So one cannot be too reassured. At the moment, that would be Nancy Pelosi. Second, how much and how easily this occurs will be revealing. Kaufman has his fans on the left, thanks to his tough stance on the banks during a short stint as a senator after the 2008 financial crisis. Congress even named the law after them — the ”Edward ‘Ted’ Kaufman and Michael Leavitt Presidential Transitions Improvements Act.”, “He was most passionate about the needs for candidates to understand that it’s not an option, it’s an obligation,” Leavitt recalls. He even seemed to be at odds with Biden's longtime economist Jared Bernstein who said this month that "we must fight tooth and nail against the return of austerity politics.”. On top of the many public crises, he’s also having to organize most of it via Zoom, although transition officials are impressed by the octogenarian's tech savvy. Biden supporters should not feel they are out of the woods if he wins the election. Under the PTA, transition staffers are not considered federal employees, even though the United States covers their salary (up to the limits of approved funding). So if the transition team requests that multiple employees be detailed to it and the relevant agency heads approve, that is a sign of cooperation; if no requests are forthcoming, that is worrisome; if requests are denied, that is a very bad sign. In this March 13, 2009 file photo, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (L) speaks with Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE) (2nd-L) as Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) (R) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) (2nd-R) look on at Union Station during an event. The civil service—technocratic, objective, neutral, and around for the long haul—is an insurance policy in many ways, of which its central role in the transition is just one. And what actually we know is which way it's going and who is likely to be the person who wins the most electors according to the tally state by state in the Electoral College, which won't meet until December. You will be our President when you read this note. And whatever the timeline, questions of national intelligence and security prompt particular worry, because the director of national intelligence—who at present is not a career official and in fact is widely seen as having politicized intelligence—arranges and oversees the relevant transition briefings. We're going to lay out the rules this morning for a presidential transition. Plenty of things could still go wrong before noon on January 20. It does not go to the vice president because that vice president's election would still be in dispute as well. This year, it's December 14. And there are still some ballots coming in in any election after election night, absentee ballots and so on. But we'll have to see the results of the November election before we know which party is in the majority in the House come January. ELVING: Yes, considering that we do have the line of succession that would take over at noon on Inauguration Day, January 20. Somebody needs a majority. Since 1797, each president has peacefully handed over power to the next. | Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images. Biden, an old-school pol, was one of those candidates who has needed convincing. Presidential transitions are vitally important, incredibly difficult, and largely unknown. But it was a political reality.”. Read: ‘The most important takeover of an organization in history’. INSKEEP: What if there is a state or several states where it's disputed? Ted Kaufman likely has more control over a future Biden administration than anyone other than the Democratic presidential nominee himself. But there’s reason to have faith, too. He can't stay in power. In his farewell address, he warned against altering the Senate’s filibuster rules as the left wing agitated for changes — calls that have only gotten louder since. Kaufman’s animating force, however, is an almost quaint belief in the American government’s institutions, friends and allies say. At that point, he will have just more than two months to prepare to take over the leadership of a country still in the grips of a once-in-a-century pandemic, with more than 12 million Americans unemployed, tens of millions of children out of school, and COVID-19 deaths barreling toward 300,000. Even back when he was the incoming president, his on-ramp to the presidency was extraordinarily haphazard, disorganized, and incomplete. One last consideration counsels calm. It was widely understood that that “senior representative,” who also heads transition activities within her agency, would be a career official, and the Obama executive order creating the 2016 council specified the same. INSKEEP: That sounds very orderly, but let's work through things that can go wrong. Each president has peacefully handed over power to the next since 1797 when George Washington stepped down. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. ". The function is something like the metaphor generally credited to George Washington that the Senate serves to “cool” House legislation just as a saucer is used to cool hot tea. They are the first hurdle facing any new President. ”It makes, from a public policy sense, not a lot of sense. And actually, it's the new House that decides. Copyright © 2020 NPR. ELVING: Generally on election night the news people all say they think they know who won. (Consider the letter that outgoing President George H. W. Bush left in the Oval Office for incoming President Bill Clinton, who had just defeated him at the ballot box: “I’m not a very good one to give advice; but just don’t let the critics discourage you or push you off course. His disposition could similarly freeze out swampy strivers looking for a resume line.
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