These goals are executed by various transition staff, most of whom are volunteers (coming from state campaign apparatus or party organizations with hopes of joining he administration) because of limited resources. They must act within the short amount of time between the election and inauguration. The transition staff is organized into different teams with different functions and missions. While all transitions are different, almost all transitions have these functional groups with similar responsibilities:
A primary task of the transition is taking the candidate’s campaign promises and turning them into the president’s executive actions. The policy implementation team will craft the “first hundred days” plan, mainly through day-one executive orders, regulatory priorities, and legislation to share with Congress. The team also develops a comprehensive, detailed, actionable policy platform for the administration which works in concert with the first hundred days plan. This team plays a critical role in coordinating a president-elect’s formal policy platform and ensuring those policies can and will be implemented upon taking office.
The agency review team assesses the work of the Cabinet agencies and how their mandates fit in with the president-elect’s vision and policy priorities. The team also examines the state of the career workforce and the most important issues facing the agency. Agency review is key to understanding the immediate issues or decisions that will confront the incoming team. The process requires going into the agencies and meeting with political and career appointees from the previous administration to get a lay of the land. This can be thought of as the first contact an incoming administration has with professional career staff at the agencies and the future-former political appointees whose jobs they will soon be inheriting, colloquially referred to as a “landing team” or “beachhead team”. These are some of the first appointees in a new administration, many are sworn in just after the President minutes after inauguration.
The presidential appointments team is charged with starting the process of filling out the over 4,000 political appointments that are left vacant for the incoming administration. Roughly 1,200 of these will require Senate confirmation. There are over 160,000 applicants that come from across the country looking to fill these positions. When it comes to filling out the Plum book (the roster of political appointment jobs) this is the team that makes it a reality. A crucial part of this group’s responsibility is vetting, and this all starts from the top. Financial disclosures, security clearance information, and more are all required to be reviewed before a candidate is selected at any level.
This team is faced with dual responsibilities in acting as an emissary for the policy and appointments teams to Congress and to the outside business community. This team handles the incoming and outgoing flow of requests and builds alliances for the incoming administration. They are responsible for communicating relevant policy to Congress, state governors and legislatures, and the private sector. Another crucial role is acting as a shepherd for many of those 1,200 appointees who require Senate confirmation. The goal is to guide these appointees through meetings with influential committee members, whose confirmation vote will decide their fate. Furthermore, they prepare potential appointees for the oft-contentious hearing process, whereby the candidate faces the full committee of jurisdiction in the Senate for a thorough grilling.
This team Congressional and External Outreach:has the important but often overlooked responsibility of making sure everything within the transition runs smoothly. This includes the continual onboarding of staff from the campaign and elsewhere after the election, managing the flood of information and requests, and working closely with the General Services Administration and the Secret Service on everything from issuing credentials to ensuring adequate office space and IT support.
Outside of the typical role a legal counsel plays there are a few unique aspects that fall on the legal team throughout the transition. First, they assist in vetting nominees and making them aware of the legal and ethical requirements that may apply to the position for which they are being considered, and they ensure the transition team meets all ethics and financial disclosure rules. Second, on the policy front, the legal counsel vets all executive actions for “form and standard,” and make sure that these documents are ready to be signed by the president when the time comes.
The key to a successful presidential transition is a clear flow of information. A communications strategy needs to be developed to shape when and how the transition will inform the public, the press, and Congress, about its activities, key personnel and policy decisions, and events involving the president-elect.
