight on the federal budget," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. "He is highly regarded on both sides of the aisle. He has the rare gift of being able to translate complex economic and financial issues into clear, concise and understandable language. And his focus on addressing the growing cost of health care has demonstrated his firm grasp of the tremendous budget challenges our nation faces in the years ahead."
House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., called Nabors a "first-rate addition" to Obama's team. "Rob Nabors has mastered both the process and substance of congressional appropriations," Spratt said. "While we will miss him in the House, I believe that Rob will strengthen the ties between Congress and OMB."
Republicans also were effusive in their praise for Orszag.
On NationalJournal.com's lobbying blog, Under The Influence, Bara Vaidatakes note of the inaugural committee's newly announced prohibition on lobbyist and overseas donations:
President-elect Obama announced his inaugural committee will not accept contributions from corporations, political action committees, current federally registered lobbyists, non-U.S. citizens and registered foreign agents. Individual contributions will also be capped at $50,000 - though there is no law requiring this limit.
But putting such restrictions in place is sometimes easier said than done. Last month at NationalJournal.com, Neil Munroreportedon the permeability of the Obama campaign's online donation system.
John Brennan, President-elect Obama's intelligence adviser and the person many thought would head the CIA, has formally withdrawn his name from consideration "for a position within the intelligence community." (Read the letter here [PDF].)
Why is this important? The netroots, liberal bloggers and others on Obama's left flank have been furious over the idea that Brennan might get a senior post because he has been associated with some of the Bush administration's harshest intelligence tactics, including waterboarding, overseas detention and domestic surveillance. As the intensity of criticism increased, team Obama seems to have decided it was best for Brennan to stand down. This is an important victory for the left base, which was still feeling the sting of Obama's decision earlier this year to vote for enhanced surveillance powers.
In an interview with National Journal earlier this year, Brennan revealed that he differed with Obama over the thorny issue of immunity for companies that assisted the government with warrantless surveillance of Americans. In the wake of that interview and other reporting on Brennan's policy positions, bloggers launched a Web-wide campaign to scuttle his nomination.
In the NJ interview, conducted eight months before the election, Brennan distanced himself from some of the Bush policies and struck a pragmatic pose on surveillance policies:
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the threshold [for gathering intelligence about terrorist suspects], quite frankly, was low, because we didn't know the nature of the threat we faced here in the U.S. Every effort was made by the government to try to get as much understanding and visibility into what else might be out there that's going to hurt us again. Now that a number of years have passed, we need to make sure the calibration is important. But maybe in a period of heightened threat you have to recalibrate that based on new information you have -- new intelligence that's going to give you a better sense of where to aim your magnet.
Brennan's departure could put a crimp in the transition team's plans to roll out its top security picks. But the bigger issue here is that, when pressed from his left on national security, Obama conceded. It's difficult to imagine that Brennan made this decision without consulting the president-elect first.
UPDATE: According to an Obama transition spokesperson, Brennan will remain on the team as an adviser during the transition period. A formal statement is expected shortly.
Local colleges have a message for students looking to cash in on the inauguration housing shortage: not a chance.
Last week, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fentyrelaxed city regulations requiring citizens to obtain business licenses before renting their homes, removing legal hurdles for District residents looking to capitalize on the more than one million revelers expected to flood the city. But Fenty's magnanimity did not clear the way for students to sublet their dorm rooms and, so far, colleges aren't in such a generous mood.
Within walking distance of the White House, George Washington University's student housing is prime real estate for would-be inauguration revelers. Dozens of modest studio apartments in Foggy Bottom are already renting from $500 to more than $1,000 a night on craigslist for the days surrounding Jan. 20.
But GWU is moving quickly to ward off similar gouging in its own dorms. Housing officials e-mailed students a special inauguration guest policy last week, limiting the number of visitors in each dorm that week and creating a first-come, first-served online registration system. Halfway into the notice, red letters in large font announce, "Students are reminded that they are not permitted to sublease or rent their space per the terms of the Undergraduate Housing License Agreement."
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce official predicted a "firestorm" on Capitol Hill over the Employee Free Choice Act in a press conference today at the chamber's Washington headquarters. Randel Johnson, the organization's vice president of labor, discussed the chamber's efforts against the legislation and where he sees it fitting into the agendas of both the incoming administration and Congress.
The EFCA is designed to make it easier for unions to organize by allowing them to be recognized if a majority of workers sign cards -- hence the nickname "card check" bill. Opponents counter that the legislation would get rid of the current system of organizing -- the secret ballot -- and create an environment where union bosses dominate and workers feel intimidated. In the latest issue of National Journal, Peter H. Stonedelves into the battle between business and labor interests. (The article is available to subscribers only.)
Johnson today released the first part of a report that aims to counter many of the arguments EFCA supporters put forth. The report, which is part of a nearly $10 million campaign against the bill, includes seven booklets featuring studies, polls and data that argue Americans want less unionization, not more, and that the workplace isn't as bad as union backers make it seem. The next booklet will be released next week, and the rest by the end of December, Johnson said.
With President-elect Barack Obama's administration coming together and most congressional races settled, Johnson said the chamber plans to ramp up its anti-EFCA efforts -- through polling, the report and TV ads.
"We are doing our best to point out to the administration that this will be a firestorm on Capitol Hill, bordering on Armageddon," Johnson said. "Mr. President-elect, when you peel back the onion, you'll find that there isn't much behind what the unions are alleging."
Predicting that Congress would consider the bill by April, Johnson said the chamber aims to "put a brake on the administration and the Democratic leadership." He said that less drastic alterations to current labor law should be examined before lawmakers consider the "sweeping" changes put forth in the EFCA.
Labor Vs. Business, On The Airwaves
At least three third parties are already up and running with TV spots on the issue: American Rights At Work, which supports the legislation, and two anti-EFCA groups: the Employee Freedom Action Committee and Americans For Job Security. The chamber is also gearing up to produce its own post-election TV campaign, Johnson said. Likening the bill to big government will be a primary focus, he said.
More Coverage Of The USCC
Where does the chamber stand on other battles stirring on the Hill over new policy for the upcoming year? National Journal recently sat down with Chamber President and CEO Thomas Donohue and Executive Vice President for Government Affairs R. Bruce Josten to find out.
The Congressional Budget Office this afternoon announced that deputy director Robert Sunshine will step into Peter Orszag's shoes on an interim basis now that Orszag is stepping down as director to head the Office of Management and Budget. Sunshine has been with CBO since 1976 and assumed the post of deputy director last year. He will serve as acting director until a successor is appointed by the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate.
Orszag anounced his resignation today after President-elect Obama named him to lead OMB. In his final post on the CBO director's blog -- yes, such a thing exists -- Orszag bid a fond adieu to his staff, writing, "I have absolutely loved my time at CBO.... Perhaps most fundamentally, CBO is a reflection of the smart and hard-working but also warm and wonderful people who work here. (If you find it hard to believe that budget analysts and economists can be warm and wonderful, please just take my word for it.)"
As first reported by National Journal's Alexis Simendingerlast week, Barack Obama has selected Peter Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget. President-elect Obama made the appointment official at a press conference this afternoon, where he also named Rob Nabors as deputy OMB director.
As Barack Obama begins to assemble his team, the pundits are weighing in on his selections and what they may say about his leadership style. Here is a sampling of Tuesday's transition-related op-eds.
Eugene Robinson is alarmed by the power vacuum that seems to be developing as Obama and President Bush share the spotlight. "Having two presidents is starting to feel like having no president, and that's the situation we'll face until Inauguration Day. Heaven help us."
E.J. Dionne lavishes praise on Obama's economic team, contending that "getting Timothy Geithner and former Treasury secretary Larry Summers working in harness is Obama's single biggest post-election victory."
H.D.S. Greenway expresses reservations about Obama's selection of Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of State and maintains that "a team of rivals can have its down side."
In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Cox Newspapers' Tom Teepen senses that so far "Obama seems to be disappointing his most ardent detractors and his most ardent supporters about equally" with his appointments. But, he says, "the impression grows of an emerging administration that may disappoint the right's eagerly fearful and the left's moonbeamers, but is being readied for the practical political work of forward-leaning change."
Rich Lowry is thankful that "Obama's airy rhetoric about a new kind of politics was more a pitch for impressionable new voters than a description of his governing style," arguing that so far the president-elect "has acted with a ruthless pragmatism."
In the Washington Times, Daniel Gallington, former general counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee, who has "been through several transitions of government," asserts that the process is "pretty much like everything else that goes on in Washington: Like sausage, it's probably best not to see it made." He holds out hope, however, that Obama "understands the inherent weaknesses of the typical transition 'process,'" and is trying to do things differently.
Pundits highlight Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama's differences on Iraq and Iran, and warn that they must work together seamlessly if she becomes secretary of state.
Over on National Journal's lobbying blog, Bara Vaidanotes that, although the Democratic women's group EMILY's List did not fare particularly well(subscription) in the 2008 election, they got a boost this weekend when Barack Obama brought them onboard his incoming White House team:
The group just received a huge vote of confidence from President-elect Obama. He has hired Ellen Moran, the executive director of EMILY's List, as White House director of communications. The move came even though EMILY's List played hardball against Obama during the primaries and questioned his pro-choice credentials. Clearly, Obama is looking to the future and not the past and the hire is very good for the group, which only endorses pro-choice female candidates.
Today, President-elect Barack Obama will make an economic announcement at a press conference in Chicago. The press conference will be held at the Hilton Chicago at 11:00 AM Central Time. Vice President-elect Joe Biden will hold private meetings in Delaware and has no public events scheduled.
Check back with Lost In Transition later this afternoon for video and more details of Obama's economic presser.
An ethics investigation into Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., may hamper his work as Ways and Means Committee chairman -- and cause a distraction as President-elect Barack Obama pushes a new tax policy (Politico).
John Brennan, "a 25-year veteran of the CIA who helped establish the National Counterterrorism Center and was its first director in 2004," is a leading candidate for either CIA director or national intelligence director (AP).
By bringing David Axelrod to the White House, Obama is continuing "the very dubious notion of having the president's campaign strategist rubbing elbows with all the policy wonks in the West Wing" (Boston Globe).
In Desirée Rogers, the Obama are getting a White House social secretary who is a "well-known businesswoman, a Harvard M.B.A and a major fund-raiser," as well as a glittering socialite in her own right (New York Times).
President Bush granted 14 pardons and two commutations yesterday, continuing his infrequent use of the executive power (Washington Post).
Economy In Crisis
Obama's new economic team is market-oriented and favors limited government spending at a time when the prognosis for the nation's woes may require the opposite (Washington Post). The result is a centrist team charged with implementing radical economic changes (Los Angeles Times).
Obama and Bush are working closely to calm the financial markets (New York Times).
Women's groups have been silent on Larry Summers' appointment to head the National Economic Council (Washington Times), while even his harshest detractors at Harvard are cheering his nomination (Boston Globe).
Obama upbraided Detroit for asking for federal money without presenting a thorough plan, while Michigan lawmakers griped about the Citigroup bailout (Wall Street Journal).
Obama's stimulus package is expected to include long-range spending for roads, bridges, schools and clean-energy programs (Wall Street Journal).
Obama's transportation secretary will need to solve an "outdated air traffic control system, congested roads, rails and skies and crumbling highways and bridges" with dwindling funds -- a fiscal crisis that may require raising the gas tax (Washington Post).
'A Warm Bucket Of Spit'
Vice President-elect Joe Biden's Senate seat will be filled by his chief of staff and longtime friend Edward Kaufman, which clears the way for Beau Biden to run for the seat in 2010 (New York Times). But Politico reports that the move has not gone over well in Delaware.
Biden and Vice President Cheney have little in common beyond white hair, a wealth of experience and a penchant for cursing (Washington Times).
In anticipation of President-elect Barack Obama's noon press conference announcing his new economic team, bloggers are chattering about what his selections say about Obama's intentions for getting the economy going again.
Andrew Busch is relieved to see Obama pick his team early and gives the Obama camp credit for "listening to what the markets have been saying." He adds, "Clearly, the incoming Obama administration wants a continuation of the aggressive polices and programs that are in place to deal with the credit crisis."
Chris Bowers at OpenLeft believes that the selection of Timothy Geithner for Treasury secretary calls Obama's dedication to change into question: "Really? Obama is going with someone who is currently executing the bailout?" That "strikes me as less than change-y."
Lawrence Kudlow, a television commentator and former Reagan economic adviser, relates that Geithner "is highly regarded by those who worked with him as a very smart, sharp, and insightful player." He highlights Geithner's youth -- he is 47 -- and points out that "to the country at large and most of the Washington political establishment, he's a new face. Yes indeed, change is coming."
Ezra Klein at the American Prospect claims that Obama's selection of Peter Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget shows that the president-elect is serious about tackling health care. Orszag has "shown an almost single-minded focus on health care reform" during his time at the Congressional Budget Office, he said, and is preparing to release two books on the subject. Klein points out that Orszag has even taken to his own blog to refute the idea that the current economic crisis should put the brakes on a reform agenda.
U.S. News & World Report's James Pethokoukis defends the team's free-market viewpoint: "These guys are not Marxists, protectionists, or believers in a return to 90 percent marginal tax rates. They are believers in free trade," but they do believe in a larger government role in the economy -- creating a "safety net" for workers -- and in higher taxes to pay for it.
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, reported to be President-elect Barack Obama's choice for Homeland Security secretary, has made a name for herself in the illegal immigration debate. Last December, she spoke with National Journal's Lisa Caruso about the terms of the debate, crafting policy and the federal government's responsibilities.
NJ: On the national level, the Democratic presidential candidates seem wary when it comes to illegal immigration. What should they say?
Napolitano: You say, "Here's my enforcement strategy. It's multitiered: It's manpower. It's technology. It's equipment. And in my budget I'm going to put the money not only to do it but sustain it over time. Unlike my predecessors' budgets, my budgets every year will call on the Department of Homeland Security and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and local law enforcement at the border to be properly resourced so that we have continual operational control at the border.
"I'm going to direct the secretary of Labor to tell us what our labor market needs are, and we're going to adjust the visas accordingly, and we're going to put in place a process to do that, protecting jobs for American workers but realizing that we will have a national labor shortage moving forward. I'm going to pay specific attention to certain areas such as H-1B visas [for skilled workers], where there is such a demonstrated need and there's more than enough work for everyone to go around. The third thing is, we're going to deal with the 12 million in this country. We're not going to have a permanent underclass. They're going to have to pay a fine, get in line, and pay their taxes. And I don't call that amnesty."
The full interview is available to subscribers, as is Napolitano's profile in the Almanac of American Politics.
President-elect Barack Obama used his weekly radio address (now also recorded on video and posted on YouTube) to flesh out his plan to revive the stagnating economy. He opened by acknowledging that the crisis is growing worse: "We now risk falling into a deflationary spiral that could increase our massive debt even further." But he said the transition between administrations represents a potential turning point: "January 20th is our chance to begin anew -- with a new direction, new ideas, and new reforms that will create jobs and fuel long-term economic growth."
Obama said he has directed his economic advisers and Democrats on Capitol Hill to begin crafting an economic recovery plan that is focused on creating jobs -- 2.5 million by January 2011. "We'll be working out the details in the weeks ahead," Obama told listeners and viewers, but he said that he plans on signing this new legislation "soon after taking office." The president-elect wants to stimulate the economy by creating jobs in sectors he emphasized during his campaign -- rebuilding infrastructure, generating new "green" energy jobs and rebuilding and modernizing crumbling schools.
"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis; these are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long," Obama argued. He attempted to reach out to Republicans by soliciting ideas and suggestions from people on "both sides of the aisle." But he insisted on the need for "immediate action."
The president-elect put no price tag on his new stimulus plan, but experts agree that these steps signal the new administration's intention to go beyond the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and to inject perhaps hundreds of billions more into the economy.
Obama is set to announce his economic team at a noon press conference today. Timothy Geithner, the current president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is expected to be named Treasury secretary, while former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers is to be the director of the National Economic Council in the White House and Peter Orszag, head of the Congressional Budget Office, will become the next White House budget director. By putting his team in place early, Obama hopes to demonstrate that he is serious about acting quickly on fixing the economy and calming investors' fears before conditions get even worse.
The National Archives and Records Administration sent agency officials who safeguard classified material a reminder Nov. 17 that government secrets should not slip away from government protection because the Bush administration is on its way out. "The responsibility to protect classified information, including information stored in one's memory, does not end with an individual's departure from government service," NARA wrote.
Bill Clinton's eleventh-hour pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich may come back to haunt Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama's likely choice for attorney general and the man who signed off on the pardon recommendation (Wall Street Journal).
Obama has yet to attend church since Election Day, opting to hit the gym on Sundays instead (Politico).
Many of the Republicans being mentioned as possible members of the Obama administration have ties to Brent Scowcroft, a former Bush adviser who has stressed the importance of an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord (Wall Street Journal).
Even if Obama closes Guantanamo Bay prison, there are 20 to 30 prisoners "that present serious, serious problems" that may end up being detained indefinitely anyway (Los Angeles Times).
Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of State Cordell Hull offers some parallels -- both good and bad -- for Hillary Clinton and her possible new post (Los Angeles Times).
Obama has struck a bipartisan tone so far, which is winning plaudits from Republicans but rankling some on the left (New York Times).
First Family Adjusts
Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, advised Michelle Obama to "learn to like the back seat" in a Times of London column this month, one of the many pieces of advice being thrown at the incoming First Lady (New York Times).
Obama has "lamented the way his public rise has infringed upon his personal space" during the last five years, and moving to the White House will upset his routines even more (Washington Post).
Economy In Transition
Obama will likely delay his controversial tax increase for the wealthiest Americans until after 2010 (New York Times).
Obama will tap Christina Romer, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, to head the Council of Economic Advisers (New York Times).
The economic stimulus package will need to be bigger than originally thought, a top Obama adviser said today (Reuters).
Obama will formally name Timothy Geithner his Treasury Secretary today, a top adviser said (Washington Times).
Obama will name New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, his one-time rival for the Democratic presidential nomination and a former Energy Secretary, his Commerce Secretary (AP).
Inauguration Conflagration
African Americans comprise a large chunk of the millions expected to descend upon Washington for the inauguration (AP).
Young military officers are vying for the coveted spots escorting VIPs around town during inauguration festivities (Washington Post).
Demand for inauguration tickets is outstripping supply across the country -- even in heavily Republican congressional districts (Politico).
Backers of a public service academy are optimistic that their proposal will gather momentum under President-elect Barack Obama, and possibly even gain approval during the new administration's first year.
Chris Myers Asch, one of the architects of the proposal, said the creation of the academy could be a hallmark of Obama's first term in office, much like the introduction of the Peace Corps was for John F. Kennedy in 1961, and the AmeriCorps program was for former President Clinton in 1993.
"The Peace Corps is the best historical precedent," Asch said. "An incoming president has this idea that he wants to create a legacy in public service, and he often does that in the beginning of the first year. We see the academy as being that institution, that legacy of service for this president."
Legislation introduced during the 110th Congress by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Reps. Jim Moran, D-Va., and Chris Shays, R-Conn., would have established a 5,000-person undergraduate public service academy, on par with the nation's military academies, to restore prestige to public institutions and to attract young people to government jobs.
The academy would be free to students, at an annual cost of $205 million to taxpayers. After graduation, students would repay the country by spending at least five years working for the government at the local, state or federal level. Supporters say the academy would help the nation combat potential acts of terrorism and natural disasters and offset an anticipated wave of retirements.
Given the ability of the Obama transition team so far to control the flow of information from its office to reporters, this afternoon's relative deluge of appointment news represents either an unprecedented breakdown of message control or a concerted effort to let names slip out the weekend before Thanksgiving.
Just in the past several hours, the New York Times reported that Hillary Rodham Clinton had accepted Barack Obama's offer to be secretary of State; New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner was widely said to have been tapped as Treasury secretary; GovExec's Tom Shoop broke the news that Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown was being vetted for Veterans Affairs chief; and the Washington Post mentioned Bill Richardson for Commerce secretary.
The Obama team did something similar last week, dumping more than 100 names of its agency review teams after 3 p.m. on Friday. Why wait until the end of the weekly news cycle -- and the traditional graveyard of bad news -- to release the names of their best and brightest? The transition team may be trying to send up as many trial balloons as possible before the Thanksgiving tune-out. Or, as the Post reported this morning, they may simply have realized that Washington is a hard town to keep a secret in for long, and it's better to leak themselves than to lose control of announcements altogether.
UPDATED Nov. 21 at 5:12 p.m: The Obama-Biden transition team added to its Friday afternoon name drop with five new White House staffers, mostly notably Patrick Gaspard as director of the Office of Political Affairs.
Complete release, with biographies, is after the jump.
The New York Times is reporting that New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clintonhas acceptedPresident-elect Obama's offer to leave the Senate and join the administration as secretary of State. The appointment, if confirmed, would mark a surprising conclusion to the pair's epic primary contest, coming after a week of speculation over whether Clinton would take the post.
In February, National Journal reporters took stock(subscription) of just how much the two senators differed on foreign policy. Clinton had and has the more hawkish reputation of the two -- he opposed the war in Iraq, she voted to authorize it. "Most of their foreign-policy disagreements, though, are rhetorical, not substantive," the analysis concluded. On Iraq, both pledged to withdraw troops "swiftly; neither would do so completely."
On foreign-policy issues in general, "ultimately their goals are the same," said Moira Whelan, director of strategy and outreach at the National Security Network and an Obama supporter. "Their understanding of what the macro issues are is similar; their approaches to what comes first and how to address them is where you would see the differences."
Perhaps because of their similar positions on so many issues, Obama and Clinton go to great lengths to differentiate themselves and appeal to primary voters by stressing whatever distinctions they can. Obama tees up his early opposition to military action in Iraq as evidence that he exercised better judgment than Clinton on the most important foreign-policy issue since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
Not only is Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown co-chairing the Obama transition team at the Veterans Affairs Department, he is a leading candidate to serve as VA secretary.
A source close to the Obama transition effort confirms that Brown is being given "serious consideration" for the VA slot, and is currently undergoing the vetting process.
A member of the Army Reserve since 1984, Brown, who holds the rank of colonel, commands the 153rd Legal Support Organization in Pennsylvania. He is the highest-ranking elected official in the country who has served a tour of duty in Iraq, having spent 10 months in the country in 2004.
According to his official biography, the handful of issues Brown has been asked by Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley to focus on in his current position include the military base realignment and closure process, veterans affairs and health care.
Legislation that would make it a misdemeanor to scalp inauguration tickets was not taken up in the Senate on Thursday night. With time tight leading up to Jan. 20, sponsor Dianne Feinstein's office hopes the Senate will consider the California Democrat's bill again when it reconvenes in December.
NationalJournal.com has obtained a copy of the bill's text [PDF], which spells out fines up to $100,000 and one year in jail. Gil Duran, communications director for Feinstein, said there has been interest on both sides of the aisle to pass this legislation. "People in general want to preserve the dignity of the inaugural ceremony," Duran said. "We want to avoid people being ripped off, which is what these scalpers do."
Internet sites like eBay, StubHub and craigslist have had postings selling Inauguration Day tickets, which are free, for thousands of dollars. The sites have stopped all such sales since meeting with Feinstein. The 240,000 tickets are not even available to members of Congress (who are the only ones who can distribute them) until a few days prior to the event. When asked about what may happen in the few days between the tickets' distribution and Jan. 20, Duran said that this law would make it harder for people to scalp them, even if they did have an actual ticket in hand, by making it a crime.
In her remarks to the Senate on Thursday, Feinstein said she finds it "unconscionable" that Inauguration Day tickets are being sold, especially online. "The chance to witness these solemn event should not be bought and sold similar to tickets to a football game," Feinstein said. "This is not a football game. This is a dignified and critical moment of transition in government, a moment of which Americans have always been proud."
Duran said that if Congress passes the bill, it would provide "ample time" to ensure the law is implemented in time for Inauguration Day.
As the Democrats' battle for 60 Senate seats continues, many are wondering how far President-elect Barack Obama is willing to go to help Georgia candidate Jim Martin(subscription) in his runoff match against Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss(subscription). While having a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate would certainly help Obama push his agenda through on Capitol Hill, throwing his weight behind a candidate who faces an uphill battle in a runoff election represents a huge risk to Obama's freshly minted political capital.
John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have all turned up in the Peach State to rally behind Chambliss; Bill Clinton stumped for Martin this week, with Al Gore soon to follow. But for now, the Obama team has not committed to making a visit, opting instead to release a radio ad on Thursday in which the president-elect urges voters to come out and "head to the polls just one more time this year."
Obama begins the ad by thanking listeners for their support on Nov. 4 and goes on to endorse Martin as someone who will "do everything he can in the Senate to help me change Washington and get America moving again."
The Obama team has also sent staffers to the state and made its field offices available for Martin's use.
National Journal's Kirk Victordraws a parallel(subscription) between the Martin-Chambliss race and the 1992 Georgia Senate runoff between Democratic Sen. Wyche Fowler and Republican Paul Coverdell, pointing out that then-President-elect Clinton took a big political hit for backing Fowler in a losing fight. Coverdell's victory represented a turning of the tide for Republicans, presaging their 1994 midterm election comeback.
Obama would certainly be wise to avoid a similar symbolic defeat before he even takes office on Jan. 20.
President-elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone records were accessed by employees of Verizon Wireless this week, according to a statement released Thursday by President and CEO Lowell McAdam. The account, which has been inactive for several months, was linked only to a cell phone, not a BlackBerry or other smart phone device with data services, such as e-mail.
Lowell said that all employees who accessed the account have been put on paid leave until the matter is investigated further. "Employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action," he said, though he did not specify whether it was grounds for firing or less severe punishment.
The incident illustrates the risks that the National Archives and Records Administration has pointed out to Obama, a well-known BlackBerry enthusiast, about sending e-mail as chief executive. Alexis Simendinger reports in National Journal(subscription) this week on NARA's role in the presidential transition and on the evolution of electronic security in the White House:
Obama will be expected as president to beef up White House attention to data security and preservation. He has promised that his administration will be more transparent and accountable and less secretive than its predecessors. Obama got a taste of how difficult it can be to protect electronic information when his campaign's website and computers were hacked this summer, reportedly by a foreign entity assumed to be Chinese. The Bush White House, which warned the Obama team of the seriousness of the breach, declined to publicly discuss similar hacking into the White House system.
At NationalJournal.com earlier this month, Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive, discussed e-mail archiving in the Bush administration, the archive's expectations for the new president, and a lawsuit seeking to hold the Bush administration and NARA accountable for backing up and cataloguing electronic records.
One-fifth of Senior Executive Service members have no knowledge of presidential transition activities at their agencies, according to a new survey by the National Academy of Public Administration.
The survey results, released on Thursday at the academy's fall meeting, indicated that most senior executives appear to be making traditional preparations for the handoff, such as compiling information on agency budgets and mandates, and scheduling briefings on key programs and initiatives. But 21 percent of executives said they were not aware of such actions.
"I'm a charter member of the SES, and the response of 20 percent of existing senior executives who said they could not answer the question of the transition activities under way at their agencies -- that's deplorable," said Kristine Marcy, an associate at the consulting firm McConnell International, during a presentation of the survey results. "The whole premise of the Senior Executive Service is that you have the management skills and the leadership skills to step up to the plate."
After running an airtight campaign, President-elect Barack Obama's camp is springing leaks during the transition (Washington Post).
The National Rifle Association slammed Obama Thursday for asking potential appointees about their gun ownership (Politico).
Among the items on their wish list, civil liberties groups want Obama
to close Guantanamo Bay prison, end extraordinary rendition and
investigate President Bush's anti-terrorism programs (Los Angeles Times).
Obama will likely wait until at least 2010 before following through on a controversial campaign pledge to end the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy (Washington Times).
Twenty percent of the government's senior executives don't know their agencies' presidential transition plans, according to a new survey (Federal Times).
Obama's campaign message of "change" has resonated with Iranians, who hope Obama's election marks the beginning of thawed relations between Iran and the U.S. (Boston Globe).
State Drama
Obama plans to offer Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the job of secretary of State after Thanksgiving (Wall Street Journal).
Clinton, meanwhile, is still wavering on the post because of her disenchantment with the Senate, but Democrats leaders are prepared to offer her a "still-undefined leadership role" if she stays (New York Times).
Latino politicians are pushing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for secretary of State and are worried overall about the lack of a Latino pick for the new Cabinet (Washington Post).
Inauguration Conflagration
In the mad dash to secure venues for inauguration balls and parties, "speed is the key now, as is a check in hand. Wire transfer is even better" (Washington Post).
The House ethics committee warned members not to let lobbyists or anyone else bankroll their inauguration parties (The Hill).
In response to the 4 million revelers expected to descend upon Washington, Mayor Adrian Fenty signed an executive order allowing residents to rent their property without a business license (Washington Post).
The DC Metro is girding itself for record-breaking ridership on and around Jan. 20 (Washington Post).
Through The Grapevine
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is a front-runner for secretary of Homeland Security (New York Times) and the potential nomination is already winning praise across the political spectrum (Washington Post).
Penny S. Pritzker, a major Obama fundraiser whose business ties have been scrutinized in recent weeks, announced she will not be a candidate for secretary of Commerce (New York Times).
Eric Holder Jr., Obama's likely choice for attorney general, has extensive experience combating corporate crime (Wall Street Journal).
Duane Woerth, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association from 1999 to 2006, is a favorite for the top job at the Federal Aviation Administration (Wall Street Journal).
While the incoming administration has its work cut out for itself in terms of revamping the Department of Homeland Security, the new 111th Congress isn't off the hook, either.
At a discussion this morning hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, current and former congressional staffers called for more cohesive oversight of DHS, which now answers to more than 100 committees or subcommittees throughout Congress. The discussion was part of a two-day conference,
concluding today, on how the incoming Congress and new president
should deal with domestic security issues.
David Olive, onetime chief of staff to former Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., and co-founder of government relations firm Olive, Edwards & Cooper, noted that the name of the panel, "Congressional Chaos," was fitting for the state of DHS congressional oversight.
"That's exactly what it seems like for people on the outside looking in," Olive said. "And that's exactly how it seems for the people in the inside looking out."
Olive called upon House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to address the issue, which he said was a bipartisan problem. "It was created under Republican leadership and has continued under Democratic leadership. It will continue to be a problem until the Speaker herself weighs in," Olive said. "Thus far, she's not willing to do that."
Barack Obama could put former Sen. Tom Daschle in charge of the Department of Health & Human Services, where he would presumably help steer any health care plan Obama puts forward. In a National Journal panel held during the Democratic National Convention this summer, Daschle talked about the problems with the nation's health care system and about what parts of Obama's agenda would be easiest to pass.
Senators, even those who dislike one another intensely, are known for their formality and graciousness towards one another on the Senate floor. They try to maintain that façade as much as possible in public.
Of course, there have been some famous feuds that burst into the open. Who can forget the bitter hostility between New Jersey Democratic Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Torricelli in the late 1990s? They even got into a well-publicized fight at a Democratic retreat in front of their colleagues and staffers.
But such outbursts are the exception. More often the enmity is submerged, out of view. So it was no surprise that when former Sen. Tom Daschle's name was leaked as the likely new secretary of Health and Human Services, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., hailed the appointment even though the two men had grown to dislike each other intensely before Daschle lost his Senate seat in 2004.
Yesterday, Baucus called President-elect Obama's choice of Daschle "a great nomination" and went on to say, "Having Senator Daschle at HHS and as the point person for the Obama administration on health care would only improve the chances of success."
Yet it wasn't all that long ago, when Daschle, then the Democratic Senate leader, was angry that Baucus had strayed from the party position and supported President Bush's top domestic priority, steep tax cuts. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., described it in his book, The Good Fight, published earlier this year:
Baucus was the only Westerner to vote against [South Dakotan] Daschle in his race for Democratic leader in 1994, which Daschle had only won by a single vote -- and they had been driven farther apart on the issue of taxes. By the end, they really couldn't stand each other, and had had several extremely testy exchanges on the floor and in private as a result.
Fast-forward to today, and it is a tad ironic that Daschle will be going before Baucus' committee, which not only is responsible for his confirmation hearings but also will be a key player in health care reform, a priority for the Obama administration.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement will rejoin King & Spalding's Washington, D.C., office after leaving his position at the Justice Department in June. Since that time, Clement has served as a visiting professor at Georgetown University's law school and as a senior fellow at the Supreme Court Institute.
During his time in the solicitor general's office, Clement argued 49 cases before the Supreme Court, including Tennessee v. Lane, McConnell v. FEC, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, Gonzales v. Raich and Gonzales v. Carhart. Clement once served as chief counsel of the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights and has worked as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis.
Barack Obama's reported decision to ask former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to head the Department of Health and Human Services was batted around on the political talk shows Wednesday night and this morning.
Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee -- once the chief economic adviser to candidate Barack Obama -- may be less of a shoo-in to chair Obama's White House Council of Economic Advisers than his admirers once imagined.
The Obama transition team is interviewing to find a woman, perhaps a minority woman, to fill the CEA chair -- a Senate-confirmed position. Informed sources suggest the candidates on the CEA list now include Princeton University economics and public affairs professor Cecilia Elena Rouse, whose specialty is labor economics. The hunt for a woman, explained several sources close to the transition deliberations, is aimed at broadening the white-male cast of the White House team assembled to date (the current tally of announced picks is 3 women, 9 men).
Goolsbee, a respected University of Chicago professor, remains in contention for other administration posts, the sources added.
CEA is the economic think tank inside the White House that serves the president and his team with detailed policy analysis. The top job there is a plum on the C.V. of any academically ambitious economist.
Goolsbee became embroiled this year in a minor controversy about Obama's views on trade. After notes from a meeting between Goolsbee and a Canadian government official became public in Canada -- suggesting that Obama's chief economic adviser had winked that his candidate's trade-pact critiques were less about policy convictions than political maneuvering -- the media had a field day.
Obama denied the accounts and defended Goolsbee. But by early June, at the start of the general election, he added another policy adviser -- centrist economist Jason Furman, from the Brookings Institution -- to his team, and Furman assumed the task of communicating many of Obama's policy views. Furman has since been mentioned as a possible deputy at the White House National Economic Council, according to sources familiar with transition discussions.
Several news organizations are reporting this morning that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is President-Elect Obama's pick to head the Homeland Security Department. If the reports are accurate, the choice would not come as a huge surprise -- Napolitano's name was floated early, and when the incoming administration signaled its interest in Eric Holder for attorney general (the other post Napolitano had been mentioned for), she naturally came into focus for DHS.
But if it's not surprising that Obama might turn to a trusted governor for this position, it is significant. DHS is the federal government's point of contact with state and local governments on disaster preparedness and counterterrorism issues. (The FBI also plays a significant role on the latter.) The first DHS secretary was a governor -- Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania -- but the current secretary, Michael Chertoff, was an attorney and judge. Some have argued that governors have a more intimate understanding of state and local governments' concerns, and therefore are a more natural choice to head the vast, often unwieldy department.
DHS is such a young department that one can't say with certainty what kind of experience best suits a secretary. But if nothing else, putting a governor in charge may appeal to state and local officials, who will feel that one of their own is in charge.
The citizens of Togo held a mock election in October to voice their opinion on who should win the U.S. presidential election. Barack Obama garnered 99 percent of the vote. That, says Ambassador David Dunn, reflects the enormous reservoir of goodwill that exists on the African continent as America's first African-American president prepares to take office.
But Dunn and two other Africa experts -- Howard Wolpe, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Africa Program, and Nicole Lee, executive director of TransAfrica Forum, an advocacy group -- see the potential for disappointment. Gathered at American University's Kay Spiritual Life Center on Wednesday night, the three talked about the high expectations surrounding Obama's presidency and the constraints he will face in trying to change the way America approaches its Africa policy -- particularly in light of the current economic crisis.
"Time will take its toll" on Obama's popularity on the continent, Dunn predicted. He, like all U.S. presidents, will pursue America's interests abroad, Dunn said, and those do not always coincide with what Africans would like to see from the U.S. Dunn suggested that an early trip to the continent could do a lot to secure the current amicable atmosphere.
All three panelists agreed that with America's economy in turmoil, the new administration will be hard-pressed to increase aid to Africa. Lee spoke of being "disappointed" when, in the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate, Joe Biden acknowledged that the U.S. probably will not meet its goal of doubling development assistance over the next several years. But they also said that the way in which aid money is distributed is also a crucial element, and one that the administration could have some control over.
While money for HIV/AIDS programs has ballooned, assistance for agriculture, infrastructure and other democracy-building and governance projects has stagnated, if not actually decreased. In addition, Dunn said, fewer and fewer African countries have been targeted for aid. He called for more universal assistance throughout the continent. And Lee emphasized the need to revisit trade agreements with African nations to make them more equitable.
The question of U.S. military intervention in Africa on human rights grounds is fraught with controversy. Wolpe argued that, under an Obama administration, the possibility of the U.S. intervening in places like Darfur and the Congo is back on the table. He and Dunn insisted that for some problems, strong military action is the only solution.
But they were also both confident that the Obama administration would beef up diplomatic efforts on the continent. Wolpe advocated a new model of conflict resolution that begins with the notion that places like Darfur are divided societies, and that the first step toward rebuilding them has to be directly engaging key leaders on both sides and bringing them together to find common ground. He expressed hope that the Obama administration would embrace this new model and optimism that the president-elect will devote more attention to resolving some of these "unresolvable conflicts."
Hotline's list of rumored appointees to the incoming administration -- culled from sources of varying reliability -- has already reached an impressive length just two weeks after Barack Obama won the presidency.
See below for the complete list, organized by department, of the players in D.C.'s favorite event, the name game (asterisk denotes that the individual has said publicly he or she does not wish to be considered):
State
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
Ex-Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD)
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Ex-VP/ex-Sen. Al Gore (D-TN)*
Ex-UN Amb./ex-Asst. Sec/State Richard Holbrooke
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)
Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN)*
Ex-Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA)
NM Gov./ex-UN Amb./ex-Energy Sec. Bill Richardson (D)
Treasury
FDIC Chair/ex-Asst. Treas. Sec. Sheila Bair
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett
NJ Gov./ex-Sen./ex-Goldman Sachs Chair Jon Corzine (D)
JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon
NY FED Bank Pres. Timothy Geithner
Ex-Treas. Sec. Robert Rubin
Ex-Treas. Sec./ex-Harvard Pres. Larry Summers
Ex-Council of Econ Advisers chair Laura D'Andrea Tyson
Ex-FED chair Paul Volcker
Defense
Ex-Sen./ex-VA Sec. Max Cleland (D-GA)
Ex-Navy Sec. Richard Danzig
Ex-Dep. Asst. Defense Sec. Michèle Flournoy
Defense Sec. Robert Gates
Ex-Dep. Defense Sec. John Hamre
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI)*
NationalJournal.com's David Herbert recently interviewed Margaret Colgate Love, former U.S. pardon attorney and a lawyer specializing in executive clemency, about the presidential pardon power's misuse and disuse over the last 25 years and how Barack Obama could revive the tradition of executive privilege.
Hear Love on presidential pardons and read the complete interview here. Edited excerpts follow.
NJ: Considering the bad rap the pardon process has developed in the last few decades, how would you advise Obama to go about reviving the pardon tradition?
Love: I would advise him to start pardoning pretty much right away. Give pardon to little people who are not particularly controversial, just ordinary people who have cases that fit within the Justice Department guidelines. I would also recommend that he do some grants that show some of the problems that people face in trying to rehabilitate themselves coming back to the community.
NJ: In more controversial cases where you have groups that feel very strongly one way or the other, how do you minimize their role so that they don't overly politicize a pardon?
Love: Well, the pardon power is necessarily political. I mean, the only check on it is public opinion. So it's necessarily political in that good sense that the president is really acting as the conscience of the community. So if he can't sell his message to the public, then he's just going to have to do what he has to do.
A communications industry lobbyist who has represented some of the nation's most powerful cable, Internet and telecommunications firms is drawing scrutiny for his role on President-elect Obama's transition team.
James Halpert, an attorney and registered lobbyist with DLA Piper, is advising on matters involving the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and intellectual property, according to many sources in the technology sector who are familiar with Obama's transition operations.
Critics are crying foul because they insist Halpert lobbied these issues just a few months ago, in violation of Obama's strict ethics guidelines, which state that parties joining the transition effort are prohibited from working in areas in which they focused as registered lobbyists in the last 12 months.
"When we saw his name pop up as the transition guy for IP, I mean, everybody nearly had a heart attack," an industry source said.
The flap over Halpert comes as corporate stakeholders and watchdogs jockey for position to influence decisions the new administration will make in the coming weeks and months that could profoundly affect their businesses and reverse eight years of largely deregulatory communications policies.
While the Obama team has released the names of its top transition advisers, several of whom have deep ties to communications firms and associations, hundreds more -- including Halpert -- have not been disclosed to the public.
"Everything we're doing is consistent with the principles that President-elect Obama laid out during the campaign," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday. "We are operating under the farthest-reaching ethics policy in history."
A transition official described Halpert as a member of an advisory team handling only patents and trademarks. Halpert declined to comment.
Sources pointed to Halpert's activities on behalf of the little-known Internet Commerce Coalition, whose members include Amazon, AT&T, Comcast, eBay, Information Technology Association of America, Monster.com, U.S. Telecom Association and Verizon, as evidence of a conflict of interest.
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano will use her experience as a border-governor as the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, according to anonymous "Democratic officials" (Politico).
On that note, John Podesta warns his transition staffers that leaking information is grounds for automatic firing (Chicago Tribune).
The Clinton Drama
Deal-making with Bill Clinton continues, but the former president assured everyone at a public appearance on Wednesday that he'll do "whatever they want" to ensure his fund-raising and globe-trotting don't prevent his wife from becoming secretary of State (New York Times).
The anti-war crowd that helped send President-elect Barack Obama to power are "increasingly concerned" about appointments of hawks such as Hillary Rodham Clinton (Los Angeles Times).
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., won't be overseeing the State Department, but he will oversee its budget as the new head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Boston Globe).
Reaction To Obama's Picks
A 2002 investigation of Eric Holder's role in the pardon of Marc Rich is rehashed, concluding that Holder ensured officials "did not have the opportunity to express an opinion on the Rich pardon before it was granted" (Washington Times).
The selection of former Sen. Tom Daschle as HHS secretary comes "even though he works for a Washington lobbying firm that represents health care interests" (USA Today).
Even without lobbying aspersions over Daschle himself, his selection "might be complicated" by his wife, who is a lobbyist (Washington Post).
Nonetheless, the prospect of passing health reform this time around comes with a "clear advantage over previous attempts." Apparently, everyone wants it to succeed (Wall Street Journal).
The man who coworkers call "Axe" is described as Obama's "longtime friend, strategist and political poet" in this profile of the new Karl Rove -- David Axelrod (Chicago Tribune).
The Decider
Obama will have to decide whether it makes sense to keep buying the U.S. Air Force's expensive F-22 Raptor despite the focus on ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Wall Street Journal).
A federal employees union wants Obama to "end the Transportation Security Administration's pay-for-performance system, eliminate the Internal Revenue Service private debt collection program, and reduce contracting by federal agencies" (Federal Times).
Agency leaders have already sent Obama a "hot list" of what they consider urgent issues. One group sent 44 items (Government Executive).
Transition Fodder
Happy birthday, Joe Biden! Many news outlets report on the 12 cupcakes that Obama gave the Vice President-elect for his birthday, which is actually today (AP).
The inside guide to landing a job with the Obama administration. Steps 1 through 100: Suck up to Jim Messina, director of personnel for the transition team (Politico).
The "Handshake Man," known as a "hero to wedding crashers and gate jumpers everywhere," said he will not be able to attend the inauguration. Then again, it's not like him to RSVP. (Washington Post).
What will be Obama's first act as president? Guantanamo? A stimulus package? Nope. D.C. voting rights advocates "are confident" that Obama will return the "Taxation Without Representation" license plates to the first family's limo (The Hill).
After weeks of speculation that David Axelrod would take on a role in the Obama White House as a senior adviser to the president, the campaign has confirmed that the former campaign strategist will indeed fill the role once held by Karl Rove. Axelrod joins longtime Obama friend Valerie Jarrett, who was also named as a senior White House adviser last week.
Federal agencies have put together lists of top policy, management, legal and infrastructure issues for President-elect Barack Obama's agency review teams, a top presidential transition official said on Wednesday.
Gail Lovelace, transition director at the General Services Administration, said at a breakfast sponsored by Government Executive that agencies have submitted "hot lists" of key issues that will require immediate attention by new administration officials.
In a July 18 memo [PDF], the Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget directed agencies to submit lists of top issues to the White House for review by Nov. 1.
Lovelace said the range of issues at each agency differs, with one listing only 10 items and another identifying 44 considered urgent.
Obama's agency review teams began their work on Monday, and are expected to provide detailed reports to the Obama transition team prior to the Jan. 20 inauguration.
In past transitions, some review teams approached their task as a way to better understand agency operations and structures, Lovelace said. But given that many members of the Obama review teams served at their respective agencies during the Clinton administration, she added, many will be ready to "delve a little deeper" into the top issues facing federal agencies.
The Obama transition team has announced policy working groups in seven areas: economic; education; energy and environment; health care; immigration; national security; and technology, innovation and government reform. Full biographies of the lucky wonks leading the groups are up on the Change.Gov Web site. The CliffsNotes version follows.
Economic
Daniel K. Tarullo. NOW: Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. THEN: President Clinton's representative to the G-7/G-8, 1995-1998.
Education
Linda Darling-Hammond. NOW: Education professor at Stanford University. THEN: No prior federal gig, but former president of the American Educational Research Association; former executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future; former chair of the New York State Curriculum and Assessment Council.
Energy & Environment
Carol Browner. NOW: Principal at the Albright Group. THEN: EPA Administrator, 1993-2001.
Health Care
Tom Daschle. NOW: Adviser to law firm of Alston and Bird. THEN: Senator from South Dakota, 1987-2005; Senate Democratic Leader, 1995-2005.
Immigration
T. Alexander Aleinikoff. NOW: Dean of Georgetown University Law Center and executive vice president of Georgetown University. THEN: General counsel and then executive associate commissioner for programs at the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1994-1997.
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar: NOW: Professor at Stanford Law School. THEN: Senior adviser to the undersecretary for enforcement at Treasury, 1997-1999.
National Security
James B. Steinberg. NOW: Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. THEN: Deputy national security adviser, 1996-2000.
Susan E. Rice. NOW: Senior fellow at Brookings. THEN: Assistant secretary of State for African Affairs, 1997-2001.
Technology, Innovation & Government Reform
Blair Levin. NOW: Managing director of Stifel Nicolaus. THEN: Chief of staff to FEC Chairman Reed Hundt, 1993-1997.
Sonal Shah. NOW: Head of global development at Google.org, Google's philanthropic branch. THEN: Worked at Treasury Department from 1995 to 2002, including a two-year stint at the National Security Council.
Julius Genachowski. NOW: Co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures and LaunchBox Digital, special adviser at General Atlantic. THEN: Worked at FCC from 1994 to 1997, including stint as chief counsel to Hundt.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency should not be taken out of the Department of Homeland Security, at least early on in Barack Obama's administration, according to a panel of security experts this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The discussion was part of a two-day conference, concluding Thursday, on how the incoming Congress and new president should confront the country's myriad domestic security issues.
Whether or not FEMA should remain under DHS has been a topic of contention among homeland security experts ever since Katrina. In "Change For America: A Progressive Blueprint For The 44th President" from the Center For American Progress and the New Democracy Project, former DHS Inspector General Clark Kent Ervinsuggests that such a move might make the agency more effective by providing it with a more "direct line" to the president. But CSIS panelists today disagreed.
"You can't take FEMA out now without doing too much damage to the system," said Daniel Kaniewski, former special assistant to the president for Homeland Security and senior director for response policy. Kaniewski, now a counselor at the Homeland Security Policy Institute, worked extensively on Hurricane Katrina relief efforts during his time at the White House. He stressed that if FEMA were taken out of DHS, the department would simply develop its own disaster-response capabilities, so, in practice, nothing would substantially change.
Matt Mayer, a former counselor to the deputy secretary at DHS and current visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said that where FEMA is located within the government is not the issue. "I don't care if FEMA is inside or outside DHS. That's not what's key," Mayer said. "The key question is, what does FEMA actually do on a day-to-day basis?" When that question is answered, the placement of the agency could then be addressed, he said.
Michael Wermuth, director of the RAND Homeland Security Program, downplayed FEMA's importance in disaster relief. "Despite opinions to the contrary," he said, "the federal government does not have the primary responsibility." It's the states that first and foremost are responsible, he said, adding that because of the "over-federalization" of disaster response, money and other resources have been disproportionately spread around the country.
Panelists agreed that Obama and the 111th Congress should not make any major changes to DHS right away. "Don't do anything drastic" in the first 100 days that would "create more turmoil" in the department, Wermuth advised, adding that he did not expect that to happen. "I'm guessing it won't change dramatically in the early months," he projected. "There are a lot of other things that are on the new administration's plate that will take some precedence over the organizational structure of the Department of Homeland Security."
Check back later in the week for more coverage on the CSIS transition conference.
Barack Obama's reported selection of Eric Holder as the next attorney general garnered mixed reviews from talking heads on Tuesday night and this morning.
CNN and Roll Call are reporting that former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to head up the Department of Health and Human Services, citing sources "close to Daschle."
Daschle, who has been an adviser to Obama throughout his campaign, was considered a leading contender for the position. He is also heading up the Obama team's health care policy working group, tasked with determining how to translate Obama's priorities into specific policy proposals.
For more on Daschle's career, see his Almanac of American Politics profile here.
Barack Obama has pledged to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as president. But as several legal experts pointed out this morning in an online seminar sponsored by the American Security Project, that will not begin to address the litany of legal questions surrounding the war on terrorism that the new administration will be forced to grapple with starting January 20.
ASP Senior Fellow Bernard I. Finel, a former U.S. National War College professor; Anthony Clark Arend of Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service; and Damon A. Terrill, former Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, have each released new policy papers on what the next president and Congress must do to restore a commitment to the rule of law in America's foreign policy. Terrill writes, and Finel and Arend agree, that the Bush administration "has undermined both the reality and perception of America's decades-old commitment to the rule of law and the values upon which it rests." This, they say, has damaged America's reputation abroad, weakened the country and made Americans less safe.
Obama must take both short- and long-term steps to begin to address the legal questions surrounding detainees, interrogation methods, military tribunals, wiretapping, and the targeting of terrorists abroad, they argue.
Terrill pointed out today that the new administration's first step should be to clarify where the law stands on these issues. He argued that the Bush team's use of executive orders and classified legal opinions has obscured the meaning of the current body of law, even for those within the government. There should be a comprehensive review process led by the National Security Council to determine what the law currently says and how it should be revised, he said.
Arend maintained that, as soon as Obama takes office -- preferably in his inaugural address -- he should issue a general policy pronouncement stating that the nation's approach to these issues will change immediately. Arend suggested three concrete steps Obama could take to signal his commitment to changing direction: closing Guantanamo, issuing an executive order saying that the intelligence community will be bound by the Army Field Manual rules for interrogation, and repealing the Military Commissions Act, which governs the trials of enemy combatants. Finally, Arend said he would like to see Obama create a bipartisan task force to determine how the U.S. should proceed on these issues in the future.
Arend pointed out that these are areas where existing international law is not fully formed. The Geneva Convention, for example, was written with traditional conflicts in mind -- wars with a clear beginning and end -- and it does not address how government should deal with non-state actors such as "enemy combatants." Finel said that the U.S. must not only figure out what to do with the detainees left in Guantanamo now -- how to try, sentence, continue to detain or release them -- but also must create a more legitimate legal framework for detaining suspected terrorists in the future.
All three policy papers are available on ASP's Web site.
Barack Obama's transition team last week released a more extensive list of agency review team leaders to conduct detailed examinations of government agencies, departments, commissions and the White House. The teams include many well-known and experienced government hands.
The experience of team leaders inside their particular agencies could be an asset that allows them to hit the ground running, said Mark Roth, general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees.
In previous transitions, some review teams approached their tasks as management audits, conducting top-down examinations and learning virtually from scratch about agency operations, Roth said. But many of the Obama team leads need no such refresher course. Rather than spending their time huddled up with current agency directors, Roth expects review teams to spend their time directly engaging with front-line employees and addressing their key concerns.
"The [team leads] have a unique front-line perspective and will be able to provide a 360-degree view of everything," he said. "They know what to look for."
The review teams began their work on Monday, and are expected to provide detailed reports to the Obama transition team prior to the Jan. 20 inauguration.
President-elect Barack Obama has reportedly "informally" offered the attorney general position to Washington lawyer Eric Holder, who has "informally" accepted. Even though there has been no official announcement as of this posting, the law blogosphere is buzzing.
The Wall Street Journal's law blog reports that names like Scooter Libby and Marc Rich will resurface quickly in light of this news. Holder signed off on President Bill Clinton's pardon of billionaire Rich, who had been represented by Libby for nearly a dozen years, the blog notes.
The Sentencing Law and Policy blog also discusses the pardon aspect of Holder's candidacy. Ohio State University professor Douglas A. Berman writes that while he's not "especially excited to learn that Obama's concept of hope and
change for DOJ seems to involve the promotion of a former
Clinton Administration high ranking DOJ official," he is going to keep an "open mind."
The Legal Times' blog acknowledges that while Holder does come "with some baggage," it's "probably not enough to jeopardize his nomination."
At the right-leaning Volokh Conspiracy blog, George Washington University professor Orin Kerr calls Holder a "very good pick." Reflecting on his time in the Justice Department, Kerr remembers Holder as being "smart and professional."
Meanwhile, TalkLeft has a series of posts on Holder's criminal justice record.
Barack Obama released reams of policy priorities along the campaign trail, from energy, to health care reform, to education, to ending the war in Iraq. Rescuing the economy from recession comes first, but lobbyists have been wondering in what sequence the rest of Obama's priorities will head to Congress.
Among those who will help with those priorities are experts lending their know-how to the Obama congressional affairs transition team. The congressional aides chosen by Obama and his transition directors to plot strategy before Jan. 20 are names to know on K Street -- and elsewhere around Washington.
An e-mail circulating Tuesday named the as-yet unannounced team of aides who are working with his newly designated White House lobbyist, Phil Schiliro. Helping Obama from the House: Dan Turton, a longtime aide to former Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., and majority staff director for the House Rules Committee (Turton was once a Timmons & Co. lobbyist); John Michael Gonzalez, chief of staff to Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., who stands tall on the talent scorecard kept by Obama's designated White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel; Rob Nabors, majority staff director for the House Appropriations Committee, and a former Office of Management and Budget analyst during the Clinton years; Dana Gresham, chief of staff to Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala.; and Denise Wilson, professional staff member for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (Schiliro's former world).
And helping from the Senate: Paul Bock, longtime chief of staff for Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc.; Ron Weich, chief counsel to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Sean Kennedy, chief of staff to Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. (Kennedy was once a lobbyist for AT&T Services); Jennifer Duck, once an aide to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and now with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; and Ed Pagano, chief of staff to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Sens. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., urged President Bush Tuesday not to embed political appointees in career positions around the government in his final days (Washington Post).
President-elect Barack Obama will likely tighten regulations at agencies that monitor consumer products, environmental policy and workplace safety (Wall Street Journal).
Obama is preparing to tap Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag, a former economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, to become his budget director (National Journal).
Business and labor groups are preparing to put a full-court press on the new president to encourage him to spend billions on major infrastructure projects (Wall Street Journal).
Malia and Sasha Obama toured DC-area
private schools with their mother on Tuesday. Schools on the shortlist
include Georgetown Day School, and Sidwell Friends, where "Chelsea Clinton
attended and where two of Vice president-elect Joe Biden's
granddaughters are currently enrolled" (Politico).
National Security Shuffle
If history is any indicator, one of Obama's first acts will be to choose his National Security Council (Washington Post).
The Washington Post profiles potential national security advisers, such as Gen. James L. Jones, Obama transition team member Susan E. Rice, and James B. Steinberg, dean of Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Veterans Affairs
Former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., is reportedly being considered for secretary of Veterans Affairs or secretary of the Army (Washington Times).
Veterans groups and federal unions eagerly await Obama's promise of increased funding for the Veterans Affairs Department (Federal Times).
Holder At Justice?
Obama's first choice for attorney general appears to be Eric Holder, a senior Justice Department official in the Clinton administration who was also on his vice presidential search team (Wall Street Journal).
Holder has been a fierce critic of some of Bush's more controversial policies, including torture and NSA wiretapping (Boston Globe).
Holder's involvement in President Clinton's controversial end-of-term pardon of Marc Rich may tarnish his candidacy (AP).
State Department Drama Continues
An adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said the former first lady is flattered by Obama's offer to make her secretary of State, but has reservations about leaving her Senate post (New York Times).
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., has asked Clinton to shepherd health care reform through Congress (Los Angeles Times) and she is reportedly considering turning down Obama's offer in favor of taking on this role (Politico).
Bill Clinton has "offered to submit future charitable and business activities to strict ethics reviews" if his wife is tapped to be the next secretary of State (Wall Street Journal).
It Ain't Easy Being Green
Obama guaranteed that the U.S. will slash carbon emissions by 80 percent by mid-century in a video address to a climate conference on Tuesday (Los Angeles Times).
But, one environmental group, Friends of the Earth, already says Obama's agenda isn't green enough (Politico).
Want to partake in the inauguration festivities but feel overwhelmed about planning everything? No need to worry. NationalJournal.com has scoured sites like eBay, craigslist and StubHub to devise an itinerary, prices included.
Getting Here
If you're coming from New York, a post on eBay has tickets going for $200. Watch yourself on the return trip, though: The ad says buses "Start Departing Washington" that evening on a "First Come Basis."
Getting Around Once You're Here
Enjoy the sights of the nation's capital from a Rolls-Royce Phantom. A craigslist poster is offering chauffeur services in this "exotic automobile" for $575 -- an hour.
Accommodations
As everyone already knows, nearly all the hotels are booked. This won't be a problem, though. Judging from online ads, it seems as though every resident in the greater D.C. area is seeking to rent a room or house to visitors. A one-week rental of a one-bedroom apartment in the Courthouse area of Arlington will set you back only $4,000. Feeling a little richer? Then rent out a four-bedroom house near American University for $20,000. Are you feeling substantially poorer and willing to sacrifice housing altogether? Someone is offering a "like new" folding guest bed for a very affordable $35. You could also seek out hotel reservations second-hand. Two-night accommodations at the Fairfield Marriott Inn on New York Ave. NE, via a post on eBay, start at $699. Or, you could shell out $1,999 right now to make sure you've got it.
Party, Party, Party
The large number of parties and galas scheduled for the week surrounding the inauguration will certainly be surpassed only by the number of people seeking to attend them. And you'll want to make sure you don't miss out. You could go to the New Jersey gala for $452. But why do that when you could attend President-elect Barack Obama's own Illinois gala for $1,495? Worried about not getting into these high-profile parties? A post on craigslist implies, more or less, that professional ID cards can be tailor-made to any event, including inauguration festivities. In case you do get rejected from these parties, an eBay post is offering a cruise around the Potomac to enjoy the inaugural fireworks. This would set you back at least $2,000, with no length of cruise specified.
The Golden Ticket
To be sure, we never specified that this itinerary included the actual inauguration tickets, which are under lock and key until just days before the event. So, if you happen to come across any legitimate tickets -- or find that key -- the staff at NationalJournal.com would sure like to know.
Between now and the big day, keep checking back for more updates on inauguration festivities, accommodations and otherwise relevant (defined broadly) information.
Two weeks into Barack Obama's transition, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack continues to be the most-discussed candidate for Agriculture secretary, according to farm-savvy sources consulted by National Journal and CongressDaily. The sole opposition to the Vilsack option came from the Organic Consumers Association, which issued a pre-emptive statement criticizing the former governor and 2008 presidential candidate as too enthused about biotechnology interests and too close to Monsanto, the agribusiness seed company.
Initially a diehard Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter during the Democratic primaries after he ended his bid, Vilsack swiftly switched to support Obama once he won the nomination. Vilsack worked the state in which he remains a popular figure and helped Obama's impressive campaign team keep Iowa in the blue column.
The fate of the Employee Free Choice Act under a Barack Obama administration and a Democratic Congress is the hot-button issue among advocacy groups on both sides of the debate.
American Rights At Work, a coalition of labor advocates and progressive organizations like the Sierra Club and the AFL-CIO, started running an ad Sunday that urges Congress to pass the bill, which is designed to make it easier for workers to unionize. Critics contend that the bill's provision eliminating mandatory secret elections for unionization in the workplace would leave employees vulnerable to intimidation and coercion.
Josh Goldstein, a spokesman for American Rights At Work, maintains that the proposal doesn't eliminate the secret ballot option, it simply gives employees the option to recognize a union after a majority of the workers sign a petition, rather than automatically going into a secret ballot election at that point -- which is how the current law stands.
Tim Miller, a spokesman for the Employee Freedom Action Committee, which opposes the law, countered that, in practice, there aren't really two options. Every union organizer would choose not to hold an election, Miller argued, since the employer would have to recognize the union at the 51 percent mark anyway. He compared a union organizer opting for a secret ballot election (under the proposed law) to a politician calling for a revote after he has already won.
Where this will fall on the incoming Congress' and president's agenda is unclear, considering the bigger-picture problems surrounding the financial crisis. Major labor groups, including the AFL-CIO and AFSCME, supported Obama throughout his campaign. This, Miller said, would be the only reason Obama would approve the law soon after taking office. "It would essentially be a payback to the special interest labor unions that funded his campaign down the line," he said.
Goldstein dismissed the notion that quick passage of the bill would be a payback. "I would characterize it as a long-overdue need for the middle class," he said.
After the weekend buzz over the possibility of Barack Obama's tapping Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of State, Newsweek's "Transition Toteboard" has moved the New York senator up to a 2-1 favorite for the position. Before Monday, Clinton was not even on the short list; the previous front-runners were Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., along with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke.
Other 2-1 favorites in Newsweek's admittedly "unscientific" calculations: former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to regain his old job; Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain at his current post; and former Deputy AG Eric Holder to become the nation's first black attorney general. Additional possibilities being floated by the magazine's staff include Colin Powell for secretary of Education, Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris for secretary of Energy, and New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly or Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton for Homeland Security secretary.
UPDATE: Newsweek's Michael Isikoff is now reporting that Eric Holder will be Obama's choice for attorney general, citing "two legal sources close to the presidential transition."
President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to tap Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag, once a veteran economic adviser in the Clinton White House, to become his budget director, according to several National Journal sources. The Office of Management and Budget job -- seen as a key post to help Obama deliver on his domestic policy agenda amidst the gloom of a $700 billion federal financial rescue, a recession and the prospects of a $1 trillion deficit next year -- carries Cabinet rank. An announcement is expected soon, but could come with other personnel decisions Obama is making to lead the Treasury Department and National Economic Council in his White House.
The two leading candidates to become Obama's "honest broker" lead at the NEC are Dan Tarullo and Jacob "Jack" Lew, both respected former members of Bill Clinton's deep economic bench. Both have senior government and academic track records. Tarullo, a former assistant to the president for international economic policy, is coordinating part of Obama's economic transition team. Lew, a former OMB director and former executive vice president at New York University, heads Citigroup's alternative investments group.
Informed sources report that economist Doug Elmendorf is expected to be the Democrats' choice on Capitol Hill to succeed Orszag at CBO. Elmendorf has worked at the Federal Reserve, Treasury, the White House Council of Economic Advisers and CBO, and succeeded Orszag as head of the Brookings Institution's economic-policy initiative called the Hamilton Project.
Orszag, who will turn 40 on Dec. 16, has been praised by lawmakers from both parties as an objective analyst with deep knowledge of the most pressing fiscal issues of the day, including health care policy, Social Security, pensions, and global climate change. He is the unusual economist who blends an understanding of politics, policy and communications in ways that wrap zesty quotes around complex ideas. If confirmed by the Senate to move to OMB, Orszag will have completed half of his four-year CBO term. Orszag, a father of two school-age children and an avid runner, holds degrees from Princeton University and the London School of Economics. The National Academies of Sciences' Institute of Medicine recently made him a member.
President-elect Barack Obama and the expanded Democratic majority on Capitol Hill face a "paradox" as they begin their tenure, according to Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck, authors of a new policy paper, "Change You Can Believe In Needs A Government You Can Trust," released today by Third Way, a Washington think tank. While Americans have high expectations of the new administration, particularly when it comes to fixing the economic crisis, they are also deeply skeptical of government's ability to solve the country's problems, Galston and Kamarck write: "There is nothing new about this ambivalence, but how the next president deals with it may make the difference between success and failure" for a progressive agenda.
Galston, who served as deputy assistant on domestic policy to Bill Clinton from 1992 to 1993, and Kamarck, a senior policy adviser to Vice President Al Gore, said they learned their lesson about public trust the hard way. While Clinton "made the problem of public trust in government a central thrust" of his 1992 presidential campaign, he "relegated" it "to the back burner" in 1993 and 1994, a move that the authors argue led to the failure of his health care reform legislation. Their goal with this report is to help the president-elect and Democratic leaders in Congress avoid the same mistake.
Despite the notion that the Democrats won a mandate in this election, Kamarck emphasized that skepticism is a deeply ingrained characteristic of the American electorate and that trust in government does not automatically rise with the election of a new administration. In fact, an October survey found that public confidence in government is at an all-time low, according to the paper. Just 17 percent of people now say that they have confidence in the government to do the right thing most or all of the time. "Trust shapes the limits of political possibilities," the authors explain, and going into January, it seems that the new administration will be constrained by this unprecedented lack of faith from the American people.
So what can Obama do to combat this? Galston and Kamarck outline what they call a "trust strategy" that the new administration should employ. First, the new administration must understand the obstacle it faces and communicate to the American people that their fears are justified. "Employ a narrative that acknowledges the trust deficit and signals to Americans that the new leaders understand and will effectively address their misgivings," they write. Second, the administration should unveil short- and long-term plans to clean up government. Third, Obama's team must pay attention to policy design and implementation to ensure that it communicates principles of transparency and simplicity. And finally, Democrats must move on their agenda "strategically and sequentially to ring up early successes."
The authors emphasized that the paper is not an argument against change. "The issue is not boldness versus caution," Galston explained. The issue is "where to be bold and where to be bold first."
Specifically, the authors characterized the events of the last two months as the nation's "economic 9/11" and said that fiscal policy is the one area where Americans want to see the new president to do whatever it takes to stop the immediate crisis. Moving on a stimulus package has to be Obama's first priority, they said; bold and effective action on fixing the economy could serve as the administration's first trust-building endeavor. If Obama can get that right, he may gain enough credibility to then move on to other priorities, such as health care reform and a new energy policy. But the sequence is what is most important, the authors insist, and any initiative not directly related to economic growth will have to be rolled out carefully.
Galston and Kamarck remain optimistic that public faith in the efficacy of the federal government can be restored, but they maintain that "trust must be continually earned" by national leaders, particularly the president.
Columnists, editorial boards and bloggers have a lot to say -- both positive and negative -- about the Iraqi Cabinet's approval of the new status-of-forces agreement, which could help pave the way for Barack Obama's promised withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. The SOFA, which sets a timeline to withdraw U.S. troops from more populous areas 2009 and out of the country entirely by 2011, still needs to be approved by the Iraqi Parliament in a vote scheduled for next week (it's expected to pass).
Here's a rundown of some of the discussion circulating online:
The Wall Street Journal editorial board has "misgivings about the limits on U.S. forces suggested by the 2009 date," and criticizes Obama's campaign positions on Iraq.
The Los Angeles Times
supports the agreement, contending that it "sends two important
messages to the international community: First, the United States truly
does not plan a permanent military presence in Iraq, and second, it
will not launch attacks on neighbors from Iraq."
The National Review's Andrew C. McCarthywrites that "without the SOFA, dark choices would face both sides. For the U.S., it
would mean operating illegally (at least in the eyes of the world) or
withdrawing -- at the risk of forfeiting the hard-won progress of the
surge and enhancing, yet again, the credibility of radical Islam's
rogues who insist that Americans lack the stomach for the long, bloody
fight."
The Philadelphia Inquirer contends that the 2011 timeline "gives Obama more latitude to execute his plan to move
troops and materiel to Afghanistan without endangering U.S. soldiers in
Iraq. Perhaps before his January inauguration, Obama will also more
clearly define his administration's goal in Afghanistan."
The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivanasserts that "the great news for Obama is that the Iraqis themselves have insisted that his fixed timetable be set in stone." This means that "the hard right" now "will
be unable to say that the chaos and mass murder that will almost
certainly follow in 2010 and 2011 is Obama's responsibility. It isn't."
Writing in USA Today, the Cato Institute's Christopher Preble also highlights the fact that the SOFA is consistent with Obama's position: "The incoming administration should adhere to the Baghdad agreement and reduce -- and, in short order, eliminate the U.S. military presence, as the pact stipulates and as" Obama "has promised."
Everything" that the Chicago Tribune sees "suggests that this plan is not only feasible, it is
inevitable. The Iraqis want their country back. They want foreign
soldiers out. They want to be in charge of their own affairs."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also addressed the issue at his Monday press briefing. "If this does go
forward and you have the Iraqi parliament passing it and it's approved
by the Presidency Council, you will have had an agreement signed
between the United States and a democratic Iraq, a democratic Iraq that
is in the heart of the Middle East. And that will change the Middle
East forever, for the positive."
President-elect Barack Obama this morning spoke via video at the Governors' Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, reiterating promises he made on the campaign trail to invest in clean energy technologies and establish a federal cap-and-trade system. In attendance were Govs. Rod Blagojevich (D) of Illinois, Charlie Crist (R) of Florida, Jim Doyle (D) of Wisconsin, Kathleen Sebelius (D) of Kansas and host Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) of California. Officials from other countries -- including India and China -- were present as well, according to a press release from the transition team.
Referring to the upcoming round of U.N. climate talks in Poznan, Poland, Obama said that while he would not be taking part, he has asked unspecified members of Congress who are attending "as observers to report back to me on what they learn there." He reiterated his point that the science behind global warming is "beyond dispute and the facts are clear," and he told the assembled officials that "any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House.... And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America."
Last week, wenoted the presence of former campaign bundlers for Barack Obama on his transition team, including some who had raised over a half-million dollars during the race.
Now, Public Citizen's Becoming 44 blog has posted a chart detailing exactly which bundlers have been tapped for the transition, what area they're working in and how much money they raised during the campaign. Becoming 44 has so far identified seven members of the team who broke the 500K mark, with another dozen who bundled less than that.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on Monday evening took a serious bargaining chip off the table in the committee's ongoing efforts to reveal secret Bush administration terrorism policies.
The committee has "postponed the return date" of a subpoena for Justice Department legal opinions that undergird the Bush administration's most controversial counterterrorism policies, including interrogation, detention and surveillance. The subpoena had been served on Attorney General Michael Mukasey and commanded him to "provide the legal advice issued by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel" regarding those policies, Leahy's office said in a statement.
But now, it's not clear when those documents will be turned over. What's changed?
A committee staff member said on background, "This a committee-authorized and committee-issued subpoena. It's committee business. It's a subpoena to the current administration, and was issued before the election."
The postponement removes a significant check on the executive branch. Leahy said in a statement, "We still don't know the full scope of these ill-advised policies." But as for President-elect Barack Obama and his new team, Leahy said, "I am fully confident that the remaining OLC documents will be reviewed under the new administration."
No deadline, no demand. Even though the committee has not rescinded the subpoena, it's unclear what leverage lawmakers now have over the incoming administration, or whether they intend to force the release of the OLC documents at all.
As National Journalreported recently, the OLC documents in question are classified opinions that the Obama administration is presumably reviewing very carefully.
The full text of the committee statement follows after the jump.
More than 20 national security experts, including officials from the Homeland Security and Defense departments, will convene Wednesday and Thursday to discuss how President-elect Barack Obama's administration should confront the county's myriad domestic security issues.
Hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the two-day conference features six panels on topics such as disaster response, infrastructure protection, the National Guard's role and department oversight. Speakers include Paul McHale, assistant secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs; Mike Hickey, vice president of Verizon and chair of the Communications Sector Coordinating Council; and Col. Leslie J. Carroll, deputy chief of staff for operations in the U.S. Army Reserve Command. A representative from the transition team at DHS will also be attending, although the specific person has not yet been confirmed.
Ethan Wais, a spokesman for CSIS, said he expects nearly 250 people to attend the conference, which has reached the maximum number of participants. NationalJournal.com will be covering the event at the CSIS office on K Street. Check back later this week for more.
President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., met in Chicago Monday and pledged to work together to find common ground after a "productive conversation" (Politico).
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., a top contender for Obama's Senate seat, said he doesn't think "it's that important at all" that the vacancy be filled by an African-American (Roll Call -- subscription).
Foreign Affairs
President-elect Obama must prepare the military for three big challenges -- Islamic extremism, the rise of China and more nuclear-armed powers -- the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments reports (GovExec).
Obama has called Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to assure the tiny nation, an object of Moscow's ire, that it has Washington's continued support (Reuters).
Making His Mark
Obama will get the chance early on in his presidency to weigh in on issues surrounding presidential power and civil liberties (New York Times).
Obama is hoping to fill more than 300 technology positions that are presidentially appointed (NextGov).
The president-elect and congressional Democrats will likely get to decide how to divvy up the second half of the $700 billion federal bailout package (The Hill).
As Obama prepares to take office, the stars may be aligning for universal health care (Los Angeles Times).
Secretary of State Sweepstakes
If Obama taps Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., for secretary of State, he risks alienating Democrats like Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (Washington Times).
The possibility of Secretary of State Clinton is all the more interesting because foreign policy is the area she and Obama clashed the most over during the primaries (Boston Globe).
Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is pushing his own candidacy for secretary of State (Los Angeles Times).
The Inner Circle
Obama's White House team is being filled with pugnacious characters, despite the president-elect's own distaste for drama (New York Times).
An unpaid Obama transition adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, earned millions lobbying against increased oversight of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae (Washington Times).
Obama talked of bringing a fresh perspective to Washington, but the president-elect is surrounding himself with plenty of Hill insiders, such as Rahm Emanuel and Pete Rouse (Washington Post).
The vetting process has become so intense that some potential Obama appointees hired lawyers in the spring and summer to "pre-vet" them and dig up any old skeletons (Washington Post).
Inauguration Fever
The congressional committee overseeing the inauguration is exploring options to expand the number of people who will be able to attend the Jan. 20 swearing-in (New York Times).
The estimated number of attendees for January's inauguration is now pushing 4 million (Washington Post).
Mr. Obama Goes To Washington
After Rev. Jeremiah Wright put a dent in Obama's candidacy during the primaries, the president-elect's church choice is "likely to be scrutinized" (AP).
The Clintons cut Chelsea off from media access, President Kennedy welcomed it for his two children, and the Obamas will likely fall somewhere in between for Malia and Sasha (Los Angeles Times).
Among a handful of appointments announced over the weekend, President-elect Barack Obama named Washington attorney Greg Craig as general counsel and longtime friend Valerie Jarrett as a senior adviser and assistant to the president for intergovernmental relations.
Craig, who is a partner at Williams & Connolly, was a close adviser to Obama during the campaign and was a longtime adviser to Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, defending then-President Bill Clinton through his impeachment trial. He's also advised Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. What's got some conservative bloggers riled up is his defense of controversial clients like John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Bloggers on the left argue that Craig's extensive legal work in presidential politics will help Obama through difficult legal challenges ahead, such as closing the Guantanamo Bay detainment facility.
A New York Times' profile, published Nov. 8 as his name was floating around as a likely counsel pick
Jarrett, who was also a campaign adviser to Obama, is now out of the running to take over the president-elect's Senate seat, despite speculation that she was a likely candidate. According to AP, other likely contenders for that seat include Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr., Danny Davis, and Jan Schakowsky, as well as state Senate
President Emil Jones, Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Veterans Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth.
For more on other appointments announced over the weekend, check out HotlineOn Call.
When Barack Obama tries to move his legislative agenda as president, his biggest hurdle will be in the Senate, where a determined minority can be a roadblock. Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., will be one of the key players in determining when GOP legislators should work with the new president and when they should resist his initiatives.
Kyl recently spoke to National Journal about the challenges of keeping Republicans on the same page as they work on a game plan for responding to an Obama administration. Edited excerpts follow.
NJ: Given the level of partisanship and the fact that Senator Obama is perceived as a liberal, is it inevitable that we will have more conflict during his presidency?
Kyl: I think so. I hate to be quoted on that because then it sounds like I am trying to promote it. But answering you honestly, I just have a feeling that that, unfortunately, is the way it is going to be. But it will all depend on him. [There will be battles] if the Democratic leaders and Barack Obama make the same mistake that has been made in the past when, for example, Bill Clinton came in. They had been out in the wilderness all these years. They get in [and say], "By God, we are going to really advance our agenda now." They came out with Hillary Care and the rest of it. Two years later, they were in shambles because they overreached.
And you saw our liberal colleagues in the Senate and House overreach several times in the last couple of years. They are very capable of doing that. If they go after things like card check [legislation for unions] and the fairness doctrine [for broadcasters] or some big tax increase or get out of Iraq immediately, that is likely to unify Republicans, create great anxiety in the body politic, and potentially pave the way for Republicans to make a quicker comeback than might otherwise be the case.
I am not in the mood of giving them advice -- and they wouldn't take it, in any event -- but I have always admired the way Ted Kennedy does things. He is always willing to take 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent, he'd take whatever you'd give him and he'd bank it, and boy, after a few years [he'd] have a lot of percents. He has really mastered the art of legislating. If [the Democrats] are going to be successful, they are going to have to do it in baby steps. Otherwise, they are going to scare the American people and they are going to unify the Republicans.
Adhering to its reputation as the first digital campaign, President-elect Barack Obama's team took to the Web for another innovation this weekend -- the first presidential YouTube address. Obama recorded a video version of the weekly Democratic radio address that was posted on the popular Internet video site Saturday, a trend his advisers say will continue once he enters the White House in January. "This is just one of many ways that President-elect Obama will communicate directly with the American people and make the White House and the political process more transparent," a press release said.
On the day that leaders of the Group of 20 nations convened in Washington for a summit on the global economic crisis, Obama used his video to discuss the economic situation here at home. "Make no mistake: This is the greatest economic challenge of our times," the president-elect told viewers and listeners. But he also expressed confidence that the country can recover. "I know that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis -- because here in America we always rise to the moment, no matter how hard. And I am more hopeful than ever that America will rise once again."
Few experts in Washington are more steeped in their disciplines than arms control advocate Joseph Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, the author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, and an expert adviser to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, chaired by former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former Secretary of Energy and Defense James Schlesinger. Though he also served as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign, Cirincione stressed that the opinions shared in this interview are strictly his own.
NJ: Do you agree with those who argue that the Obama administration should move quickly to open negotiations with Russia on further reductions in nuclear arms, as he suggested during the campaign?
Cirincione: Absolutely. Transforming U.S. nuclear weapons policy would accomplish numerous goals for the new president. First, it would represent an early political victory, because there is now a broad, bipartisan consensus for fundamentally changing our nuclear posture. That includes drastically reducing the size of our nuclear arsenal, ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and reining in nuclear proliferation. Secondly, such an initiative would make our country more secure, not less. Finally, it would save tens of billions of dollars that could pay for some of the other military bills coming due.
NJ: You say there is a broad consensus, but aren't there still strong opponents in Congress for ratifying the CTBT and reducing our nuclear arsenal dramatically?
Cirincione: There is a core of between 20 to 25 percent of congressional Republicans on the very right who will go nuts over anything [Barack] Obama does to address our nuclear posture. The good news is there is somewhere between 75 to 80 percent of those in Congress who will support each of the steps I just outlined, including a significant number of more moderate Republicans. Remember, as a presidential candidate Senator John McCain also supported many of these same steps.
The much-hyped G-20 summit accomplished little this weekend, as foreign leaders seemed content to defer action until a new administration is up and running (Politico).
President-elect Barack Obama may have resigned his Senate seat, but he's bringing a number of key aides from his Capitol Hill days to the White House (AP).
John Podesta, a leader of Obama's transition team, has experience fighting scandals and managing competing agendas, thanks to his time in Bill Clinton's White House (AP).
Team of Rivals
Emulating Abraham Lincoln's "team of rivals" approach, Obama is reaching out to primary opponents Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) about possibly playing a role in his administration (USA Today).
As Obama vets Clinton for the secretary of State position, the transition team is also looking into former President Clinton's business dealings to see what conflicts of interest they might pose (New York Times).
The odds of Defense Secretary Robert Gates staying on the job are higher if Hillary Clinton is tapped to be secretary of State, Democratic and Republican observers say (Bloomberg News).
Obama and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., meet in Chicago today to discuss how they can collaborate going forward (AP).
Tending the Base
Eager to influence Obama's first 100 days, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a "motley crew of corporations and environmental campaigners," is pushing for more legislation to curb global warming (Wall Street Journal).
Obama has a lot of work to do boosting the morale of nearly 2 million federal employees who say they feel lost after eight years under President Bush (Washington Post).
The president-elect started a charm offensive with federal employees in October when he was still searching for votes (Washington Post).
California lawmakers are already forwarding the president-elect their
wish lists for his presidency, ranging from universal health care down
to new storm drains for Long Beach (Los Angeles Times).
Stressing National Security, Defense
One of Obama's first priorities during the transition period is selecting a national security team, he said in an interview with 60 Minutes Sunday (AP).
Obama has already said that he needs to earn the military's respect, starting with following through on his promise to raise salaries and end the war in Iraq (Army Times).
The new administration is treading carefully vis a vis the Department of Homeland Security, a $40 billion, 200,000-worker bureaucracy that is in many ways still being shaped (Washington Post).
The Center for New American Security is developing into a favorite well of talent for the Obama administration (Wall Street Journal).
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that, despite differences over a proposed missile shield, he expects relations between the two powers to thaw under a President Obama (Wall Street Journal).
Inauguration Scramble
The demand for inauguration tickets has been so great that many lawmakers are no longer accepting constituent requests (AP).
While congressmen are allotted a few hundred tickets for their constituents, there are few rules instructing lawmakers on how they must distribute those passes (AP).
Lighter Side
Michelle Obama hopes the White House will be "full of life and energy" with two young children -- and a puppy -- running around, she said in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night (The Hill).
Obama will surrender his beloved BlackBerry in January because of the Presidential Records Act and security concerns (New York Times).
Obama is enjoying his last few weeks of "normalcy," hitting the gym, spending time with his daughters and planning the family's annual Christmas-time trip to Hawaii (AP).
Barack Obama has drawn praise for establishing rigorous ethics rules to govern the formation of his transition team. But as National Journal's Eliza Newlin Carney notes in this week's "Rules Of The Game" column, these rules have not kept the team entirely free of big-money influences:
At least half a dozen of Obama's new transition team leaders were among the top fundraisers who "bundled" cash for him on the campaign trail. Three of them pulled in $500,000 or more as Obama bundlers -- Julius Genachowski, co-founder and managing director of Rock Creek Ventures; Donald Gips, vice president at the technology firm Level 3 Communications; and Thomas J. Perrelli, a lawyer with Jenner & Block.
"Any time you see these people who brought in half a million dollars to the campaign being appointed to government service, it's a red flag," said Craig Holman, legislative representative at Public Citizen, which is tracking Obama appointments on its new Web site. One of every four of President Bush's bundlers ended up in a government post, Holman noted, a performance he hopes Obama will not repeat.
Former Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., considered a top contender for Labor secretary in the Obama administration, said today he does not want the job. "I have other things to do," said Bonior, a member of President-elect Obama's economic transition team. "There are wonderful, qualified people who can fill [the job], but at this time in my life it's not me."
Bonior said he spoke with Obama transition chief John Podesta and recommended that American Rights at Work Executive Director Mary Beth Maxwell get the job. "She would be fabulous," he said. Bonior chairs the labor-advocacy group, which is pushing so-called card check legislation.
The group today announced a three-week ad campaign on cable TV networks aimed at building support for the bill, which would allow workers to unionize if a majority signed authorization cards. The ads are the opening salvo in what is shaping up to be an expensive fight between organized labor and business interests.
The second installment in our series looking at the Center for American Progress and the New Democracy Project's "blueprint" for the incoming administration focuses on the Department of Education. In one chapter from CAP's "Change For America: A Progressive Blueprint For The 44th President," former DOE General Counsel and Deputy Undersecretary Judith A. Winston advises Barack Obama on how to ensure "that a high-quality, affordable, and accessible education is available to all at every level from preschool through college."
American Rights At Work, a coalition of labor advocates and progressive organizations like the Sierra Club and the AFL-CIO, is launching a nationwide TV ad on Sunday urging the incoming Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
This legislation, which has elicited a heateddebate on both sides of the political spectrum throughout the election, would make it easier for workers to form unions. Critics argue that one provision of the bill, which would get rid of mandatory secret elections when employees are deciding whether or not to unionize, would leave employees vulnerable to intimidation and coercion.
With a Democratic majority in both chambers and President-elect Barack Obama having come out in support of the legislation, the group hopes the bill gains traction and passes early in the next session. "This needs to be a top priority in the new Congress and administration," said spokesman Josh Goldstein. "This ad couldn't have come earlier enough."
The ad will run nationwide for three weeks on CNN, MSNBC and Headline News, and on broadcast cable during political talk shows.
Check back next week for more on the push for the Employee Free Choice Act.
Days after the Obama transition team named the review panels that will oversee its coordination with the departments of State, Defense and the Treasury, it has followed up for the rest of the departments.
The list of names, which tops 100 people, is something of a data dump, coming as it does at the end of the weekly news cycle. But a quick scan finds the list nearly as heavy with former Clintonistas (Dawn Johnsen, Ivo Daalder) as the State, Treasury and Defense hirings. Another group earning representation on the list: former Obama campaign bundlers, including Don Beyer, Don Gips and Tom Perrelli, each of whom has raised at least $500,000 for Obama.
Overseeing the overseers are the members of Obama's transition working group. Among them: Reed Hundt, FCC chairman during much of the '90s; Seth Harris, who worked on labor policy for the campaign; David J. Hayes, deputy secretary of the Interior under President Clinton; Ray Rivera, former political director for AFSCME; and Louisa Terrell, formerly of Yahoo.
Academics, industry executives, congressional aides and high-profile attorneys are among those whose names are swirling as potential candidates for the high-level White House job to oversee government-wide anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting efforts in the Obama administration.
The position was written into a broader intellectual property bill sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Arlen Specter, R-Penn., along with Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio. President Bush signed the legislation last month.
Leahy will offer a list of names to Obama's transition team, but the post is viewed as "second-tier" -- one that will be addressed after Cabinet and other major nominations are made. Leahy's picks will be "pretty weighty," one source said, noting that he was one of several senators to endorse Barack Obama over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., early in the Democratic primaries.
President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will meet Monday in Chicago, according to a statement issued by Obama transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter.
The two election opponents will discuss ways to "work together" in shaping a "more effective and efficient government," Cutter said. McCain ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel will also attend the meeting.
Accompanying this week's National Journalcover story on the Obama team's possible allies in Congress is a piece by Will Englund questioning whether there might be a downside to such cross-branch incestuousness.
Already, Barack Obama is shaping the most Congress-ready administration in memory, and maybe ever. It starts at the top -- the president, vice president, and chief of staff are all moving directly from Capitol Hill -- and it is a virtual certainty that a whole raft of key positions, from Cabinet secretaries on down, will end up with tenants from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The transition team, especially, is heavy with congressional expertise. Although the administration will probably be more diverse than the transition staff, the reliance on House and Senate aides at this point could help the White House get out of the gate in January without stumbling.
Or at least stumbling in familiar ways.
The complete story, available for a limited time to non-subscribers, can be read here.
Foreign leaders have beat down President-elect Barack Obama's door offering advice since his election, from invitations to visit their countries to suggestions on how to change American policy (New York Times).
At transition headquarters on Sixth Street, "Clintonites are everywhere" (Politico).
"Life for the newly chosen president and his family has changed forever" and the security constraints being put on the Obamas are considerable (New York Times).
Obama has cobbled together a diverse team of economic advisers, including "fair traders, deficit hawks, Wall Street executives, corporate moguls and labor advocates" (Washington Post).
"Bundlers who raised millions of dollars for" Obama's "White House bid are starting to land significant posts on his transition team" (Washington Post).
"The most talked-about tech job in government" -- the new technology czar post -- "is one that never before existed" (Los Angeles Times). But Obama is remaining mum on what that position will look like (Washington Post).
"Two well-known names in education -- Washington education lawyer Judith Winston and Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond -- are heading President-elect Barack Obama's transition team at the Education Department" (Wall Street Journal).
Obama is considering naming an "auto czar" to help with the crises at the Big Three automakers (Boston Globe).
Handicapping The Field
Hillary Rodham Clinton's name is increasingly being used in the same sentence as "Secretary of State" (Politico).
Intense backlash from women's groups may have knocked Larry Summers, who was canned at Harvard in part because of controversial comments he made about women in the sciences, off the short-list for Treasury secretary (Politico).
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D), a former head of Goldman Sachs, is being considered for the top job at the Treasury Department (Wall Street Journal).
By a 3-1 margin, economists say Obama should keep Ben Bernanke at the helm of the Federal Reserve after his term expires in 2010 (Wall Street Journal).
Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean is apparently out of the running for Health and Human Services secretary (Politico).
Meet You In The Lobby
The pharmaceutical lobby is planning a TV ad blitz to counter Obama's expected push to control the price of prescription drugs (Washington Times).
"It's clear times have changed in Washington when the nation's biggest gun-rights lobby -- long considered Republican-leaning -- points out the Democrats on its team and only half-jokingly talks about hiring more" (AP).
The Big Day
More than 1 million revelers may attend Obama's inauguration (AP).
The Armed Forces Inaugural Committee, the organization in charge of collecting applications from bands hoping to play in the inaugural parade, said Thursday that it was receiving 10 applications an hour and had more than 400 so far" (Washington Post).
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, lauded eBay for blocking the sale of inauguration tickets on its Web site (The Hill).
Even Hollywood A-listers are having a tough time scoring inauguration ceremony tickets (Los Angeles Times).
Shortly after Barack Obama was elected to the Senate in 2004, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, encouraged him to join the panel. Soon, they were working closely together on issues relating to nuclear nonproliferation. Obama traveled with Lugar to Russia in 2005, during which they were detained in the city of Perm. It was, as Lugar told National Journal, "quite an initiation for Barack." During the presidential campaign, Obama even aired an ad that featured his work with Lugar as an example of his eagerness to reach across party lines.
Lugar recently spoke to NJ about what to expect in an Obama administration. Edited excerpts follow.
NJ: You encouraged Senator Obama to join the Foreign Relations Committee. What are your impressions of him?
Lugar: Frequently he waited two hours as we went back and forth for questions and answers of witnesses. Patiently he was still there, and I made note of that. I appreciated that. In the summer of '05 he said, 'I know you go to Russia every year, I'd like to go with you.' I said sure, and so we went to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. It was about a two-week trip. It had all sorts of extraordinary events, including our detention in Perm and other difficulties with the Russians.
It was quite an initiation for Barack. I think we learned a great deal about each other and our interests, where we came from. It has led to good conversations and good work on the committee before he got tied up with the presidential campaign. He is a creative person, a very intelligent person, has great powers of expression, and extraordinary organizational ability.
NJ: He has a huge network of supporters. Will he be able to use that network to pressure folks on the Hill to advance his agenda?
Lugar: Yes, he can. And he should. This [campaign] developed obviously in a way that perhaps no presidential campaign has ever worked the Internet and the grassroots business so effectively. He and his people know about these things. How well they can adapt them to public policy, as opposed to winning elections, remains to be seen.
A new agency promoting global development and democracy could evolve in the Obama-Biden administration.
A nonprofit think tank on Thursday issued a series of recommendations for the incoming president, including exploring the creation of an independent development agency that consolidates the responsibilities of more than 20 disparate entities such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, Millennium Challenge Corp. and President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
The release of the recommendations from the Center for U.S. Global Engagement is not unusual. Manygroups promote their policy agendas during presidential transitions to influence the next crop of decision-makers. But the notion of creating a more streamlined, central USAID that houses all the federal government's foreign assistance programs actually was outlined by President-elect Obama in one of several policy proposals published during the campaign. That move makes the idea look less like a recommendation and more like a distinct possibility.
Defense Department officials have prepared a "nonprescriptive" guidebook on military policy to hand over to the Obama administration, a senior Pentagon official said today. Eric Edelman, the undersecretary of Defense for policy, said it includes a timeline for the first 90 days of the new administration, as well as other information on the state-of-play of military issues, but no specific guidance on how incoming Pentagon officials should proceed. "In past transitions, I've seen a lot folks... try to say, 'Look, here's the policy and here's why you should keep it,'" Edelman said. "I think we've tried to be nonprescriptive." Edelman, who served in the Pentagon from 1990 to 1993, said the current transition efforts are "light years" ahead of the 1992 changeover.
The Center for American Progress is aiming to establish itself this fall as the go-to progressive think tank in Washington.
Following the announcement that John Podesta, the group's co-founder, is co-chairing Barack Obama's transition team, CAP has joined the New Democracy Project to publish "Change For America: A Progressive Blueprint For The 44th President." This book, the product of a year of work by 67 writers, purports to demonstrate how the new administration can "bring real change to America." Ten of the book's 50 chapters are available for free on CAP's Web site.
In light of Podesta's role in forming the Obama administration and the role his think tank is gearing up to fill both on Capitol Hill and K Street, Lost In Transition will periodically highlight select chapters of the book, focusing on concrete ways CAP hopes to influence the policies of the new president.
The first in the series will focus on the chapter, "Rebuilding to Create What Should Have Been from the Beginning." This chapter was written by Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general of the Homeland Security and State Departments, and current director of the Homeland Security
Program at the Aspen Institute.
Pegging DHS as the "poster child for government dysfunction," Ervin
lists a number of things the Obama administration should fix within
this department.
Two days after the election, a coalition representing 31 of the nation's top environmental organizations submitted a list of energy and climate change policy recommendations to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team.
The greens' recommendations largely reflected Obama's campaign promises, calling on the next administration to work with Congress to pass ambitious legislation to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But the environmentalists also went beyond Obama's election rhetoric, suggesting that the Environmental Protection Agency use the Clean Air Act to set limits on global warming pollution from electric power plants, cars and fuels. Industry groups have opposed proposals to use the air pollution law to control climate change emissions, claiming that such regulations would force federal regulators to control everything from factories to schools and churches.
The environmentalists also said Obama should use existing laws to require the auto industry to produce more efficient cars and trucks. They want the new administration to allow California and 13 other states to control global warming pollution from cars and trucks, a request that was turned down by the Bush Administration and opposed by the auto industry.
While President-elect Barack Obama has been wildly successful in using the Web to build a vast network of supporters, interest groups on both sides of the aisle are also finding ways to rally their faithful. And left-leaning organizations may prove to be as much of an irritant as a boon to the new Democratic president as they push for sweeping and immediate changes to Bush administration policies.
The American Civil Liberties Union is holding a national telephone town-hall meeting with progressive activists tonight as part of its effort to push the Obama administration to "bring about much-needed change to this country." The call, moderated by executive director Anthony Romero and legislative director Caroline Fredrickson, will be dedicated to discussing what the group's supporters can do during the transition period to "hold the Bush administration accountable" and to force the incoming Obama team to "restore civil liberties."
The ACLU launched a campaign Wednesday pressuring Obama to close the detention centers at Guantanamo Bay on day one of his presidency. The group is also calling for the president-elect to sign executive orders Jan. 20 ending the use of torture and the practice of extraordinary rendition. "There is no room for patience or delay in these areas. We have to hold President-elect Obama's feet to the fire if we're going to turn hope into reality," said Romero in a press release.
The group took out a full-page ad in Wednesday's New York Times to promote its message, and it has launched a new Web site, www.closegitmo.com, where it will feature a series of videos about the detention camps. Produced in association with Brave New Foundation, the mini-documentaries will feature interviews with prison guards, lawyers for some of the detainees and former prisoners who have been released.
Such actions signal that the ACLU is serious about gathering its forces and pressuring Obama to get to work quickly on some of the issues he talked about during the campaign.
National Journal has obtained documents sent by White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten to the heads of departments and agencies outlining the transition arrangements worked out between the current and incoming administrations.
The memos are historical documents that represent the agreements between the two sides, spelling out in detail what the Bush administration will do for the incoming Obama team. The two main documents, a policy statement for department heads and a memorandum of understanding signed last Saturday by Bolten and John Podesta, co-chair of the president-elect's transition team, include a comprehensive discussion about high-level contacts and a clear dispute-resolution mechanism -- an important addition.
One thing the papers don't spell out is whether Bolten will later ask Bush's political appointees to submit their resignations effective Jan. 20, so Obama can install his own team without a lot of stress (a common practice). Podesta, who was President Clinton's White House chief of staff during the 2000-2001 transition, sent out his memo Nov. 29, 2000, asking for the resignations of Clinton's political appointees, in preparation for the incoming Bush people. It's possible that Podesta and Bolten chatted about this Monday when they met at the White House.
President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, had their official welcome tour of their new home on Monday, and today Joe and Jill Biden will be received at the Naval Observatory grounds.
Dick and Lynne Cheney will give their successors a glimpse of their new quarters and host them for dinner. One wonders what the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the chief architects of the war on terror might have to say to one another.
Biden has made it clear that he does not share Cheney's view on the office of the vice president. The Delaware senator has been enraged by Cheney's assertions that he is not a member of the executive branch. In his Oct. 2 debate with Sarah Palin, Biden characterized Cheney as "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history."
Unfortunately for those curious to see tonight's potentially awkward interaction, the meeting will take place behind closed doors.
The New York Times' new "If You Were President" tool is worth giving a look, if only for the insight it provides into how readers view the Cabinet.
More participants, so far, would like to see Oprah Winfrey or Ralph Nader be secretary of state than would like to see Madeline Albright reprise her role. More Times readers see Dennis Kucinich as attorney general than picked David Iglesias, a former U.S. Attorney. And "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer is beating out Bill Clinton in voting for secretary of the treasury. Take that, Big Dog!
The Obama-Biden transition team has tapped a former top official at the Office of Management and Budget to lead a comprehensive review of government operations agencies, including delving into personnel and procurement issues.
Sally Katzen, a veteran of the Clinton administration, is one of 20 people named on Wednesday to oversee the review process, a specific portfolio of issues, and in some cases whole departments, to help the new administration get up to speed on policy and the landscape of the bureaucracy.
Katzen, who also will lead a review of the Executive Office of the President, is a lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School. During the Clinton years, she served as administrator of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and as deputy director for management. OIRA is a little-known but powerful shop within OMB, playing a pivotal role in the federal rule-making process. It is responsible for reviewing agencies' draft regulations on policies and ensuring they adhere to the president's priorities. Many presidents have used the rule-making process and executive orders to circumvent legislative action.
Since 2001, Katzen has spent most of her time teaching law at various universities. Before joining the Clinton administration in 1993, she specialized in regulatory and legislative issues as a partner at the Washington law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and also served in the Carter administration as the general counsel of the Council on Wage and Price Stability in the Executive Office of the President.
When the call goes out in Washington to assemble the "wise men," often in times of crisis, Lee Hamilton is invariably on everyone's short list. A co-chair of both the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, Hamilton is on presidential Boards advising the CIA, FBI, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security. Hamilton previously served in Congress for 34 years, including as chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee. Currently director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, Hamilton recently spoke with National Journal about how Barack Obama could begin to build goodwill in foreign affairs.
NJ: What steps do you think a President Obama could take coming out of the gates that would be welcomed on the world stage?
Hamilton: First of all, I think the tone that the next president adopts will be almost as important as policy. A President Obama will want to show that he's prepared to reach out to others and engage, and that he is in charge and confident but not arrogant. He should make clear a desire to work with international organizations and cooperate with other nations in achieving our common goals. Through the personnel appointments he makes, President Obama should also signal that he is going to run a competent administration. All of that may seem obvious, but I think it's terribly important that the next president adopts that kind of confident, cooperative tone from the moment he steps into the Oval Office.
NJ: What initiatives would you recommend he adopt early to build positive momentum?
Hamilton: There are a number of candidates, some of which more difficult than others. An easy one would be to adopt the recommendation of the War Powers Commission in terms of consultation with Congress. I served on that Commission, which was led by [former Secretary of State] Warren Christopher and [former Secretary of State] James Baker. That's a simple procedural proposal that I think would gain broad support with Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
Obama has already said that he will prohibit torture and close Guantanamo Bay, and I presume he will take those steps early. That will convey a very positive impression both at home and abroad. I also think his promise to reset badly strained military forces is also broadly agreed upon.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden has chosen veteran Congressional and White House staffer Ron Klain to be his chief of staff, a position Klain also held under former Vice President Al Gore (Roll Call -- subscription).
Barack Obama has tapped former Clinton officials to lead the Treasury, State and Defense Department transitions (New York Times).
Both of the Obama's transition team leaders at the State Department are Clintonites with ties to the "troubled" mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Politico).
The non-profit OMB Watch is encouraging Obama to follow through on his campaign pledge to "develop advanced online capabilities that will make government more transparent and not rely so heavily on the contracting community" (NextGov).
Some observers argue that the rules of presidential succession in the event of a catastrophe require a "long-term strategy that guarantees that a single terrorist strike wouldn't throw the country into a constitutional crisis" (Wall Street Journal).
Despite bipartisan calls for its abolishment, Obama has been silent on his plans for the White House political office, the "nerve center of the sprawling political operations headed up by President Bush adviser Karl Rove" (Politico).
Congress, not content to wait for Sen. Obama to become President-elect Obama, is plowing ahead with legislation on health care and the economy (Los Angeles Times).
Biden and Vice President Dick Cheney will meet today to tour the vice-presidential residence and discuss foreign affairs (AP).
Help Wanted
Out of power for eight years, progressives searching for cherry jobs hailed the release yesterday of the 2008 Plum Book, a "guide to more than 8,000 leadership positions in the executive and legislative branches" (NextGov).
"Several federal agencies overseeing pay, benefits and labor issues have vacancies in upper management, according to the latest edition of the Plum Book, released on Wednesday" (Government Executive).
The questionnaire being distributed to candidates for White House appointments includes a query about whether applicants have ever sent text messages, e-mails or instant messages that could prove embarrassing, just one of several questions that is raising eyebrows about privacy (New York Times).
More than 200,000 job seekers may apply for just 8,000 jobs in the Obama administration (Government Executive).
Handicapping The Field
Mary Nichols, "the savvy negotiator who is leading California's complex effort to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions," is reportedly in the running to be the next EPA head (Los Angeles Times).
Tammy Duckworth, the former Illinois Army National Guard pilot who lost both her legs when her chopper was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, is being mentioned as Obama's possible successor in the Senate or the secretary of Veterans Affairs (Army Times).
Obama is leaning towards tapping Richard Danzig, a former Navy secretary, for Defense secretary, sources tell Army Times.
Potpourri
More sidewalk space will be opened up for spectators during Obama's Inauguration Day parade (Washington Post).
Consumer advocates are warning would-be inauguration attendees to beware of online scams for tickets, which haven't even been printed yet (Los Angeles Times).
Many in India are miffed by a perceived slight from President-elect Obama, who over the weekend spoke with 15 world leaders -- including the leader of Pakistan -- but not with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (Washington Post).
As Obama looks to throw out the Bush administration's environmental playbook, some officials are working to ensure that a "robust collection of energy conservation initiatives that have significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions" aren't tossed out with the bathwater (Government Executive).
Public school is "still a possibility" for the Obama children, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7 (Politico).
The Obama transition team this afternoon sent reporters a memo with the names of those they had tapped to review three key departments -- Treasury, State and Defense. These three departments are often cited as priorities for Barack Obama and his team.
The review teams, which will get to work by the end of this week, are tasked with keeping the larger transition effort up-to-date on the goings-on within these three massive departments, and help senior appointees navigate the confirmation process and hit the ground running once they're confirmed.
WASHINGTON -- The Obama-Biden Transition Team today announced the Agency Review Team leads for the Department of Treasury, Department of State, and Department of Defense. The Obama-Biden Transition Team also announced the Agency Review Team co-chairs, who will oversee the entire review process, as well as the Agency Review Working Group, which will manage and review the Teams' work and coordinate with other transition teams, including those handling personnel, policy and the budget.
The Agency Review Teams will complete a thorough review of key departments, agencies and commissions of the United States government, as well as the White House, to provide the President-elect, Vice President-elect, and key advisors with information needed to make strategic policy, budgetary, and personnel decisions prior to the inauguration. The Teams will begin their efforts by the end of the week, and will ensure that senior appointees have the information necessary to complete the confirmation process, lead their departments, and begin implementing signature policy initiatives immediately after they are sworn in.
The Washington Postreports this morning -- on the front page, no less -- that two top intelligence officials are expected to lose their jobs. Getting the ax, the Post says, will be the two Mikes -- Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Mike Hayden.
But, more than a report on impending departures, the story looks like a pre-emptive strike by senior officials and their staffs eager to stay on in the Obama administration. It quotes a number of unnamed senior officials who offer a host of reasons why replacing Hayden and McConnell is a bad idea. These officials point out that the CIA and DNI posts are "open-ended appointments," and that quick replacements at the top of each department "could be seen as politicizing their offices." (Team Obama was mum on the matter.)
Quoting other anonymous officials, the article reveals that McConnell and Hayden want to remain on the job, just as George Tenet did when he remained as CIA director in the transition from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. The article proceeds to throw out some other gold-plated names from transitions past: Gen. Colin Powell and Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who stayed on through transitions between presidents of different parties.
As Barack Obama reportedly considers closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, a report [PDF] released today by the University of California, Berkeley, in association with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, urges the president-elect to appoint a commission charged with examining the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo, Afghanistan and other locations since Sept. 11.
Researchers interviewed more than 60 former detainees and 50 "key informants," such as government officials and attorneys representing the detainees. The report found "serious flaws" in the system President Bush set up to detain, interrogate and release suspected members of the Taliban and al-Qaida.
In a conference call today with reporters, the report's authors stressed that setting up a commission -- similar to the one that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 -- should be the first step for the Obama administration. Laurel Fletcher, director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law, emphasized the global influence this commission could have.
Establishing the commission right away would "create a very strong symbolic message to the American public and to our international community that the Obama administration is going to turn the page on this dark chapter and is willing to take a critical look at the last eight years about what went wrong and what went right," Fletcher said.
Fletcher, along with Eric Stover, director of UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center, and Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, insisted that the camp should be closed immediately, but that closing it is not enough. "There's a larger political question here," Warren said. "It's important that the Obama administration look to the findings in this report to help guide its policy on what the next steps are."
Stover said the commission would include a wide range of experts on subjects such as constitutional and military law, public health and medicine. Who those experts should be, and how many of them should be selected, is for the Obama administration to decide, Stover said.
The group also wholeheartedly supports employing executive orders to end the use of torture in interrogation practices, a step that Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who chairs the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, is advocating.
This week has seen an explosion of wish lists and online forums dedicated to telling President-elect Barack Obama's transition team what the new administration's No. 1 priority should be.
Policyarchive.org recently launched Presidential Advisory '08, a broad repository of policy recommendations from think tanks of all political stripes that the group plans to update throughout the transition period. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is soliciting recommendations for a presidential "honey do" list from viewers. And even the Obama team itself is providing regular Americans with a chance to express their "vision" for the country at its new Web site, change.gov.
But perhaps the constituency with the most to say is progressive think tanks. Having waited eight years to get a Democrat back in the White House, these groups are clamoring to gain influence with the new administration on what they consider the most urgent needs of the country.
One of them was founded by John Podesta, co-chair of Obama's transition team and former Clinton White House chief of staff. The Center for American Progress -- along with the New Democracy Project -- just releasedChange for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President, a 50-chapter book on how to "bring real change to America" that 67 scholars spent a year putting together. CAP, created in 2003 to offset the rise of conservative think tanks, is not hiding its aspirations of becoming "Washington's most influential think tank," as AP recently reported, and with one of its founders heading up the Obama transition team, it may be poised to do just that.
Other organizations are taking a less comprehensive approach, offering proposals one issue at a time. For example, the New America Foundation published an education wish list on its Higher Ed Watch blog last week. And the National Council of La Raza, the largest Latino advocacy group in the country, is pushing for minority appointments to Obama's Cabinet, specifically backing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for secretary of state.
In today's Poll Track, NationalJournal.com's David Herbert takes a look at some post-election polling and finds that, while Americans overwhelmingly support President-elect Obama, they're more skeptical of his specific policies on Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and taxes.
Calls are coming in for President-elect Obama to take quick and decisive action on interrogation and detention of terrorist suspects. Today, Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who chairs an intelligence oversight panel, said that when Obama takes office in January, he should immediately issue an executive order to end the use of torture in interrogations.
As National Journalrecently reported(subscription), Obama's administration will have to wrestle with a number of classified Justice Department legal opinions used by the Bush administration to support extraordinary interrogation methods, including waterboarding. It could take some time for Obama's attorney general to wade through all that paperwork, and the transition team probably still doesn't know precisely what the opinions authorized. But executive orders -- what Holt and others are calling for -- are a way for Obama to act without waiting to find out.
Obama could issue an order that says, essentially, "The use of torture is not allowed, period." The order could then define what he means by torture. Such an action would give the new administration an easy way to override Bush-era legal opinions and any programs or policies they might have spawned.
But executive orders alone won't fully resolve the legal issues underlying a range of important intelligence matters. While they carry the force of law, the orders can be overturned by another president, or another order. They are temporal by design, and an instrument of the kind of executive authority that, on several occasions, candidate Obama said President Bush used to excess.
That's not to say that executive orders aren't a legitimate and transparent use of presidential authority -- they are. But calls are already bubbling up from civil liberties groups and other strident critics of Bush-era policies for Obama to, more or less, operate like Bush -- use his presidential powers to set policy and not worry about changing the law. It will be worth watching, as the new administration gets its legs, how much of that "unitary" style of governance it actually embraces. Executive orders are, if nothing else, an efficient way to get things done.
The sagging economy will make investments in federal information technology initiatives touted by President-elect Barack Obama during his campaign unlikely, say federal IT specialists.
Obama's technology and innovation plan, released during his campaign, calls for using cutting-edge technology to create "a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America's citizens."
But few IT analysts and professionals expect the Obama administration to invest in the initiatives needed to make that happen, at least in the near future. "We may see some minor reallocation of money in 2010, but [the Obama administration's] full influence over the budget won't happen until 2011," said Deniece Peterson, principal analyst at research firm INPUT. "And even then, the economy is the first priority. Most of the specific technology areas that Obama has been talking about are based on their ability to save money and increase efficiency. But there's the typical Catch 22 -- you need money for initial investment. They just won't be a top concern."
Obama has pledged to use innovative Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis, social networking, power search engines and real-time video streaming of agency deliberations to engage citizens and encourage open dialogue. He wants to use the White House Web site as a way for the public to review and comment on nonemergency legislation before he signs it into law. He plans to require Cabinet officials to have periodic national online town hall meetings to answer questions and discuss issues.
With an unprecedented interest in the presidential transition among the media and public, the Obama administration is going to have to be careful about what they put out on the Internet. The blogosphere has been buzzing about the disappearance of the detailed policy agenda from Barack Obama's transition Web site, change.gov. From CNET:
The "agenda" Web pages on change.gov seem to have mysteriously disappeared on Sunday. By Monday morning, they were replaced with a vague statement saying that Obama and running mate Joe Biden have a "comprehensive and detailed agenda" that will "bring about the kind of change America needs," with the individual pages deleted entirely.
Obama's camp is claiming the changes are a consequence of the web site's hasty launch last week:
"We're retooling the Web site," said spokesman Nick Shapiro to Pro Publica. "Basically, it was put up within hours after we won. We took everything down to rework it."
Regardless of whether the information is re-posted or altered, the incident is a lesson to the new administration: with so much attention focused on every move and statement being made, it's important that nothing is posted on the Internet before it's vetted and approved first. We'll call that the Palin Rule.
The fact that so many sites have posted cached versions of the deleted Web pages just drives the point home further; in this day and age, nothing you post on the Internet is going to go away quickly just because you pull it off your server.
The Obama camp announced new lobbying guidelines for the transition period Tuesday, which, while harsh, fall short of the draconian measures he promised to implement during the campaign (Boston Globe).
President-elect Barack Obama will favor less government contracting and more transparency and oversight (Federal Times).
Obama is hoping to "green" the federal government, including replacing the White House fleet with plug-in vehicles within one year (Federal Times).
Obama's transition director, John Podesta, called White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten to defuse tensions after the Democrat's camp apparently leaked the details of a private meeting between 43 and 44 (Roll Call -- subscription).
Obama's transition efforts will cost $12 million and consume the efforts of 450 staffers (Wall Street Journal).
"The issues pages of the official Obama-Biden transition Web site, change.gov, recently went missing and were replaced by a general statement of priorities" (New York Times).
The Short List
Minority groups are calling for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) to be made secretary of state and an African-American to take over Obama's Senate seat (The Hill).
However, now that "we have a black Branch Rickey" in Obama, there may be less pressure to assemble a minority-laden Cabinet (Politico).
Obama wants the Senate to confirm his appointees quicker than usual so that they can address the economy and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Reuters).
Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean has been coy about murmurs that he could be the next secretary of health and human services (Politico).
Obama is looking for a "high-profile point person to oversee reforms in the ailing auto industry," according to aides (Politico).
With President-elect Obama waiting in the wings, leaders at the G-20 summit are not likely to commit to much (Wall Street Journal).
Foreign leaders in town for the G-20 summit this week are clamoring to meet with Obama, and the president-elect's refusal to do so has been at times an awkward dance (New York Times).
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden both expect to lose their jobs under Obama (Washington Post).
Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, widely viewed as one of the front-runners to replace Defense Secretary Robert Gates if he does not stay on, is a "long-time student of government management" (NextGov.com).
Obama has tapped former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sam Nunn [D-Ga.] to lead the Pentagon transition (AP).
Change Is Coming
Capitol hotel rooms are nearly all booked for Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration (AP).
Lawmakers are scrambling for coveted office space lost by outgoing congressional Republicans (Politico).
Keeping with Barack Obama's campaign pledge to curb the influence of lobbyists and special interests in Washington, transition team co-chair John Podesta today began to lay out ethics rules that will guide the changeover -- and perhaps shed light on the how the new administration will operate.
Federally registered lobbyists will not be allowed to contribute or raise money for the transition. Lobbyists who are hired by the transition team will be prohibited from doing any lobbying work while they are working for Obama, and they will not be allowed to work within an issue area in which they have done any lobbying within the past 12 months. Conversely, anyone who joins the transition team and then returns to lobbying will not be allowed to lobby the White House on any matter on which they worked for the next 12 months.
Podesta called the restrictions "the strictest and most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history." He said the team will have more to say later about the ethics rules that will govern hiring in a new Obama administration. He mentioned that Obama suggested a two-year look-back period during the campaign, rather than the one-year that is being put in place during the transition. Podesta said the shorter time frame for the changeover was appropriate given the short-term nature of the task, but hinted that a longer look-back period is being considered for lobbyists who would be entering government service under an Obama administration.
Asked if such strict rules would prohibit people with subject-matter expertise from being able to make meaningful contributions to the transition process, Podesta replied, if that's the case, "so be it." He said that the American people expect President-elect Obama to crack down on the abuse of power by lobbyists and special interests and stop the revolving door between K Street and the White House.
Despite the concerns of some on K Street, this policy does leave the door open for lobbyists to find jobs in an Obama White House.
Podesta hit on many other topics in the session, but he was careful to emphasize that Obama will avoid any actions that could be portrayed as stepping on the toes of President Bush. For example, the president-elect will not be in Washington this weekend when leaders of the G-20 nations will gather to discuss the international economic crisis, although Obama and vice president-elect Joe Biden might send lower-level representatives to meet with some of those delegations.
The presidential campaign might be over, but the competition for jobs in the new Obama administration has only just begun.
The 2008 Plum Book, the eagerly anticipated guide to more than 8,000 federal civil service leadership positions in the executive and legislative branches, will be available tomorrow, Nov. 12. This year, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is publishing the tome, known officially as "United States Policy and Supporting Positions." Aspiring political appointees and ambitious career executives can purchase the guide for $38.00 at the Government Printing Office's bookstore. For the more frugal and environmentally conscious, the book is also available for free at GPO's Web site.
The House and Senate alternate publishing the book every four years. While many positions are listed as vacant, the majority contain the name of the current office holder.
The Plum Book includes a range of federal jobs that may be subject to noncompetitive appointment, from assistant secretaries to confidential assistants. The types of positions included in the guide are:
President-elect Barack Obama must resist the temptation to reap short-term political gains in his push for energy independence and reduced greenhouse gases, experts on a Brookings Institution transition panel warned this afternoon.
Charles Ebinger, director of the Energy Security initiative, said Obama ought to make increased production of hybrid vehicles the cornerstone of any federal bailout agreement with the faltering auto industry.
"It's time to get tough on Detroit," Ebinger said. Rotating more green vehicles into the nation's fleet is the key to reducing petroleum consumption, he added, since the vast majority of oil is used as transportation fuel.
The three factors driving public support for alternative energy -- climate change concerns, national security worries and the high price of energy -- will not always go hand in hand or necessarily all fire on the same cylinders, the panelists argued. The marked decline in fuel prices in recent weeks will benefit the economy and take some leverage away from oil-producing states, but it may also deplete the political will for bold new energy policies, they said.
And while politicians and businesses may celebrate the cheaper oil, Ebinger doesn't expect those low rates to last long.
"The further the price oil goes down," Ebinger warned, "the faster it will go back up."
Also on the panel were William Antholis, the managing director of Brookings, Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and E.J. Dionne, a senior fellow at Brookings and a columnist for the Washington Post. The panel discussion was the second in a 12-part series dealing with the transition that Brookings is hosting this fall.
President-elect Barack Obama's campaign discussion of transparency and ethics has led the
contracting community to expect that his administration will put a greater focus on doing business with
firms that are good corporate citizens.
This might mean that in some
cases, the administration will look at behavior peripheral to the
project at hand, such as compliance with federal tax and environmental
law and equal employment opportunity regulations, said Larry Allen, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement.
Contractor oversight has been extensive during the past two
years, with both Senate and House committees holding numerous hearings
to grill administration officials and private sector executives on
high-profile instances of procurement waste, fraud and abuse. Lawmakers
passed sweeping contracting reforms, independently and as part of authorization bills, despite concerns voiced by industry.
In addition, the contracting community is eagerly watching the presidential and congressional transitions in hopes that new leaders will appoint experienced and competent procurement professionals and create a more collaborative environment.
While Obama laid out a number of acquisition-related positions on the campaign trail, contracting leaders say his choice of an acquisition team will be the first real indication of his dedication to contracting management.
A federal district court judge ruled against the White House on Monday, denying its motion to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to hold the executive office of the president accountable for preserving e-mail records. Possibly millions of White House e-mails are missing and may not be included in the archives of the Bush administration.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive, plaintiffs in the suit, are hoping to recover e-mails from backup tapes before the administration departs on Jan. 20. They argue that the White House's failure to recover, restore and preserve electronic communications, and to implement an e-records management system, is in violation of the Federal Records Act.
National Security Archive general counsel Meredith Fuchs, who spoke with National Journal earlier this month about federal e-mail policies, said that if the court had ruled to dismiss the case, "the White House could have gotten rid of those backup tapes before Jan. 20 and we would never know what was lost, especially from the 2003-2005 period, when the e-mails appear to be missing."
"President-elect Obama will hopefully put into place adequate records management systems that will preserve the documentary history of White House activities," Fuchs continued. "If not, the new administration, just like every administration starting with President Reagan's, will be taken to court.
Spokesman Scott Stanzel told AP that the White House is reviewing the opinion and that presidential aides and the Justice Department are conferring about next steps in the case.
"The incoming" Barack Obama "administration plans to explore a more regional
strategy to the war in Afghanistan -- including possible talks with
Iran -- and looks favorably on the nascent dialogue between the Afghan
government and 'reconcilable' elements of the Taliban, according to Obama national security advisers," the Washington Post reports.
"While Iraq has long dominated headlines, Afghanistan will
demand more immediate attention, as" Obama "becomes the first commander-in-chief since Richard M. Nixon in 1969 to take charge during wartime," Bloomberg News reports. "Intensifying violence is ramping up U.S. involvement,
costing money and lives when America faces a record budget
deficit and the public is weary of war."
"A group of Foreign Service employees on Monday urged" Obama "to reform
what they claim is an arbitrary security clearance process," GovernmentExecutive.com reports.
Obama "is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush
administration intelligence policies, advisers say, an approach that is
almost certain to create tension within the Democratic Party," the Wall Street Journal reports.
"An Election Day announcement that the federal Bureau of Land Management
plans to lease more than 350,000 acres for oil and gas drilling in
Utah, including areas adjacent to Arches National Park, drew fire from
environmental groups who accused the Bush administration of giving the
oil industry a gift on the way out of office," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Sunday, John Podesta, who is helping to lead Mr. Obama's transition
team, singled out the Utah leases as one decision the Obama
administration might try to reverse."
Obama Visits White House
Obama "visited the White House yesterday for a long and cordial meeting with the man he will succeed, setting aside two years of withering criticism of President Bush's record to discuss the economy and tour the presidential living quarters," the Washington Post reports.
"No matter how people remember President Bush's time in office, let
there be no doubt about how he wants to end it: gracefully," AP reports. "The result is that Bush's last image at the White House will be one of a magnanimous leader. Whether it will improve his legacy is another matter."
"The struggling auto industry was thrust into the middle of a political standoff between the White House and Democrats on Monday as" Obama "urged
President Bush in a meeting at the White House to support immediate
emergency aid," the New York Times reports
"The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released" Sunday "found that
57
percent of Americans overall believe the hand-over of power will be
'relatively easy,' 63 percent of whites but only 48 percent of blacks
say that," the Boston Globe
reports. "Nearly the same number of black respondents, 47 percent, said
they believe the transition will be 'relatively difficult.'"
Inauguration Frenzy
"The frenzy to attend President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration has already begun,
with thousands calling Congress for a ticket and scam artists promising
entry for hundreds of dollars," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
"Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is drafting legislation that would make it illegal to sell tickets to" Obama's "inauguration ceremony," The Hill
reports. "The tickets won't be given out until days before the
ceremony, but they are already being advertised on websites like eBay
and Craigslist for as much as $40,000."
"Obama is gearing up to raise money for his transition to the White
House and his inauguration, having just concluded the most successful
campaign fund raising in history," the Wall Street Journal reports. Bush "raised $42.8 million mostly from companies and executives to pay for his second inauguration."
The Short List
Obama "is leaning toward asking Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain
in his position for at least a year, according to two Obama advisers," the Wall Street Journal reports.
"A senior Pentagon official said Mr. Gates would likely accept the offer
if it is made."
"A potential energy czar candidate may have just dropped from the shortlist," the Politico reports. Obama's "camp is remaining tight-lipped, but
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told CNN's John King over the
weekend that he's heard nothing from the Obama transition team and has
no interest in coming to Washington for a top job -- at least until he's
finished his term in 2011."
Obama "doesn't plan to name a
Treasury secretary or fill other top positions on his economic
team this week, people familiar with the matter said, as he tries
to keep from being drawn into Bush administration decisions he
may disagree with," Bloomberg News reports.
"Democratic officials say" Obama's "transition aides have approached Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former campaign manager" Patti Solis Doyle "about taking a senior White House post," AP reports.
First Family Fodder
"Michelle Obama wasn't always an admirer of Hillary Clinton, but last
Wednesday the soon-to-be first lady dialed up the former first lady for
pointers on protecting her two young daughters from the media maelstrom
of the White House,"the Politico reports.
Michelle Obama "toured Georgetown Day School in the morning
and Sidwell Friends School, which former President Bill Clinton's
daughter, Chelsea, attended," yesterday afternoon, AP reports.
"The
blogosphere and even some print publications are buzzing with
speculation as to who might become the next White House chef," the Chicago Tribune reports.
"The
Obama family recently received its new (and alliterative)" Secret
Service code "names: 'Renegade' (Barack), 'Renaissance' (Michelle),
'Radiance' (Malia) and 'Rosebud' (Sasha)," the Chicago Tribune reports.
It's not yet clear what the president and president-elect are speaking about this afternoon in the Oval Office, but with congressional Democrats poised to push a second stimulus package during the lame-duck session and the financial bailout grinding on, the economy must surely have been among the topics they discussed.
With its high stakes and daunting complexity -- not to mention the current jitteriness of investors -- the economic crisis perhaps more even than homeland security or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will require a careful transfer of power if President-elect Obama hopes to get a lid on the situation. In the Oct. 25 issue of National Journal, John Maggs delved into some of the ways the transfer could go smoothly -- or go wrong.
The financial crisis has raised the possibility of an unprecedented
presidential transition, in which George W. Bush and the
president-elect may need to cooperate more than the participants in any
past interregnum.
Historians say that presidents-elect have good reason to stay far
away from lame ducks and their decisions, but if this crisis gathers
new momentum, such restraint may not be an option.
Even if things don't get worse, an international summit planned for
November 15 may require Bush to coordinate with the president-elect and
his government-in-waiting to avoid a stalemate that could threaten the
financial system, say economists and experts on the presidency.
Maggs goes on to cite a cautionary example from the 1931-32 transition period -- the one this current handover is most often compared to.
In the precedent that is most comparable to the current situation,
defeated President Hoover begged President-elect Roosevelt to join him
in emergency actions to help revive the economy, which had slipped to
its low point of the Great Depression....
But there is a cautionary dimension to this history. During that
transition, a damaged but still-functioning banking system went into
free fall.
The complete story is available to subscribers here.
By PATRICK B. PEXTON, National Journal deputy editor
As if he needed it, President-elect Barack Obama got a quick lesson in the delicacies of diplomacy as he continued calling world leaders on Friday and through a working weekend. He has now spoken with 18 heads of state or government.
On Saturday, Obama called Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese leader Hu Jintao and promptly stepped into the missile defense issue that is making Russia upset and Poland nervous.
After Obama spoke with Poland's top two leaders on Friday, President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Kaczynski put out a statement indicating that Obama had expressed support for the missile defense program that President Bush has pushed to install in Poland and the Czech Republic. That caused Obama's camp to put out a statement clarifying that the president-elect had not committed to the new missile shield, which is designed to protect Europe from long-range missiles fired from Iran or the Middle East. Russia strongly opposes the system and on the day after the U.S. election threatened to put short-range missiles on the border of Europe if the U.S. system goes forward.
"President Kaczynski raised missile defense, but President-elect Obama made no commitment on it," Denis McDonough, Obama's senior foreign policy adviser, said in a statement. "His position is as it was throughout the campaign, that he supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable."
After Obama's subsequent call to Russia's President Medvedev on Saturday, no mention of the missile defense system was made by officials for either side, but the Kremlin did put out a statement saying the call was cordial and that both men agreed to meet as early as possible.
Chinese officials said that Hu and Obama spoke of the importance of the U.S.-China relationship to the world, and that Hu pointedly raised the issue of Taiwan with the president-elect. The Chinese have objected to a U.S. arms package to Taiwan recently approved by the Bush administration.
Obama also spoke to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, a call that was greeted with hosannas in the Pakistan press, in part because rival India's leader, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has not yet been phoned by the president-elect. Statements issued by Pakistani officials said that Obama and Zardari agreed that they would continue to cooperate in the war on terrorism and that the two men agreed to meet as soon as possible. Pundits in the Indian press were outraged that Obama reached out to Zardari before Singh, but the Indian government put out statements that were more even-handed and patient. They noted that Singh was traveling in the Persian Gulf and a convenient time could not be arranged for a call.
Ken Duberstein, who served as President Reagan's final chief of staff, offered some words of warning to incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel on Friday's edition of "National Journal On Air."
"I don't think Rahm needs any advice from me," Duberstein told host Tammy Haddad, "but I think the most important
thing to remember about chief of staff is to remember that the president is
chief and you're staff."
"What Rahm certainly will come to realize," Duberstein added, "is that every time Rahm Emanuel opens
his mouth, the voice people will hear is the voice of President Obama, not the
voice of Rahm Emanuel."
Duberstein also discussed similarities between this transition period and Reagan's, the difficulties of staffing and appointments in a new administration, and the importance of bipartisanship. The full audio and transcript of the interview are available here.
Now it's starting to get creepy. In an odd way, the
selection of Rahm Emanuel as Barack Obama's chief of staff fulfills yet another plot line
that unfolded during the final season of NBC's "West Wing," which must have
been written by Nostradamus.
As aficionados of the long-running show will know, Emanuel
is widely cited as inspiration for the character of Josh Lyman, who becomes the
chief of staff to the new president, Matthew Santos. And the real conspiracy theorists know why that's important:
The Santos character is modeled after Obama. (The writers spoke repeatedly with
David Axelrod while composing their prophetic plot lines.)
This isn't the first parallel to emerge from the show. The New York Times cataloged earlier coincidences in October.
At this rate, John McCain will be named as Obama's secretary
of state. After all, that's how the season ends, with Santos picking his former rival in the ultimate
gesture of bipartisanship.
Hotline's Sunday Snapshot this week features incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, transition team co-chair Valerie Jarrett and a range of political pundits discussing Barack Obama's win and his preparations to assume the presidency.
Stan Soloway is president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, the national trade association of the government professional and technical services industry. Prior to joining the PSC in 2001, Soloway served in the Clinton administration for nearly three years as deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition reform and director of then-Secretary William Cohen's Defense Reform Initiative.
Soloway spoke with NationalJournal.com's David Herbert before the election about what a Barack Obama victory would mean for interest groups and how they should work with the government during the transition and beyond. Edited excerpts follow. Visit the archives page for more Insider Interviews.
Q. Could you tell me about the Professional Services Council and how you are approaching the transition?
Soloway: We're a trade association of about 330 different companies of all sizes -- there are a lot of small companies up to very large ones -- and the thing that unifies our membership is, despite all their diverse capabilities and sizes and so forth, they all perform services to support the federal government. Our role as a trade association is to be their eyes and ears and voice....
When you think about a transition and all the different elements of a transition, obviously like everybody else -- be they a labor union, the banking industry, sporting clubs, whatever it might be -- everybody has an interest in where the new administration is going to go on the policy issues that affect their market. And in the government contracting area, no industry is more controlled, regulated and driven by policy.
Q. How will Obama's victory affect your members?
Soloway: [Obama's] agenda is very much technology-driven, government performance-driven. Both of those goals require a really high-quality partnership with the private sector, which means the government has to have really good people to oversee, manage, award and evaluate what contractors are doing. I think you will see a focus on his part in this area. This is probably the single toughest issue the new president will face when it comes to the management and performance of government.
• "Less than one week after his historic victory, President-elect Barack Obama heads to Washington on Monday to learn firsthand from President George W. Bush about the challenges that await him on January 20," Reuters reports.
• "The first meeting of incoming and outgoing presidents has been a rite of passage fraught with emotion, surprises and the rare exchange of secrets between leaders of opposite political parties," AP reports. "On Monday, President Bush will welcome" Obama "to the White House, and the 43rd and 44th presidents will make nice."
• "Bush's White House started working nearly a year before Election Day to get the government in shape to be handed off. Aides to Obama also began planning before the voting, just in case their candidate won," AP also reports. "But everything accelerates into overdrive now that the 77-day presidential transition clock has started ticking."
• "It's almost certain that the handoff of the White House from President
George W. Bush to President-elect Barack Obama will pass more smoothly
than the greeting that Bush's new crew faced in 2001," the Chicago Tribune reports. "The Ws were removed from the keyboards of typewriters in the executive office building of President Bill Clinton's departing administration."
• "With the economy in a downward spiral, US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the nation under threat from terrorists, President Bush pledged Saturday to make a smooth transition to an Obama administration a top priority for the rest of his days in office," AP reports.
• Obama "is poised to move swiftly to reverse actions that President Bush took using executive authority, and his transition team is reviewing limits on stem cell research and the expansion of oil and gas drilling, among other issues, members of the team said Sunday," the New York Times reports.
• Obama "is putting hope on hold," AP reports. "In two appearances since he was elected, Obama has emphasized the monumental challenges the country faces and warned against expectations that he will bring a quick fix. The change he promised on the campaign trail will come, he told an eager nation, but it will take some time."
• "With the economy in disarray and the nation's treasury draining," Obama "and his advisers are trying to figure out which of his expansive campaign promises to push in the opening months of his tenure and which to put on a slower track," the New York Times reports.
• "The big money on who becomes the next attorney general is split between two distinct camps: consummate Washington insiders with serious policy credentials and prominent political backers of" Obama, the Politico reports.
• Obama, "elected president as an agent of change, is building his new team with old hands from the Clinton administration," Bloomberg News reports.
• "At the upper reaches of the Democratic Party, 'FOB' used to mean 'Friend of Bill,' as in Clinton," the Los Angeles Times reports. "With Obama's victory on Tuesday, 'FOB' is the new acronym for the close-knit corps of Chicago neighbors, graduate school classmates, pickup basketball teammates and family friends of the incoming president."
• Obama "says moneyed interests won't have an inside track in his White House, but six of the 15 people he named to his transition team are top fundraisers," USA Today reports.
• "Two men in contention to be" Obama's "Treasury secretary have vastly different temperaments, but are also close allies with similar philosophies about handling a global financial crisis," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy Geithner are a study in contrasts -- one a garrulous academic, the other an intense technocrat."
• Obama "plans to push ahead with a middle-class tax cut soon after taking office, his choice for White House chief of staff said yesterday," the Washington Post reports. "Rahm Emanuel also hinted that Obama would not postpone a tax increase for families earning more than $250,000 a year despite the deepening economic gloom."
• "Having mobilized an army of workers to help elect" Obama, "top union officials have not been shy about their plans to push a legislative wish list blocked under President Bush, and they say they will not wait," the Washington Times reports. "On the other hand, business leaders have not been shy about warning the president-elect against such early moves."
• "A senior Pentagon advisory group, in a series of bluntly worded briefings, is warning President-elect Barack Obama that the Defense Department's current budget is 'not sustainable,' and he must scale back or eliminate some of the military's most prized weapons programs," the Boston Globe reports.
• The Obama team is signaling that Michelle Obama will not follow Hillary Clinton's example and act as a co-president in the new administration -- at least not yet, USA Today reports.
• "This is the transition you don't hear so much about: Michelle Obama is getting ready for a new life as first lady, giving plenty of thought to what kind of profile she will carve out for herself in the White House," AP reports.
Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, released a memo to President-elect Barack Obama today giving him advice for how to get his administration off on the right foot.
In the memo, West warns the president-elect not to count too much on the party's majorities in Congress, pointing out that when Bill Clinton came to power, his party also controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Ave., yet the new president could not win over a single vote on his health care reform initiative. The failing economy could be the opening Obama needs to reach out to Republicans, West writes: "The widespread agreement that steps must be taken to stabilize the
financial markets, design a new financial regulatory system and adopt
measures limiting the depth of recession allows you to engage
Republicans in serious deliberations at the outset."
If the new president is able to secure support for an economic stimulus package, he can then move on to other policy areas where there is the potential for bipartisan consensus. This would include, in West's opinion: funding stem cell research, expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program and pursuing renewable fuel research. "The point is to start with legislative proposals that avoid reigniting
bitter partisan battles," West says. "As you proceed to address your highest
priorities -- such as health care and tax policy -- you should direct members
of your administration and congressional leaders to seek the
involvement of key Republicans willing to engage in serious
deliberations."
West offers other bits of advice to the president-elect, chief among them to "temper expectations." "Voters expect dramatic breakthroughs" from the new administration, he believes, and Obama must move to give a dose of reality to the people. He also encourages Obama to continue his effort to revolutionize the way politics is conducted by incorporating new technology into the process. "Appoint a chief technology officer who will bring the public sector up to the standard of top private-sector innovators such as Amazon and eBay," he recommends.
Finally, West warns of the unlucky fate of many presidents who have presided over economic downturns. But he offers him a role model, as well: Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt succeeded as president because "he exuded hope and confidence and was willing to
try bold new approaches," West maintains. "You have a similar
opportunity to inspire people and lead with confidence."
Change Is Comin, an informal group of D.C. progressives, has already thrown its hat in the ring for the "Most Unfortunately Named Inaugural Ball" award. The group, which held fundraisers for Barack Obama throughout the fall, is calling its Jan. 20 bash "Blue Ball."
Brian Komar, the group's lead organizer and an activist at the Center for American Progress, explained in an e-mail that this will be the second "Blue Ball." In 2004, some of the same people went with the name "cuz we were feelin blue and cuz its a fun name. That is the working title for this party cuz this time blue states delivered and cuz its a fun name."
Not everyone is sold. Jennie Kim, a foreign affairs officer at the State Department, is not a member of Change Is Comin, but was invited to the party.
"Just the one ball," she wrote in an e-mail to the group. "That can't be pleasant. The Dems really need to get better at naming things."
The soiree is the latest example of eyebrow-raising wordsmithing from Democrats this election season. Obama's online social networking site was called "myBO" -- short for myBarackObama.com.
Republicans have had their moments, too. During the GOP's national convention, as Hurricane Gustav ripped through the Gulf Coast, lobbyists for the National Rifle Association, Lockheed
Martin and the American Trucking Association were at a party featuring a band called "Hookers and Blow."
The Brookings Institution kicked off a series of talks on the transition process with a panel discussion this morning featuring former White House Chiefs of Staff Kenneth Duberstein and Leon Panetta. The two discussed the challenges facing President-elect Barack Obama as he turns from campaign mode to the task of government, as well as his first big staff appointment -- Rahm Emanuel.
Panetta -- who took over as Bill Clinton's chief of staff in 1994 -- and Duberstein -- who worked in the Reagan White House, including as COS in 1988-89 -- both had abundant praise for Emanuel. Calling him "very disciplined" and "a very hard worker," Panetta insisted that the Illinois congressman has the qualities necessary to get things done. He also pointed out that, while Emanuel has gained a reputation as a partisan Democrat on the Hill, that is mainly because his current position in the leadership team requires him to toe the party line. In reality, Emanuel is a centrist, Panetta claimed, and understands that the Democrats must govern from the center to be effective.
Duberstein went on to stress that the chief of staff position requires the ability to say no, even to the president's most important constituents, and must be able to deliver news that the president needs but does not necessarily want to hear. He called Emanuel "exceptionally qualified" to fill both of these roles.
The former Reagan staffer joked about the 3 a.m. TV ad(subscription) put out by Hillary Clinton's team during the primary race, pointing out that if the phone really did ring in the middle of the night, it would be the COS -- not the president -- answering the call. "I trust Rahm" to handle that situation, he said. Finally, Duberstein added that the disciplined and systematic way that the Obama transition team has rolled out its first appointments sends a positive message about the president-elect's readiness to govern after a long and grueling campaign.
Moving on to strategy decisions that must be made by the new president, both men stressed the importance of picking one or two key priorities to focus on during the first 100 to 200 days in office, and both agreed that the economy has to be Obama's No. 1 priority. "You don't want to start out on the wrong issue," Panetta explained, citing Clinton's push on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Duberstein cited Ronald Reagan as a good example for Obama to follow. During the transition period, Duberstein said, Reagan decided that passing an economic recovery package would be his major focus during his first six months. Before he even took office, he sent people to the Hill to reach out to House Democrats. Ultimately, he was able to win 63 Democratic votes on the first bill he sent to Capitol Hill, enhancing his political capitol and allowing him to then turn to other prized initiatives. Reagan was successful, Duberstein maintained, because he started early, set a clear goal and put the right people in the right places to make things happen.
The Treasury Department's revocation of Iran's "U-turn" license will take effect Monday, a sign that the Bush administration is going to continue ramping up its efforts against the Middle Eastern country in President Bush's waning days in office.
By revoking its U-turn license, the Treasury Department is prohibiting Iran from accessing the U.S. financial system. Stuart Levey, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement that this action terminates the "last general entry point for Iranian banks -- both state-owned and private.... U-turn transactions allowed U.S. banks to indirectly process payments involving Iran if they began and ended with a non-Iranian foreign bank."
Levey cited similar actions by others around the world, such as the European Union and Australia, to stress the risk posed by Iran and its missile program. This decision, he wrote, is also in response to a fourth warning issued by the international Financial Action Task Force in October about the threat that all financial systems face when dealing with Iran.
In another sign suggesting Bush is not going to sit idle, AP reports that the outgoing administration will recommend to President-elect Obama that he push for further expansion of the Afghan army.
President-elect Obama's economic summit in Chicago today may remind some observers of Bill Clinton's summit during his 1992 transition period, but Democratic insiders said Obama's would be focused and intense, not a "gabfest" but a session "that serves his need to know." The tone reflects both the seriousness of the times and the lessons learned from the last Democratic changeover.
National Journal's Alexis Simendinger reports(subscription) on the logistical and policy challenges Obama will face in the run-up to his inauguration Jan. 20, as well as his and the Bush administration's preparations.
The incoming commander in chief has been receiving the same daily national security briefings as President Bush since Wednesday, Simendinger writes.
The White House National Security Council kept the national security advisers to both presidential nominees abreast of Bush's foreign-policy decisions on, for instance, North Korea and Iraq, said spokesman Gordon Johndroe. But most of the Bush White House's transition work this year focused on preparing detailed explanations and briefing materials about Bush policies and operations, so that the next president's team will have a solid foundation of knowledge on day one. Now that Obama is president-elect, he is privy to classified information that he could not see before -- about Iran, for example. Half of the NSC career staff -- approximately 100 people -- will remain in place to serve Obama until he replaces them. Although by law Bush's NSC records will be removed and archived, copies of records and information will remain behind, and the NSC's records-management staff members will be able to quickly find almost anything the new president and his advisers request, Johndroe added.
Simendinger also writes that the buzz is loud for Obama to move quickly on nominating key economic advisers, and not to take his party's increased majorities in Congress for granted.
A former lawmaker predicts that it will be tougher than it looks for Obama to command his party's troops on the Hill. "It's going to be a challenge," said one former Democratic lawmaker. "You're going to have Democrats who feel they've had eight years in Siberia and [have] a lot of pent-up frustrations. And there will be a greater number of Blue Dogs to reckon with.... The basic decision Obama has to make is, does he try to work with Republicans, or are they going to be so insular it won't work?"
By PATRICK B. PEXTON, National Journal deputy editor
President-elect Obama spent more than two hours calling nine foreign leaders on Thursday, thanking them for having phoned to express their congratulations on his election. The list is interesting in that all of those he chose to call back first are close U.S. allies, and not U.S. competitors such as President Hu Jintao of China or President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia.
Medvedev greeted the president-elect with a saber-rattling speech on Wednesday, threatening to put short-range missiles right along Russia's border with Europe should the U.S. continue developing its missile defense system with the Poles and Czechs. The Russian press today spoke in miffed tones that Obama hadn't called Medvedev.
According to press accounts in foreign capitals, Obama's longest conversation was with French President Nicolas Sarkozy; the two spoke for 30 minutes, when most of the other calls were characterized as lasting 10 to 15 minutes. That South Korea's president Lee Myung-bak was on the list was a bit of a surprise, even to Lee himself, as South Korea is often put on a second-tier list of U.S. allies -- although its economy is now the world's 11th-largest. Press reports in Seoul described the conversation as warm, and officials said that Obama expressed admiration for South Korea's accomplishments and indicated familiarity and fondness for Korean food, particularly the fiery cabbage dish kimchee and the beef dish bulgogi.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia described his conversation with Obama as particularly warm and revealed that he and Obama had had several conversations throughout the presidential campaign.
Several foreign press reports suggested the possibility that Obama would try to meet with some of the heads of states in Washington prior to President Bush's economic summit, which begins Nov. 15, but no word from the Obama camp on if that's a possibility yet.
Three subjects consistently came up in the conversations, according to press reports: the worldwide financial crisis, the war in Afghanistan and global climate change, perhaps an indicator of Obama's and his interlocutors' priorities for 2009.
Here's the list of foreign heads of state that Obama phoned:
1. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia
2. Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada
3. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France
4. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany
5. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel
6. Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan
7. President Felipe Calderon of Mexico
8. President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea
9. Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom
Among the many decisions facing President-elect Obama, seating assignments in the West Wing might seem to rank in importance somewhere between choosing his NASA administrator and deciding what type of dog to get his daughters.
But office space can mean a lot when a choice assignment means proximity to the most powerful office in the land. "Everybody wants to be close to the president," said Stephen Hess, a veteran White House staffer and expert on presidential transitions, in an interview with NationalJournal.com. "The president has to be very careful to make sure that the people around him are the people he needs the most."
The staffers a president chooses to keep close can say a lot about the priorities he hopes to set for his administration, as seen in the map below, which shows the layout of the Bush White House in mid-2005. Karl Rove, at the time senior adviser to President Bush, was situated just down the hall from the Oval Office, with both the the national security adviser and his deputy around the corner.
GEORGETOWN, Del. - Even as vice president-elect, he's still just "Joe" at home.
Two days after being elected vice president, Joe Biden returned to the First State to an enthusiastic, though wet reception Thursday as he took part in the post-election "Return Day" tradition. Riding around the small town in a horse-drawn carriage, Biden smiled and waved as almost everyone it seemed referred to him just by his first name as they shouted their good wishes.
Biden later told his constituents that no matter what office he holds, "I'm still Delaware."
"It's been an honor representing you, and thank you," the vice president-elect said during brief remarks at the annual "Return Day" event. "I'm still at this moment and continue to be Senator Joe Biden, the proudest title I've ever had, representing the state of Delaware. I love you, thank you very, very, very, very much."
Biden also told the hundreds of huddled Delawareans that he still plans to spend a lot of time at home.
"The bad news for you is, Jill and I are not leaving Delaware," he said. "I maybe the vice president-elect, but we're going to be home every weekend so you know where we live."
Since the presidential transition from Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush,
George Washington University's National Security Archive has been a
watchdog of federal e-mail preservation policies. Most recently the
archive, which manages a library of security documents, joined a lawsuit that seeks to hold the George W. Bush
White House and the National Archives and Records Administration
accountable for backing up and cataloging electronic records, which
must be preserved under the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act.
NationalJournal.com's Theresa Poulson spoke with Meredith Fuchs,
the general counsel to the National Security Archive, before the
election about the risks of the upcoming transition and the
organization's expectations for the next president. Edited excerpts
follow. Visit the archives page for more Insider Interviews.
Q: Why did the National Security Archive get involved with the lawsuit?
Fuchs: What happened when the Bush
administration came in is that they scrapped the e-mail archiving
system [established under the Clinton administration].... and they
didn't replace it. They actually did develop a replacement in
consultation with National Archives, but they made the decision not to
install it. So, for the eight years of the Bush administration, there
is no archive of the e-mails that were sent or received within the
White House....
This issue first came to light, at least to our knowledge, during the investigation and the trial of "Scooter" Libby, who was the vice presidential aide who was prosecuted for disclosing that Valerie Plame
was a CIA agent.... During that case, the prosecutors told Libby's
defense lawyers that certain records in the office of the vice
president, e-mail records, were just missing, and they didn't have
copies of them to provide. So we were aware of that, and then several
months later, an organization called [Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics in Washington], actually based on information they got from a
confidential source, issued a report saying that it's not just some
e-mails in the office of the vice president, it was, in fact,
potentially 5 million e-mails from throughout the White House and the
executive office of the president. And once we heard about that, that's
when we filed our suit.
Barack Obama is "moving swifty" to bring in economic heavy hitters to stem the crisis and reassure "foreign leaders and even the Bush administration" (New York Times).
President Bush is eager to minimize the nation's vulnerability during the transition, even dispatching Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, to Chicago to brief Obama (New York Times).
The more things change, the more they stay the same for Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Fifteen years ago, Gates helped a Democratic president-elect take over for a Bush at a time when the most pressing international issues included "the turmoil in Russia," as well as "developments in Iraq, North Korea, China, and Iran" (New York Times).
Obama is likely to shift military resources to Afghanistan to deal with the Taliban's resurgence and a volatile Pakistan (Wall Street Journal).
Republicans and a few Democrats criticized Obama's chief of staff pick, Rahm Emanuel, arguing that it would be hard to bridge the political divide with a "veteran partisan pugilist" nicknamed "Rahmbo" (Wall Street Journal).
"Business and political leaders were cautiously optimistic Thursday about the impact the incoming Obama administration will have on the D.C. area's economy." (The Washington Times)
Bush wants to "make the transition from one administration to the next as smooth as passing a baton in a relay race," and plans "to meet with Obama next week to accelerate the transition." (USA Today)
Bush will meet with Obama "in the Oval Office on Monday to discuss the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other challenges the new administration will face in January," while First Lady Laura Bush will also give Michelle Obama "a tour of the White House residence that afternoon." (Washington Post)
In a meeting Thursday with "two of the country's top intelligence officers," which was Obama's "first full-blown classified briefing on national security," the discussion focused largely on the question of "who would Obama pick to advise him on the nation's most sensitive intelligence secrets during the next four years?" (Washington Post)
"One of Obama's early appointments after he takes office is likely to be a new U.S. solicitor general, the government's top lawyer before the court." (USA Today)
Obama returned phone calls and "accepted congratulations from nine presidents and prime ministers Thursday" (AP).
The same web team that helped changed the way the internet was used in Obama's presidential campaign "is moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave" and has already launched a new site that encourages supporters to get involved in the transition effort (Washington Times).
The business community is gearing up for a "landmark political battle" with the new administration over union rules, trade policy and other issues (Financial Times).
Obama is getting "conflicting advice" from his advisers over who to pick for Treasury Secretary (Los Angeles Times).
Malia and Sasha Obama "will face dramatic changes when they become the youngest White House inhabitants since Amy Carter" (Chicago Tribune).
President-elect Barack Obama is not
the only one expediting the transition. Federal agencies governmentwide
have spent months preparing both operationally and logistically for an
orderly handoff.
The General Services Administration on Wednesday
announced that it had "turned over the keys" of the transition's
Washington headquarters to the Obama team.
"This is a proud day
for GSA, and it has been an honor to work with the campaign teams to
fulfill our responsibilities and meet their transition needs," said
acting GSA Administrator James Williams.
Located in downtown
Washington, the building includes approximately 120,000-square-feet of
office suite space on three floors. In addition, a basement media room
can accommodate about 100 reporters.
The office space comes
complete with desktop computers, furniture, phones and other equipment,
GSA's Presidential Support Team Manager Tim Horne said in a Monday
briefing.
The 1963 and 2000 Presidential Transition Acts gave GSA
the responsibility to provide the president-elect's team with parking
spaces, and administrative services such as mail management, payroll
and contracting. The agency also is authorized to release $8.5 million
in congressionally appropriated funds to support the daily activities
of the transition.
White House experience: As an aide to Bill Clinton, Rahm Emanuel witnessed the relatively bumpy transition period in 1992, but also saw the operation recover under the leadership of Leon Panetta. He presumably understands some of the potential pitfalls and will know how to avoid them.
Congressional experience: Emanuel knows the ins and outs of the power structure on the Hill. "He understands how the legislative process works, which will bring great advantage as the new administration plans its legislative agenda and then takes necessary steps to secure its passage," said University of Vermont professor John Burke, author of "Presidential Transitions: From Politics to Practice." "Only he and former Senator Howard Baker," who was tapped as Ronald Reagan's chief of staff in 1987, "have had that kind of direct legislative experience."
Closeness to the president-elect: Emanuel's relationship with Obama goes back to their Chicago days. The two are close personally; Emanuel knows Obama's strengths and weaknesses as a leader, and thus can presumably work around them.
Early announcement bodes well for transition: The chief of staff has a multitude of responsibilities, including making other key White House staff appointments. "Early appointment of a chief of staff is a central pillar of a successful transition," said Burke, calling the quick announcement "a very good sign."
Potential Cons:
Temperament: Nicknamed "Rahmbo," the Illinois representative has made enemies as well as friends on Capitol Hill. His take-no-prisoners style can ruffle feathers. Though it could make him an effective surrogate for the more mild-mannered Obama, it could also prove an obstacle to the kind of bipartisan governing Obama has promised throughout his campaign. The position of chief of staff requires a "strong, experienced, and astute hand, but not an overbearing one," according to Burke. It remains to be seen if Emanuel can strike the right balance as a manager.
Supporting actor: Obama will be the face of the administration, while it's the chief of staff's role to handle the backroom dealings. For a man who has played a very visible role in Congress, will a behind-the-scenes role be enough?
Honest broker: Whether the outspoken Emanuel can be relied upon to provide impartial counsel on policy issues is an open question. "Chiefs of staff who put their own policy thumbs too heavily on the scale run into problems," Burke said, citing Donald Regan under Reagan and John Sununu under George H.W. Bush as examples. "Can he present his own policy views and advice, without compromising alternative points of view?"
Removes a powerful player from the House: Emanuel had aspirations to become House Speaker. This job will, at least, put those plans on hold, and the Democratic leadership will have to find a suitable replacement for his position as Caucus Chairman.
The morning after Election Day, Drew Maloney, managing director of Ogilvy Government Relations and a former Hill staffer, sent his clients his evaluation of the results and what to expect in the coming weeks. In the memo, he speculates on who might gain a number of key appointments in the Obama administration, what issues the Democrats will likely focus on and which congressional factions stand to benefit the most from the party's gains in both chambers.
"The Obama campaign ran one of the most disciplined campaigns in modern times," Maloney wrote. "The campaigns' small inner circle controlled the message" and "prevented leaks.... We expect the same discipline and information control to continue through transition."
Barack Obama has already made two key White House appointments -- Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff and Robert Gibbs as press secretary -- and the report predicts that Cabinet positions will be soon to follow. Maloney expects Obama's top campaign advisers to play a key role in the transition process, though Obama has also appointed former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta to help run the operation.
The outgoing administration, meanwhile, "has directed remaining top staff to make a smooth transition their priority, as they view it as a 'wartime' transition." As a result, Obama's appointees will likely be briefed and credentialed far faster than has been the norm in previous transitions.
The election also has ramifications for the Senate and the House. Maloney points out that fellow Illinois senator Dick Durbin is Obama's "closest friend in the upper chamber, and he will be Obama's point man for all Senate action." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meanwhile, emerges from the election with her power base intact. She and Obama have been been in touch over the last month, putting together a legislative agenda, which Maloney anticipates the two will move on quickly during the "honeymoon" period. This effort will be complicated though, he says, by the economic situation.
"We expect the new Administration in conjunction with the House leadership to employ a strategy favored by Rahm Emanuel, where they craft a six-to-10 point agenda of low hanging fruit that can pass easily and will demonstrate that they are working to fulfill campaign promises." Some of the things likely to be included: a second stimulus package, an energy bill, SCHIP and a permanent fix for the Alternative Minimum Tax. More complex policy proposals, particularly health care, will probably have to wait.
Each chamber will have its own priorities, however, and a shakeup of leadership positions is likely on both sides of the Capitol. In the Senate, Joe Biden's elevation to vice president leaves the Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship open. The Appropriations Committee could also see leadership changes, as Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' (R) future looks uncertain after his felony convictions and West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd's (D) worsening health will likely mean the end of his tenure.
On the House side, Pelosi "must balance a delicate set of her own political constituencies." The Blue Dog Coalition is expected to grow in size and could be a thorn in the speaker's side if they insist on adhering to PAYGO rules, especially with the dire state of the economy. The Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses are also expected to play a growing role in the leadership of the party.
Some pols are questioningPresident-elect Obama's choice of Rahm Emanuel for his chief of staff, as the House's fourth-ranking Democrat is known in Washington for his in-your-face tactics. At least one Republican, however, is impressed with the choice. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of John McCain's top surrogates throughout the campaign, had this to say about the choice today:
"This is a wise choice by President-elect Obama. Rahm knows Capitol Hill and has great political skills. He can be a tough partisan but also understands the need to work together. He is well-suited for the position of White House Chief of Staff.
"I worked closely with him during the presidential debate negotiations which were completed in record time. When we hit a rough spot, he always looked for a path forward. I consider Rahm to be a friend and colleague. He's tough but fair. Honest, direct, and candid. These qualities will serve President-elect Obama well.
"Rahm understands the challenges facing our nation and will, consistent with the agenda set by President-elect Obama, work to find common ground where it exists. I look forward to working with him in his new position and will continue to do everything I can to help find a pathway forward on the difficult problems facing our nation."
A senior Democratic aide has confirmed to National Journal that Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., has accepted the offer to serve as chief of staff in Barack Obama's White House.
There will be a formal announcement of the appointment tomorrow, the aide said. For more on Emanuel, who served as an aide in the Clinton administration and is now the chairman of the Democratic Caucus, see his Almanac of American Politics bio here.
National Journal has obtained a letter that was sent from Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, to intelligence agencies on Election Night, briefing them on how the transition will proceed.
Two interesting observations from the letter:
"Three out of the four candidates" had received intelligence briefings during the campaign. According to news reports, Barack Obama, John McCain and Sarah Palin all received those reports. That leaves Joe Biden the odd man out. It's probably that Biden, as the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, didn't think he was likely to learn anything all that new. The briefings that he and Obama are receiving this week are much more substantive and involve more tightly controlled information.
In a departure from past transition custom, the incoming administration's intelligence team is likely to set up shop at the DNI's headquarters in McLean, Va. Usually, the transition team has sent representatives who get up to speed on current activities and then report back to the incoming administration. Obama's team, it seems, wants to get into the details right away in preparation for the handoff.
Tech Daily Dose's Andrew Noyes this morning notes the launch of a new GAO transition Web site:
The Government Accountability Office unveiled a new Web site
on Thursday designed to help make the presidential transition a smooth
one across the federal government. The site focuses on 13 urgent issues
that the watchdog agency believes needs the attention of
President-Elect Barack Obama and the 111th Congress. The topics include:
• Caring for Service Members • Defense Readiness • Defense Spending
• Food Safety • Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan • Oversight of Financial
Institutions and Markets • Preparing for Large-Scale Health Emergencies
• Protecting the Homeland • Public Diplomacy and International
Broadcasting • Retirement of the Space Shuttle • Surface Transportation
• The 2010 Census • Transition to Digital TV
Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and George Voinovich,
R-Ohio, who head the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the
Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, commended the GAO for
the site's launch. Akaka said he hoped the resource "will encourage all
congressional oversight committees to pay more attention to agency
management." Voinovich said he hoped in the 11 weeks until Inauguration
Day, Obama and his advisers will work with Congress to create a
strategic plan to confront the issues flagged on the site.
And on Wednesday, the Obama transition team announced its own site, www.change.gov, originally scheduled to go live that afternoon but now expected to launch later on today. Besides serving as an outlet for announcements from the transition team, change.gov will include an area for job applicants to submit resumes for positions in the new administration.
The Washington Post's David Ignatius wrote a column today delving into President-elect Obama's transition in the foreign policy realm. He speculates on the advisers Obama may pick and where he stands on Middle East diplomatic issues.
Here are some interesting takes from the piece:
• "Obama wants to pick his foreign policy roster first, and then turn to
substance.... Among the big questions are whether to ask Bob Gates to stay on as defense secretary or, if not, whether to appoint a prominent Republican, such as Sen. Richard Lugar or Sen. Chuck Hagel, as secretary of state. Either way, Obama wants a bipartisan team."
• "For national security adviser, Obama is likely to pick a pragmatist."
• "Obama wants to make an early push on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, despite political turmoil in Israel."
• "On Iran, Obama wants to open the door to a process of engagement and
dialogue, even though his advisers aren't confident it will succeed."
• "On Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama will listen carefully to advice from Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, and other military leaders before making decisions."
Stephen Hess also offers "five tips for avoiding political minefields" on the way to Obama's inauguration in a piece also in the Post. Hess is a senior fellow emeritus in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and the author of What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the President-Elect.
Here they are in a nutshell:
• "Beware of Reorganitus: You are about to be besieged by proposals to reorganize government."
• "About Harboring Loyalists: There are folks who have spent tremendous energy trying to advance your
cause and now want jobs. It would be grand if they were all experienced
in government management. But take note of the trail left by the
friends of Jimmy Carter."
• "Take No for an Answer: You will find no shortage of applicants willing to sacrifice for high-salaried government jobs."
• "Know When to Fold: When a nomination is in trouble, count votes and move quickly if you don't have enough of them."
• "And One More Thing: Here's my last piece of gratuitous advice -- although it will be hotly challenged by Bill Clinton: Never give major public policy responsibility to someone you cannot fire."
National Journal also recently spoke with Hess on the transition.
House Minority Whip Roy Blunt will not seek re-election to his leadership post, leaving the field open for Chief Deputy Minority Whip Eric Cantor
of Virginia. Blunt said he is convinced that Cantor will "do a great
job" as whip. Blunt said he will not pursue any other leadership
position and will instead focus on his duties as a member of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee. More details will be available in this
afternoon'sCongressDailyPM (subscription).
Of all the challenges facing President-elect Obama
between now and his inauguration, none are likely to be as
consequential as ensuring that the nation's security and military
operations aren't disrupted by the transition process. National Journal's James Kitfield
spoke on Monday with a senior Defense Department official familiar with
transition preparation, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.
Q:
Given the fact that the next administration will inherit two wars, a
global financial crisis and a still potent threat from international
terrorists, do you see this transition as being a particularly
vulnerable period?
A: In
looking at the history of presidential transitions as part of our
preparation, this is the first war-time transition since President [Lyndon] Johnson turned power over to President [Richard] Nixon
in 1968. That's a historical fact worth noting. So at the Pentagon
we're uniquely aware of the many present dangers that pose a threat not
only to U.S. forces in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, but also to
the American homeland as well. In that sense, this transition between
administrations will be a uniquely sensitive period. That's why we're
doing everything in our power to make it as seamless a process as
possible.
Q: What lessons have you learned from past presidential transitions?
A: In
looking at what characterized successful transitions of the past, and
what separated them from some less successful transitions in terms of
national security, the need for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to
have an opportunity to really study and think through the issues well
before the election stood out. That careful advanced preparation
readies the chairman to give his best military advice to the new
administration from day one. That's why the Joint Chiefs designated a
transition team to begin that process and to start studying the issues
last July. We wanted to get input from all the combatant commanders,
and to prepare the chairman to offer his best advice to the new
administration in a manner that doesn't shape or limit the policy
options of the next administration.
Q: Why is it so important not to shape policy options?
A: Because
while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs will offer his best military
advice, we don't do policy. We do military operations in support of
civilian policy initiatives. And it's certainly reasonable to assume
there will be a shift in policies with a new administration. So we
continue to track ongoing operations and anticipate how they might
change as we adjust to the new policies of the next administration.
That way the chairman of the Joint Chiefs can initiate a good
discussion on those operations, give the risks associated with various
courses of action and we'll all be ready to execute whatever policy the
new administration decides on.
Q: That sounds very textbook, but can the Joint Chiefs really give their best military advice without trying to impact policy?
A: The
situation we absolutely want to avoid is the chairman or Joint Staff
meeting with the next administration's transition team for the first
time and creating the impression that we're trying to shape the agenda
or steer their decisions. We just can't afford to leave that
impression. So we will be completely transparent in our actions, and as
quickly as possible we want to show the next administration how best to
utilize our capabilities and how best to interface with combatant
commanders to guide policy in the direction they choose. Of course the
chairman will offer his best military advice, and the next
administration will be free to take it or leave it.
• "A day after winning a historic victory that will make him the first black president in the nation's history, Barack Obama remained largely out of public view yesterday while his aides announced the first details of an ambitious plan for the transfer of power when he assumes office in January," the Washington Post reports.
• "One day after the presidential election, the Obama family of Chicago's Hyde Park is only beginning to figure out how to become the first family of the United States," the New York Times reports. "As the first African-Americans in the role, they will be a living tableau of racial progress, and friends say they are acutely aware that everything they say and do -- the way they dress, where Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7 , go to school, even what kind of puppy they adopt -- will brim with symbolic value."
• "Obama offered the key post of White House chief of staff to Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the first step in building a team that is expected to take shape in coming days," the Wall Street Journal reports. "The quick transition from campaign to government shows the urgency of getting up to speed on the worst financial crisis to hit the U.S. since the 1930s, with an economy likely in recession and Congress preparing to take action before Sen. Obama's January inauguration."
• "Emanuel might not appear to be the obvious choice for White House chief of staff for a president-elect who speaks eloquently of setting aside partisan differences and bringing the country together. The Illinois congressman, after all, is best known as something of a Democratic political assassin," the Los Angeles Times reports. But "Perhaps precisely because Obama seems likely to adopt a unifying posture as president, he may need someone practiced in the art of political hardball."
• "There are enough clues to an Obama presidency in the 21-month campaign he waged to win the White House to provide a preliminary assessment," the Washington Post reports. "The analogy between campaigning and governing is imperfect, but with the techniques of the permanent campaign increasingly shaping the modern presidency, the gap is far less than it was a generation ago."
• "There is no relationship that will be as delicate, or central to" Obama's "success or failure, than his one with the US Congress," Financial Times reports. "Democratic lawmakers, most of whom broadly share the president-elect's main legislative priorities, have bolstered their majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate."
• "Obama will reach to the middle and offer more than just-for-show appointments to Republicans in his administration, friends and colleagues predicted Wednesday," the Washington Times reports.
• Obama "argued for months that victory for his opponent would be akin to a third term for President Bush," the New York Times reports. "But as he embarks on his own presidency, Mr. Obama faces the challenge of building an administration that does not look like a third term for former President Bill Clinton."
• "In a series of interviews with the Financial Times, former officials including Madeleine Albright, the last Democratic secretary of state, and Strobe Talbott, her former deputy, set out a troubling international landscape for the president-elect. 'It is not hyperbole to say that half the list of the challenges facing the next president would make it the most daunting list an incoming president has ever had in foreign policy terms,' Mr Talbott says."
• "When" Obama "moves into the White House in January, he will inherit a stratospheric budget deficit, a collapsing financial system and the gloomiest economic outlook since the Great Depression," the Washington Post reports. "The silver lining? For a few months, at least, he may have a license to spend money."
• "The U.S. government is on course for an unprecedented borrowing binge in coming months that could constrain President-elect Barack Obama's economic agenda," the Wall Street Journal reports. "The Treasury Department laid out near-term borrowing plans Wednesday, saying it expects to tap financial markets for $550 billion in the final three months of 2008 and another $368 billion in the first three months of next year by issuing Treasury securities with a wide range of maturities."
• Obama, "now recruiting for his administration, is trying to fulfill campaign promises of sweeping ethics restrictions that could deter some potential appointees," the New York Times reports. "Vowing to combat the power of 'lobbyists who kill good ideas and good plans with secret meetings and campaign checks,' Mr. Obama has laid out more detailed and more onerous ethics rules than any previous president."
• "The congressional committee in charge of the swearing-in announced" Wednesday "that the inaugural theme will come from stirring words spoken by Abraham Lincoln and be linked to the 200th anniversary of his birth next year," the Washington Post reports.
• "For more than a decade, Mr. Obama has cultivated ties with a growing circle of black power brokers who are poised -- and eager -- to wield greater national influence," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Some of these insiders stand to gain new status in an Obama administration, and many more in law firms, big corporations and on Wall Street."
• "Unlike previous White House dogs, America's next first pooch may come from more humble beginnings: The Obamas appear to being leaning toward a rescue dog," the Los Angeles Times reports.
Get up to speed on the new faces of the 111th Congress elected on Nov. 4.* And use our interactive tool for picking a roster of Senate committee chairmen.
Reporting on the announcement of Barack Obama's transition team, Government Executive's Elizabeth Newell and Alyssa Rosenbergfound many observers pleased with the speed and orderliness of the rollout:
Paul Light, a professor at New York University's Robert F. Wagner
Graduate School of Public Service, said the quick announcement of the
transition team was a sign the Obama camp was shifting smoothly from
campaign mode to transition mode.
"Moving political people
quickly into positions of significant influence is a good sign they're
integrating rather than infighting," Light said. "That the day-to-day
activity people were all people involved with the campaign is a good
sign for a smooth transition."...
John Kamenky, senior fellow at the IBM Center for The Business of
Government, said he did not know the advisers, but was "pleased" and
"relieved" that the announcement was made so quickly after Election Day.
"They've thought this through and are not having any internal dissension about getting this started," Kamensky said.
And
John Palguta, vice president for policy at the nonprofit Partnership
for Public Service, said he thought the structure and composition of
the team were promising.
"Having three co-chairs, it's looking like this is a divide-and-conquer effort," he said. "Speed and quality are so important."
Colleen
M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, also
praised the group. "Many of the team members have significant
government experience which will serve President-elect Obama well," she
said.
And writing on GovExec's FedBlog, Rosenberg evaluated the changes announced today at State and looked ahead to how the incoming White House can repair the country's standing abroad.
President-elect Obama's reportedly new chief of staff, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, was profiled by National Journal reporter Richard E. Cohen in a May 2006 story. Cohen surveyed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Emanuel's influence on it: "Behind the scenes over the past year and a half, Emanuel has quietly recast the DCCC to reflect the abundant political skills, resources, and contacts that he has accumulated as one of the nation's most facile campaign operatives. After only two terms in the House, the ambitious 46-year-old has positioned himself as one of the most powerful rising stars on Capitol Hill."
Also accompanying that piece was a Q&A with Emanuel.
The General Services Administration, tasked with providing the president-elect and his transition team with office space, equipment and other logistical support, announced today that it is turning over its transition headquarters -- 120,000 square feet of fully furnished office space in downtown Washington -- to Barack Obama.
Acting Administrator James A. Williams declared the Democratic candidate the "apparent winner" of the election and wrote to Obama and vice president-elect Joe Biden that he and the GSA transition team were ready to support the handover effort. The agency has been working for over two years to manage the process.
Phil Schiliro, congressional liaison to the Obama campaign, has been tapped to serve as Obama's director of congressional relations during the transition and could end up staying on in the incoming administration. If so, he would likely play a crucial role in reconciling the agendas of the newly enlarged Democratic majorities in Congress and an Obama White House.
Shiliro is a veteran congressional staffer, as this brief bio from National Journal's 2007 Hill People issue details. In June 2007, when this was published, Shiliro was chief of staff to House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
Schiliro, the longtime aide to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., swears
that little has changed for him at the committee since Democrats
ascended into the majority. "We took the same approach in the minority
as we do in the majority," he said. That approach, according to the
self-described "strategic planner" for the committee, is to highlight
areas most in need of oversight. "The two biggest issues for us are
fraud, waste, and abuse, and making government work again," Schiliro
said. By returning to Waxman's office in 2005 after a year working for
then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Schiliro reaffirmed
Waxman's reputation for having one of the most loyal staffs on Capitol
Hill. Schiliro, 50, joined Waxman's office in 1982, after law school,
to work on the Clean Air Act. He served as the congressman's chief of
staff in the personal office, and then became the minority staff
director for the Government Reform Committee in 1997. Schiliro, who ran
unsuccessfully for Congress in New York in 1992 and 1994, is now
Waxman's highest-ranking staffer. The McLean, Va., resident graduated
from Hofstra University and earned his law degree from Lewis and Clark
Law School.
The Almanac of American Politics' profile of Rahm Emanuel, Obama's reported pick for White House chief of staff, describes a congressman who's risen nearly as quickly up the political ladder as his future boss. Excerpts follow:
Emanuel was born in Chicago
and grew up in Wilmette, the son of an Israeli
immigrant. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence, got a master's degree in
communications from Northwestern and began his career with Illinois Public
Action, a consumer rights group. California Representative Tony Coelho
recruited him to join the staff of the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee in 1985. He worked for Mayor Richard M. Daley, before joining Bill
Clinton's presidential campaign in 1991. He was rewarded with a high-level
staff post in the Clinton White House, where he gained wide respect for his
political savvy but drew criticism, even from allies, for an arrogant and
abrasive style. In 1999 he left the White House and returned to Chicago where he made
millions as an investment banker.
His decision to run for Congress was greeted
with disdain by those who had toiled for years in the vineyards of Chicago politics. His
strongest opponent was former state Representative Nancy Kaszak, who lost the
1996 primary to Rod Blagojevich; she portrayed Emanuel as an interloper with
few ties to the district. But Emanuel had his own local connections. He was
endorsed by Daley and by labor unions (despite his support of NAFTA), and he
raised large sums--nearly $2 million for the primary--from his extensive Chicago
and national Democratic fundraising networks. Emanuel benefited from
controversy two weeks before the primary, when a local Polish-American leader
supporting Kaszak charged that Emanuel served in the Israeli army in 1991
during the Gulf War and suggested he had dual loyalties. The charge was
false--Emanuel is a U.S.
citizen who volunteered as a civilian at an Israeli supply base--and Kaszak's
campaign was thrown off-stride.
Emanuel won 50%-39%, with large majorities on
the Lakefront and in Lincoln Park.
He carried all of the 13 wards in the district, except for the heavily Polish
30th. In the general election, Emanuel faced a feisty challenger who attacked
him as overly ambitious, but the result was never in doubt; he won 67%-29%.
That made him the district's fourth congressman in a decade; before he was
indicted and eventually served prison time, Rostenkowski served this area for
36 years.
Moving quickly up the ranks in the House, Emanuel cut an unusually
high-profile figure. Even before winning election in 2002, he strategized for
the national party, met with the national media and sought a prime committee
assignment: Rosty's old haunt at Ways and Means. Although he was delayed for
two more years--freshmen seldom get on Ways and Means--his aggressiveness,
political skills and fundraising prowess quickly made him a congressman to
watch. "He's very strategic, very good at message, smart on the legislative
process, and disciplined," said Democrat Jan Schakowsky, who represents the
neighboring 9th District.
He also showed skill in working across the aisle. He
cosponsored with Representative Gil Gutknecht the House-passed bill allowing
Americans to import prescription drugs from other nations. "Few members here
have Rahm's energy, or know what reporter to talk to at The New York Times,"
Gutknecht marveled. NRCC chairman Tom Reynolds became Emanuel's chief
co-sponsor of a proposal to spend billions of dollars to clean up the Great Lakes. "He came to me, and I liked his concept,"
Reynolds said. "I think that Hillary [Rodham Clinton] told him he should get to
know me."
Barack Obama is losing no time in assembling his new administration, offering up the White House chief of staff position to House Democratic Caucus chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois just one day after he secured the title of president-elect. Emanuel, who had apparently been whispering to friends and colleagues that he was interested in the position, accepted this afternoon, according to NBC and Fox News.
Emanuel, who served as an adviser in Bill Clinton's White House and currently ranks as the fourth-highest Democrat in Congress, certainly fits the bill of a Washington insider who knows the ins and outs of the policy-making process. He and Obama share a close personal friendship and their Chicago roots.
But Emanuel's aggressive style has earned him the nickname "Rahmbo" on the Hill and some -- Republicans in particular -- fear his take-no-prisoners tactics could prove ill-suited for the job.
Check back later for more analysis.
UPDATE: A spokesman for Emanuel is denying reports that he has accepted the job. But, as AP notes, "a rejection would amount to an unlikely public snub of the new president-elect."
President-elect Barack Obama this afternoon sent a release to reporters naming the senior staffers to the Obama-Biden Transition Project, which will be overseen by former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and Obama's chief of staff, Pete Rouse. The release also announced that the official Web site of the transition would launch later today at www.change.gov.
The complete release is copied below:
Chicago -- For the past several months, a board of advisors has been informally planning for a possible presidential transition. Among the many projects undertaken by the transition board have been detailed analyses of previous transition efforts, policy statements made during the campaign, and the workings of federal government agencies, and priority positions that must be filled by the incoming administration.
With Barack Obama and Joe Biden's election, this planning process will be now be formally organized as the Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501(c)(4) organization to ensure a smooth transition from one administration to the next. The work of this entity will be overseen by three co-chairs: John Podesta, Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse.
The co-chairs will be assisted by an advisory board comprised of individuals with significant private and public sector experience: Carol Browner, William Daley, Christopher Edley, Michael Froman, Julius Genachowski, Donald Gips, Governor Janet Napolitano, Federico Peña, Susan Rice, Sonal Shah, Mark Gitenstein, and Ted Kaufman. Gitenstein and Kaufman will serve as co-chairs of Vice President-elect Biden's transition team.
Supervising the day-to-day activities of the transition will be:
Transition Senior Staff:
Chris Lu - Executive Director Dan Pfeiffer - Communications Director Stephanie Cutter - Chief Spokesperson Cassandra Butts - General Counsel Jim Messina - Personnel Director Patrick Gaspard - Associate Personnel Director Christine Varney - Personnel Counsel Melody Barnes - Co-Director of Agency Review Lisa Brown - Co-Director of Agency Review Phil Schiliro - Director of Congressional Relations Michael Strautmanis - Director of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs Katy Kale - Director of Operations Brad Kiley - Director of Operations
This Friday, the Brookings Institution is holding the first of what it says will be a series of 12 events on the transition. Called "Memo to the President: Lead With Confidence," it will feature panel discussions with former Reagan chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein, former Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta, and Brookings fellow and transition expert Stephen Hess, among others. The talks will focus on how President-elect Obama can hope to bring together a polarized electorate.
Lost In Transition will be there covering the discussion, with a full report to come Friday afternoon.
That the incoming Obama administration will face huge challenges is
indisputable. Many good government groups in Washington are anxious to
help, and each seems to have produced a hefty document outlining how he
and his new team can accomplish a seamless transition and govern
effectively. That advice probably isn't at the top of the
president-elect's must-read list just yet.
But in that gusher of
transition advice, one message is critical: The new president and his
appointees must embrace the career executive corps and effectively
engage it if they are to meet those challenges. The almost 7,000 career
federal executives, with an average of 26 years of experience, competed
for their jobs and were selected on merit. They are an absolutely
essential link between any administration's policies and agency
implementation at every stage. Perhaps most important, they are the key
to mobilizing the 1.8 million federal civilian employees (and millions
more contractor staff) to carry out both initiatives and reforms of
existing programs.
No administration would think of entering
office without already having established a firm and positive
"handshake" with the nation's top military brass; to do less, at the
least, would open it to severe criticism, and, at the worst, undermine
its ability to defend the nation. Exactly the same approach is needed
with career civilian executives, but with respect to a much broader set
of missions.
So what can get in the way of accomplishing such a
necessary and seemingly straightforward task? Human nature is part of
it. New presidents and their team are eager to make their mark and
accomplish "change." It's easy to see the inherited bureaucracy as
guardians of the old way. This tendency has been exacerbated by 30
years of reflexive "running against Washington," which has built a
reservoir of inherent suspicion of "bureaucrats" in both parties, and
leads some appointees to believe that developing a working relationship
with career executives is unimportant. That, in turn, leads some career
executives to despair of having the opportunity to contribute at their
fullest.
As one distinguished executive puts it, "Every
transition eventually becomes a transition [itself]." Political
appointees move from initial distrust "to eventually saying, 'civil
servants are great. Their contribution is invaluable, and I didn't
realize it when I walked in.' " The trick is to minimize the time it
takes for that transformation to take place and for the
career-political team to function well.
The stakes this time are
higher than ever. The international economic crisis, ongoing wars and
the homeland security challenge all require not only a seamless
transition, but a government nimble enough to attack massive and
unprecedented challenges without delay.
During the period between the election and the inauguration, the incoming administration should take the following actions:
Stephen Hess, an expert on the presidency at the
Brookings Institution, has participated in most presidential
transitions since the Eisenhower administration. He has written a new
book, What Do We Do Now?, a guide for presidents-elect on
what to do and what to avoid in the two and half months between
Election Day and the inauguration. A few days before the election, Hess
spoke with John Maggs about the crucial first steps for a victorious candidate. Edited excerpts follow.
Q: One of the lessons that I took away from this book and
your other writings is that the transition into and beginning of a
presidency is more of a management challenge than many presidents-elect
realize. Why isn't that better understood?
Hess: It's not the nature of what
candidates promise. They promise they will do something about Iraq,
they will do something about the economy. These management questions
don't really interest most people. Actually, they don't very much
interest most presidential candidates. So they're not very much
discussed, and there aren't necessarily very great commitments along
these lines. So they get there and they find out that this a pretty big
management problem. You've got 3 million civilians who work for you.
Q: Early in the book, you advise the president-elect to
answer two questions: "Why did the voters choose you?" and "What
promises did you make?" Why is this so important an exercise?
Hess: That is a way to sort out your priorities very quickly. And for example, if Bill Clinton
had simply done this exercise, what are the most important things, one,
two, three, four, five, he wouldn't have started with gays in the
military. That was a pledge he made, it was important, but it was a
second-tier pledge. Obviously, as we all remember, that was a campaign
about "it's the economy, stupid." But instead, he drifted off for one
reason or another... and said in his memoirs he was totally unprepared
for how emotional this issue was. So what happened was, this very smart
man, long-term governor, ran things, gets going by hitting the ground
stumbling.
A roundup of today's top stories from across the Web:
• Barack Obama "will take office in 76 days, but the moves he begins making tomorrow
will immediately begin to define his presidency," the Washington Post reports. "He is expected to name a
White House chief of staff in the next day or two, and the clear front-runner is
Rep. Rahm Emanuel, his longtime friend and ally from Chicago."
• Obama "has a transition operation well under way to enable him to unveil
selections for positions such as Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State
soon," Reuters reports.
• "Whoever" Obama "names to replace Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson will be particularly important since the federal
government has already taken unprecedented steps to intervene in the financial
markets," CNNMoney.com reports.
• "No president since before" Obama "was
born has ascended to the Oval Office confronted by the accumulation of seismic
challenges awaiting him," the New York Times reports. "Historians grasping for
parallels point to Abraham Lincoln taking office as the nation
was collapsing into Civil War, or Franklin D. Roosevelt
arriving in Washington in the throes of the Great Depression."
While the federal government will undergo an extensive
political makeover during the transition period, one agency has less room for
error than most. The Department of Homeland Security, which includes the
Transportation Security Administration and myriad other federal law enforcement
agencies, goes through the same leadership changes as the rest of the agencies,
but it also holds the crucial responsibility of ensuring America remains safe
during this historically vulnerable period.
Joe Biden thrust the issue into the election
spotlight recently when he said at a fundraiser that Barack Obama would be tested by "an
international crisis, a generated crisis," early in his presidency. Despite the
controversy over his remark, history shows that several presidents have, indeed,
been tested soon after taking office. Cases in point include President
Clinton and Somalia and, of course, President Bush and
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
With nearly three years of preparation leading up to the next few pivotal
months, DHS is determined to ensure the country remains safe. TSA Deputy
Administrator Gale Rossides, who has been working on the
transition since planning began, discusses the unique challenges that DHS, as a
relatively new federal department, is facing in its first presidential
transition. In an interview with NationalJournal.com's Amy
Harder, she emphasized the importance of strong leadership during the
handoff. Edited excerpts follow. Visit the archives page for more Insider Interviews.
A roundup of today's top stories from across the Web:
• "The world is anxiously awaiting new ideas and fresh leadership from America's
new president to deal with the economic crisis," AP reports. "But for 77 days after the election, the problems
will be George Bush's -- and both Barack Obama
and John McCain have signaled they will defer to him."
• "With a fresh blast of bearish
news hitting just before the presidential election, Tuesday's victor will be
under rising pressure to put his stamp on U.S. economic policy well before his
Jan. 20 inauguration," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• ""The calendar may show 11 weeks until
Inauguration Day, but the President-elect will be expected to stage what may
amount to the fastest transition in history," Business Week reports.
• "Whoever is elected
president Tuesday will have to find not only a" Department of Homeland Security
"secretary who is up to the job and can be quickly confirmed, but also nominees
for a host of other critical roles" in the department, Congressional Quarterly reports.
• Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., "is seriously considering
a job as White House chief of staff if Barack Obama wins the presidency, sources
say -- a move that could mean House Republicans aren't the only ones facing a
power struggle in the wake of Tuesday's election," the Politico reports.
• "A nervous legion of special
interest groups, politicians and lobbyists will be scanning Tuesday's returns
for clues about the composition of Brave New Washington -- their fates hanging
on winners and losers, margins of victory, and the fickle new arithmetic of
Capitol Hill," the Politico reports.
• "For political junkies worried about coming down with
a case of election withdrawal after all the votes are finally counted tonight,
Louisiana is offering one more hit before the holidays," Roll Call(subscription) reports. "Voters in
two Bayou State Congressional districts will have primary runoff contests on
their ballots today, and the winners of those contests will meet in early
December for the final Congressional races of 2008."
University of Vermont professor John P. Burke is an expert on 20th-century presidential transitions. He has authored numerous articles and books on the subject, including Presidential Transitions: From Politics to Practice, which looks at the Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations. He also contributes to the White House Transition Project, a nonpartisan advisory group. Burke recently spoke with NationalJournal.com's Mary Gilbert about how previous presidents have approached the transition process and what lessons can be drawn from their successes and mistakes. Edited excerpts follow. Visit the archives page for more Insider Interviews.
Q: This has been the longest presidential campaign in America's history. Will there be any break for the winner before he must turn to the task of governing?
Burke: I don't think so at all. I think one of the challenges this year during the transition is that they are going to have to move very quickly on a number of different fronts to begin the process of governing.
Q: What are some of the particular challenges that the incoming president faces in 2008?
Burke: Number one, because it is the first post-9/11 [transition], that means that the whole issue of getting your homeland security team up and running early during the transition is a new task that prior presidents haven't had to face. Secondly, because we're fighting two wars, making sure that your foreign policy team is in place early is much more important in the upcoming transition. And then third, making sure your economic team is in place given the financial crisis and a recession and so on. So on three different fronts, the pressure during this transition is much greater, I think, than transitions in the past.
A roundup of today's top stories from across the Web:
• President Bush "is engineering what may be the most carefully considered and potentially successful presidential transition in modern times, both Democrats and Republicans close to the process say," Bloomberg News reports.
• "Among the president-elect's first tasks will be defining the government's new role as overseer or shareholder of large financial companies," the Wall Street Journal(subscription) reports.
• John McCain and Barack Obama "have said they would close" Gitmo, but a"review of the government's public files underscores the challenges of fulfilling that promise," the New York Times reports. "The next president will have to contend with sobering intelligence claims against many of the remaining detainees."
• "The biggest obstacle John McCain would have as president will be sitting at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue -- a Congress more Democratic than it is today," the Detroit Free Pressreports. "Should McCain pull off the upset (that's what it would be at this point) he'll have his work cut out."
• "If Obama wins, he is likely to find it easier to get key officials
quickly cleared through Senate confirmation, with Democrats in control
on Capitol Hill than McCain who could see key personel challenged by
the rival party," Agence France-Presse reports.
• "Americans will elect not only a president on Tuesday, but also his
huge team of aides, advisers and bureaucrats who will help the winner
run the federal government for the next four years," AP reports.
• "A phalanx of liberal think tanks and interest groups -- anticipating a Democratic victory on Tuesday -- are mobilizing to push" Obama "to the left of his campaign positions," the Wall Street Journal reports.
