WASHINGTON – The executive branch transition from the Bush administration to that of President Barack Obama was one of the smoothest in history, experts told a Senate hearing Thursday – but its success doesn’t guarantee future smooth transitions.
“Although some problems were revealed, I believe this was one of the most successful transfers of power to date,” said Chairman Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii, during the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management hearing.
Obama transition co-chair John Podesta, who also served as staff secretary during the George H.W. Bush-Bill Clinton transition, called the cooperation between the Obama and George W. Bush administrations impressive, highlighting the Bush national security team’s “extensive assistance in assuring the transition occurred as seamlessly as possible.”
The man responsible for the Clinton-Bush transition, Clay Johnson, said the best way to make sure future transitions are successful is to require that a set minimum number of political appointments be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate by a certain deadline.
Johnson said incoming administrations and future Senates should fill 125 of the most time-sensitive positions by August of the administration’s first year. The current average is 70 to 100, he said.
Others told the committee that the number of appointments requiring Senate approval should be cut and the vetting process should be streamlined. The veterans of previous transitions also recommended facilitating presidential candidates to start transition planning before they’re actually elected.
Akaka – and others – also raised concerns about the slow pace of confirmation of Obama nominations.
“Strict vetting and high standards for nominees are important, but they do create a slow and complicated process,” Akaka said.
Obama’s nominees in the first six months were confirmed for just 37.5 percent of top tier positions, according to Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service. That percentage increased to 51.5 at nine months and 59.2 at one year. And as of April 11, 70.1 percent of the top tier positions had been confirmed by the Senate: 366 nominees. In the meantime, Stier said, Obama has nominated – or said he intends to nominate – another 51.
“No administration can govern at its very best when it is missing senior members of its political leadership,” Stier said.
Stier suggested reducing the number of political appointees requiring Senate confirmation.
“There are too many political appointees requiring Senate confirmation, too few resources available for vetting candidates, too much red tape for the nominees to wade through and too little sense of urgency when a sense of urgency is exactly what we need,” he said.
Johnson echoed the red-tape criticism, saying about one-third of the information requested at various stages in the vetting process is duplicative. Exploring different ways to gather and share such data would hasten that process and place less burden on the applicant, he said.
Because the committee is considering legislation that would allow for pre-election transition planning, subcommittee member Edward Kaufman, D-Del., spoke of the perceived stigma of making transition plans before the election.
Key points of the bill, proposed by Akaka, Kaufman and Sens. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., include:
- Enabling the General Services Administration to provide office space, communication services, briefings and personnel training to qualified presidential candidates and their teams;
- Allowing candidates to establish a transition fund separate from their campaign fund;
- Authorizing the president to establish a White House transition council;
- Authorizing the establishment of an agency transition directors group to gather representatives of cabinet departments and other executive branch agencies to coordinate their changeover plans.
Stier said he supports the pre-election planning provision.
“Rather than viewing candidates as presumptuous,” he said, “we need to shift the mindset of the public and the candidates themselves so that advance planning is perceived as prudent, responsible and necessary activity for anyone pursuing our nation’s highest office.”
Part of that preparation includes working with the General Services Administration, whose Chief People Officer Gail Lovelace testified at the hearing. Her office met with representatives from the campaigns of Obama and Sen. John McCain before the election.
She said her office began supporting the Obama transition team at 1 a.m. on Nov. 5, the day after the election.