Biden’s transition team didn’t wait for the verdict to get to work

the Joe Biden Transition Team did not wait for a verdict in the presidential race before going to work.

Long before the Saturday’s victory for BidenLongtime aide Ted Kaufman had led efforts to ensure the former vice president could begin building a government in anticipation of victory.

Kaufman is a former Delaware senator who was appointed to fill the post that became vacant when Biden was elected vice president. He was also part of Barack Obama’s transition team in 2008 and helped draft the law that formalizes the presidential transition process.

Biden He first asked Kaufman to start working on a transition for good measure in April, shortly after the former vice president wrapped up the presidential nomination at the end of a once crowded Democratic primary.

Transition can be a hectic process even under normal circumstances.

Before Saturday’s decision in the race, he had seized some strange political limbo. the biden team progressing, but could not address all that needed to be accomplished; President Donald Trump has claimed without evidence that the election was stolen from him.

It was at least reminiscent of the 2000 presidential race and the post-election legal fight that year for the recount in Florida. After more than a month, the dispute between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore was settled by the Supreme Court, shortening the transition period to just 39 days before the inauguration in January 2001.

Clay Johnson, who led Bush’s transition team, said Biden advisers

they could not “wait to be sure that the president-elect is really the president-elect.”

Johnson said that in June 1999, about 17 months before Election Day 2000, Bush approached him to lead the possible transition, after seeing his father go through the process 11 years earlier. Before Election Day, Bush had already decided to give Andy Card the post of chief of staff for both the transition and the White House.

Johnson believed they were ahead of schedule. But then came the count.

After the first 10 days, Bush’s running mate Dick Cheney told Johnson to start fundraising and make personnel decisions, saying the race “will be resolved somehow.” .

The Bush team was unable to perform FBI background checks on potential Cabinet members and other candidates without an official winner being declared. Instead, he used a former White House general counsel to the Reagan administration to conduct interviews intended to spot potential issues that might have arisen during the background check.

“You have to assume you are and not be cocky, but they better work hard like they are,” Johnson said of Biden’s side. And they should have started doing this last Tuesday night.

Biden’s campaign declined to comment on the transition process. His closest advisers say the top priority will be to announce a White House chief of staff and then put together the parts needed to fight the coronavirus.

A president gets 4,000 people appointed, and more than 1,200 of them must be confirmed by the Senate. This could be a challenge for Biden, as the Senate could continue to be controlled by Republicans.

The transition process officially begins once the General Service Administration has determined the winner based on all available data. It’s a guide vague enough that Trump can pressure the agency director to stop.

It is also unclear whether the president would meet with Biden personally. Obama met Trump less than a week after the election, but it was not disputed that he had surpassed Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College.

Whenever the process begins, Biden will have to deal with the coronavirus, which has killed more than 230,000 Americans. Biden has vowed to use his transition period to meet with the governors of each state and ask them to impose a nationwide mask-wearing mandate. He says he plans to bypass redoubts to get such rules from local and county authorities.

Another key decision will be how Biden deploys his running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris. His campaign has indicated that Biden will establish a White House-level coronavirus task force like Trump did, but it is not clear whether he will look to Harris to lead him. Vice President Mike Pence is leading the current panel.

Biden was snuggled up in his Wilmington home with top counselors and family. Harris has also remained united, occupying a Delaware hotel with his family since election night and joining Biden when he made comments in recent days.

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, a former rival in Biden’s presidential primaries, has said he hopes Harris will be “a real partner” with Biden and hopes to see her “handle the major issues of concern.