[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE ELEMENTS OF PRESIDENTIAL
TRANSITIONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 10, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-129
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available at: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
42-596 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking
Columbia Minority Member
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Jim Jordan, Ohio
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Harley Rouda, California Gary Palmer, Alabama
Ro Khanna, California Michael Cloud, Texas
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Clay Higgins, Louisiana
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Peter Welch, Vermont Chip Roy, Texas
Jackie Speier, California Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Mark DeSaulnier, California Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Jimmy Gomez, California
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Katie Porter, California
David Rapallo, Staff Director
Wendy Ginsberg, Subcommittee Staff Director
Taylor Jones, Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Government Operations
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia, Chairman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Jody B. Hice, Georgia Ranking
Columbia Minority Member
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Jackie Speier, California Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Gary Palmer, Alabama
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Ro Khanna, California W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Jamie Raskin, Maryland
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on December 10, 2020................................ 1
Witnesses
Martha Joynt Kumar, Professor Emerita, Department of Political
Science, Towson University
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Max Stier, President and Chief Executive Officer, Partnership for
Public Service
Oral Statement................................................... 12
Lisa Brown, Vice President & General Counsel, Georgetown
University
Oral Statement................................................... 14
Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses
are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository
at: docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* Letter from the Partnership for Public Service; submitted by
Rep. Connolly.
* Coalition Letter from a number of organizations; submitted by
Rep. Connolly.
* Joint statement by former OMB Management; submitted by Rep.
Connolly.
* White House Transition Project Report; submitted by Rep.
Connolly.
* ``Emily Murphy Was Right Not to Recognize Biden's Win Until
Now'', article, the Washington Post; submitted by Rep. Hice.
* An article by Max Stier; submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* An article from CREW by Eli Lee; submitted by Rep. Speier.
* Questions for the Record: to Lisa Brown; submitted by Rep.
Connolly.
* Questions for the Record: to Max Stier; submitted by Rep.
Connolly.
* Questions for the Record: to Dr. Kumar; submitted by Rep.
Connolly.
The documents entered into the record during this hearing, and
Questions for the Record (QFR's) with answers, are available
at: docs.house.gov.
THE ELEMENTS OF PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITIONS
----------
Thursday, December 10, 2020
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Government Operations
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m.,
via Webex, Hon. Gerald Connolly (chairman of the subcommittee)
presiding.
Present: Representatives Connolly, Maloney, Norton,
Sarbanes, Plaskett, Raskin, Lynch, Speier, Hice, Comer, and
Palmer, Massie, Grothman, and Keller.
Mr. Connolly. I want to welcome everybody to today's remote
hearing. Pursuant to House rules, members will appear remotely
by Webex. I know we are all familiar with Webex by now but let
me remind everybody about a few points.
First, you have been using active view for our hybrid
hearings. This will still work but grid view will give you a
better perspective in a remote hearing and make you look
better. If you have any questions about this please contact
committee staff.
Second, we have a timer that should be visible on your
screen. Members who wish to pin the timer to their screens
should contact committee staff for assistance.
Third, the House rules require that we see you. So, please
have your cameras turned on at all times.
Fourth, members appearing remotely who are not recognized
should remain muted to minimize background noise and feedback.
Fifth, I will recognize members verbally but members retain
the right to seek recognition verbally themselves. In regular
order, members will be recognized in seniority for questions.
Last, if you want to be recognized outside of regular order
you may identify that in several ways. You can use the chat
function to send a request. You may send an email to the
majority staff or you may unmute your mic to seek recognition
from the chair.
Obviously, we do not want people talking over each other so
my preference is that members use the chat function. It works
very efficiently. Or email us to facilitate formal recognition.
Committee staff will ensure that I am made aware of the request
and I will recognize you.
We will begin the hearing in just a second when we are
ready to begin live stream. We are ready to go.
All right. Committee will come to order. Without objection,
the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at
any time and we may have to that because of the vote schedule
this morning.
And I now recognize myself for my opening statement.
Every four or eight years our Nation has undergone a
peaceful transfer of power. In 1981, for example, another one-
term president handed over the reins of government to his
election adversary, Ronald Reagan.
In the wake of the election, President Jimmy Carter calmed
the Nation, saying, ``We will have a very fine transition
period. I told him I wanted the best one in history.''
President Carter even sent incoming President Ronald Reagan
a telegram that read, ``It is now apparent that the American
people have chosen you as the next president. I congratulate
you and pledge to you our full support and cooperation in
bringing about an orderly transition of government in the weeks
ahead. My best wishes are with you and your family as you
undertake the responsibilities that lie before you.''
Unfortunately, our Nation has yet to see that kind of
graciousness in a telegram or tweet this time around. I called
this hearing today to examine the laws, norms, and
administrative practices that make a peaceful and efficient
transition possible.
What have we learned over 36 Presidential transitions that
have followed Presidential elections? The first one, of course,
was President George Washington relinquishing his office to
President John Adams, and what improvements can we make for
future transitions?
The transition currently underway to the Biden
administration marks the twenty-fifth Presidential transition
when the incoming president is of a different party than the
outgoing president.
This election was the first in 28 years when in which an
incumbent president sought reelection and failed, and only 10
times in our Nation's history has a sitting president lost a
reelection bid.
This context looms large over Congress's job to ensure that
the transfer of power remains peaceful but occurs. The
transition period between administrations is when our Nation
often is at its most vulnerable. In 1932-33, for example, at
the peak of the Great Depression, then-President Hoover and
President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to cooperate,
delaying much-needed relief to a starving public.
In February 1993, shortly after Bill Clinton's
inauguration--I am sorry--terrorists attacked the World Trade
Center in New York City the first time.
In 2009, President Obama was inaugurated during one of our
Nation's most severe financial crisis since the Great
Depression and America is practiced in transition during
duress.
This transition, in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic
and economic stress, is no exception. Even in the smoothest of
transitions, the president elect and vice president elect have
between 72 and 78 days in which to take the reins of the
Federal Government.
In the 2020 transition, the General Services Administration
delay in ascertaining the winner of the election has but the
post-election transition period to just 57 days.
The loss of 20 days is consequential both to the incoming
administration and, more importantly, to the Nation as a whole.
In 57 days, the president and vice president elect must staff
the White House and the executive office of the president,
creating a government structure to organize, prepare, and train
teams to lead the more than 100 departments and agencies of the
Federal Government.
These teams will be the point of a spear that works
throughout the next administration to reinvigorate the more
than 2.1 million civilian employees, 3.5 million contract
employees, and 1.3 million military employees who serve and
protect this Nation every day.
And that is just one transition responsibility. As you can
see on the screen, during the next 41 days the Biden
administration will be preparing to make more than 4,000
Presidential appointments, roughly, 1,200 of which require the
Senate's advice and consent.
Many of those appointees will need to undergo thorough
time-consuming background investigations. As I have already
noted, this new administration is taking these steps in the
midst of a global pandemic that is worsening by the day, really
worsening by the day.
These individuals will inherit the top positions of a
nation in need of economic stimulus more than ever. They
inherit a country where racial tensions have been stoked over
the past four years.
Sending up an effective transition team is a tall task and
it highlights the importance of getting the things right and
helping this administration get the leaders, support, and
resources it will need to bring this Nation back from the
brink.
The primary law that governs the transfer of power is the
Presidential Transition Act of 1963. As you can see on the
screen, the law has been amended significantly four times to
address lessons learned from previous transitions.
Prior to Presidential elections the law requires eligible
candidates to establish a transition-related organizational
structure, making sure that would-be presidents are prepared
for the post-election sprint.
The law also authorizes funding for office space, staff
compensation, and public transition services for both the
president and vice president elect and their team.
Importantly, the law also aligns outlines the process by
which candidates can designate and start vetting candidates who
would fill important national security or other sensitive roles
in the incoming administration. This law is meant to ensure a
new president is ready to lead on day one.
In the transition from George Bush to Barack Obama, the
Obama/Biden transition team had more than 349 individuals
cleared to enter agencies, to learn about their operations, and
engage the work force for the transition.
In 2016, President-elect Donald Trump had 323 people
cleared to enter agencies. Setting up a transition team is like
designing the Nation's largest startup company.
This year, those teams are taking the baton on vaccine
production and distribution, economic relief, and they face a
president, though, who could very well be facing a conflict
with Iran that could affect our national security directly. The
stakes are high. They couldn't be higher.
Pursuant to the Presidential Transition Act, it is the
administrator of the General Services Administration who
triggers access to transition funding and office space.
In the wake of this election, the administrator
inexplicably made what should be a ministerial decision into a
political one.
At this hearing, we will examine ways to amend the
Presidential Transition Act to put clearer guardrails which, I
might add, the administrator of GSA has invited Congress to do,
on what it means to ascertain a Presidential election and the
winner.
We will also examine at this hearing the role of Congress
during the lame-duck period. We have a responsibility to ensure
that this administration does not place political appointees
who lack qualifying expertise into the competitive civil
service or promulgate so-called last minute midnight
regulations or fail to properly collect, retain, and preserve
Presidential or Federal records.
In addition to those political appointees who have burrowed
in or who seek to, this administration has taken the troubling
step of issuing an executive order that would potentially
enable President Trump to fire scores of Federal employees on
his way out the door and replace them with his political
appointees.
This strikes at the heart of a merit-based civil service.
This order removes civil service protections from Federal
employees, stripping their statutory appeals rights and
permitting them to be replaced with political appointees.
The order undoes 137 years of merit system hiring and
expertise in our Federal work force and could be a harmful
attack on the integrity of our government.
I want to make the moment right now to insert into the
hearing record several resources that underscore the intense
bipartisan opposition to this executive order creating a so-
called Schedule F, including an op-ed from 50 former career
officials and political appointees from the Office of
Management and Budget and another letter from 22 good
government organizations and scholars including the Partnership
for Public Service, which Mr. Stier represents here today and
we will hear his testimony.
Mr. Connolly. A Presidential legacy should be earned over
four years, not panic dumped on a nation six weeks before the
outgoing president leaves office.
That is why today I plan to introduce the Midnight
Regulations Review Act with Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney,
Chairman Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Representative Jackie Speier.
The legislation would require the Government Accountability
Office to create a list of the regulations that the outgoing
administration promulgates during the lame-duck, which would
allow Congress and the incoming administration a review,
whether they are based on evidence and research or whether they
should be considered for amendment or elimination.
Congress must take stop immediately of harmful regulatory
actions launched by any outgoing administration in order to
exercise its authority to repeal regulations pursuant to the
congressional Review Act.
The bill also builds on the bipartisan work of Senate
colleagues Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, and Tom Copper
of Delaware, requesting that GAO produce a report similar to
the one we are going to require a year after the inauguration
to examine more in depth the impact of specific midnight
regulations.
The nation needs the next administration to be a success.
We need our people to stay safe and healthy during what
promises to be the deadliest stretch of the pandemic yet. We
need vaccine production and distribution to be comprehensive
and efficient.
We need to prevent small businesses from collapsing and
keep renters and homeowners with roofs over their heads. We
need to heal the acrimony that divides our Nation.
To make that possible, we need the outgoing administration
not to burn the building down on its way out. We need a new
team to have the opportunity to restore what makes America
great. It is time we put our Nation before our political party.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and I now call
on the distinguished ranking member, Mr. Hice, for his opening
statement.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would just like to
say I noticed that Mr. Sarbanes has joined the conference--the
hearing today, and it is my understanding he just lost his
father yesterday, and I just want to extend my condolences. I
know I lost my dad about a year ago and prayers with the
Sarbanes family, and I am sorry.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I
appreciate that. Thank you.
Mr. Hice. You are very welcome.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Hice, if I could interrupt and without
penalizing your time, I had the privilege of working for Paul
Sarbanes for 10 years in the U.S. Senate on the Foreign
Relations Committee.
He was a towering figure. He, perhaps, had the most
penetrating intellect I have ever worked with or for,
certainly, in the U.S. Congress.
He was quiet but he was effective. He was the kind of go-to
guy where people, on a bipartisan basis, sought counsel and
guidance and insight, and that is how he exercised enormous
influence in the U.S. Senate on a range of issues.
Of course, Sarbanes-Oxley is named after him. But that only
begins to, frankly, penetrate his influence on the U.S.
Government and, certainly, the U.S. Senate over those years.
So, John, our hats go out to you and the family. I know you
were proud of your dad. It was a privilege in my life and
career to have spent 10 years working with him. Thank you for
allowing me.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you. I appreciate that very much, Mr.
Chairman, and to the ranking member, thank you for taking a
moment to pass your greetings and thoughts. Thank you.
Mr. Hice. Well, you are very welcome and it is very
heartfelt, our feelings toward you and your family.
Thank you, Chairman Connolly, for calling this hearing
regarding the ongoing Presidential transition. This year's
transition highlights a number of significant shortcomings in
the governing statute for transitions and I think this is
something that we all need to look at.
At present, it is ultimately a judgment call by the GSA
administrator as to when a victor is apparent in order that
they can ascertain the winner before providing post-election
fines or services. It is very difficult to operate under the
statute of apparent sometimes, and that was certainly the case
this year.
As I personally made clear in a letter to the GSA on
November 13, even the drafters of the Presidential Transition
Act contemplated that an ascertainment should not be made if
the results were uncertain and unapparent. Again, that was
certainly the case this year.
With no guidance or clarity, GSA looked to the precedent
set under the Clinton Administration in 2000 when it waited
until December the 12 decision in the Bush v. Gore in order to
make an ascertainment.
We certainly have not waited that long. Looking for some
element of official action before ascertaining a winner, which,
ultimately, came when key states certified their election
results, was an acceptable course of action, given the
ambiguous nature of this year, as I mentioned earlier.
I encouraged GSA to do what they are supposed to do, which
is to follow the law, not to react to the vitriol being spewed
by the political left, enabled by the mainstream which, quite
frankly, has become nothing more than their propaganda arm.
This led to threats, led to threats of violence against
Administrator Murphy and her staff. This is shameful, shameful
behavior by everyone who is involved.
To those who shriek about the Trump campaign exercising its
right to contest the results, I would say it is bold talk
coming from a group that for four years has refused to
acknowledge the legitimacy of President Trump's victory and his
presidency even to the extent of calling for impeachment before
he was even inaugurated, even having investigations and spying
into his campaign, and perhaps those are the types of things
that the chairman was referring to about this administration
not exercising those types of behaviors if there is a
transition coming now.
So, you know, when you look at the collusion accusations
from the Obama Administration, the Clinton campaign, the FBI,
and even a Russian agent, all to fabricate a false narrative of
collusion against the Trump campaign, this is unbelievable that
we are looking at and even making accusations, potentially, of
the Trump campaign right now.
Not to mention, as I already referenced, a kangaroo court
on an impeachment trial. The reality is that Joe Biden himself
has provided an answer to all of this.
He said, quote, ``I think we are going to not be so far
behind the curve as we thought we might be in the past. There
is a lot of immediate discussion and I must say the outreach
has been sincere,'' end quote, that coming from Joe Biden
himself.
Moreover, TSA has been working on the transition for over a
year and has provided the Biden campaign resources as early as
September, back when Democrats were campaigning on promises to
defund the police and implement the Green New Deal.
It is not true that the less than three weeks--it was less
than three weeks that I want to emphasize. It is not true that
the less than three weeks that GSA waited somehow put our
national security at risk or delayed distribution of a COVID-19
vaccine.
The truth is that Joe Biden had free election resources
made available to him and plans for COVID-19 vaccine
distribution were well underway. And like the George W. Bush
scenario in 2000, nothing prevented Joe Biden from vetting and
selecting the individuals he intends to nominate for key
positions during those three weeks or even before the election.
The Trump administration should actually be applauded for
their endeavors both pre-and post-election. Personally, what I
am concerned about are the many constituents in my district and
beyond who don't have confidence in whether the vote was
accurately even counted.
I am concerned Democrats have completely ignored the
question of the election irregularities and have done exactly
nothing to investigate them.
Mr. Chairman, I hope that at some point we will be able to
look at those things because that should be bipartisan.
Election integrity impacts everyone in our country and, of
course, the entire direction of our country. I hope we will be
able to go down that path at some point in the future.
And with that, I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Hice, and certainly, if there
are irregularities we want to know about them. I will point out
for the record the Republican coordinator for the mechanics of
elections in your home state of Georgia actually has stated
publicly that there were not such irregularities and that,
indeed, Joe Biden had one the election.
And with respect to violence, he had a press conference
condemning threats of violence against him and other Republican
officials in your state who had the intestinal fortitude to
defend the results of the election.
I might add that all of that was also reinforced by the
secretary of state of Georgia, who is also a Republican and who
also reiterated that in three checks the results are the same.
President-elect Biden has won the electoral votes of
Georgia, and that there was no evidence of fraud or substantial
irregularities of any kind that would materially affect the
outcome of the election.
So, we can do that, but I guess in this particular case----
Mr. Hice. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Connolly. Of course.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Listen, I am fully aware
of those that you referenced. I am also fully aware both in the
House and the Senate and in multiple lawsuits and in multiple
other ways we have hundreds, we have thousands of affidavits of
irregularities and potential voter fraud, and regardless of a
secretary of state who is trying to hide his own political
career and trying to convince people there were no
irregularities the facts point otherwise, and I hope that we
will be able to look into these.
Again, the election security and integrity impacts not only
Georgia, it impacts our entire nation and where those
accusations are severe and alarming I think it is incumbent
upon us to look into it.
Thank you.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
I now call on the distinguished chairwoman of the full
committee for her opening statement.
Chairwoman Maloney, welcome.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman
Connolly and Ranking Member. I thank both of you for calling
this hearing and I would like to be associated with your
remarks on the loss of our great friend and colleague, Paul
Sarbanes.
He was an iconic leader and legislator. It was my honor to
work with him on working for stronger relations between Greece,
Cyprus, and America, and I worked with him on financial
regulation and bills as chairman of the Finance Committee.
He had a towering impact on legislation that will help this
country for decades to come, most notably the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act that really brought accountability to corporate America,
more transparency, and, really, accountability to the American
people. He was a towering figure and a really great person, and
we join you, John, in mourning his--a great loss.
Now I would like to thank Chairman Connolly very much for
highlighting the many issues that have been raised by this
unstable transition. An outgoing president should make every
effort to assist and prepare the incoming administration to
take office for the good of the country and for our national
security.
Instead of working to ensure the orderly transfer of power
to the winner of the election, President Trump has been
attacking the validity of the election and subverting the
transition process.
These actions are not only reprehensible and shocking, they
are dangerous. But I am sorry to say that I am not surprised.
Throughout his administration, President Trump has chosen
to put his personal interests before the needs of the country
and has disregarded both congressional oversight and, I would
say, public scrutiny.
According to press reports, he has ignored Federal records
laws, regularly tearing up our shredding documents that are
required to be preserved.
The destruction was so bad that career records officers
were reportedly forced to use Scotch tape to put important
documents back together.
Given this track record, I am deeply concerned that
President Trump and his aides may attempt to conceal or destroy
important White House materials during their last remaining
days.
That is why I sent a letter to the White House last month
demanding the administration comply with their responsibilities
under the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act.
Eight other committee chairs join me in this letter and we
jointly demanded that the White House preserve all materials
that are potentially responsive to the request and subpoenas
issued by this Congress.
These records belong to the American people. They are
important for our historical record. They will also be critical
to our ability to fix the damage that has been done during this
administration.
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today on
this and other issues that need to be addressed to ensure that
the current transition goes as smoothly as possible from this
point forward.
We must also work to ensure that future transitions are
more seamless than this one. Thank you, and I yield back.
[Technical issues.]
Mr. Connolly [continuing]. That have been exposed during
this transition.
Mr. Comer, the distinguished ranking member of the full
committee, are you with us?
Mr. Comer. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. You are recognized for an opening statement.
Welcome.
Mr. Comer. Well, thank you, Chairman Connolly, and for all
the witnesses appearing here today. I would like to thank
Ranking Member Hice for his leadership in this area,
particularly the letter he sent to the GSA administrator
advising her about the requirements of the Presidential
Transitions Act and encouraging her to stand strong and follow
the law in the face of great opposition.
We should all be thankful for public servants like GSA
Administrator Emily Murphy, who followed the law even as she
was vilified in the media and received thousands of threats
against herself and her staff.
Government officials take an oath to uphold the
Constitution and the laws pass through our government, and her
adherence to the Presidential Transition Act as written should
be commended, not lamented.
The act provides no clear guidelines for how the GSA
administrator should proceed when elections are contested, and
this is something that needs to be fixed.
I suspect Democrats will attempt to portray the three weeks
that passed between the election and ascertainment as
incredibly detrimental to the Biden administration, a ready
excuse for anything that goes wrong.
But the real work of transition, choosing and vetting a
team begins well before the election and doesn't have anything
to do with GSA, and indeed, Joe Biden himself and people close
to him have said the transition, quote, ``has been fairly
smooth.''
Vaccine distribution plans have been coming along, although
if memory serves some Democrat Governors aren't that eager
about a vaccine developed under President Trump.
As for access to the president's intelligence briefing
book, it might have made the country safer having a three-week
delay, given the ties of the state and DNI nominees to China.
I will end by echoing Ranking Member Hice's concerns,
concerns shared by my constituents that widespread voting
irregularities and even reports of outright fraud may have
disenfranchised their votes.
So, I would echo his call for this committee to hold
hearings to examine this election to ensure that our
constituents can be confident that their vote counts.
Thank you, and I yield back.
[Technical issues.]
Mr. Connolly [continuing]. Your remarks.
I now want to introduce our three witnesses and I will note
that votes have now been called. There are two votes in this
first and last series. So, there will be some interruption.
My hope is that we can continue to do the hearing.
Ms. Norton, I may ask you to take over the chair while I
vote, if you can do that.
Ms. Norton. Of course, Mr. Chairman. Happy to. I am able to
vote. I am always available----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Connolly. You are wonderful.
Ms. Norton [continuing]. Until the D.C.--until the D.C.
Statehood bill passes. Thank you.
Mr. Connolly. Exactly. Exactly. I look forward to the day
where I can ask you for this favor. Thank you so much. I
appreciate it.
Our first witness today is Martha Joynt Kumar, who is the
director of the White House Transition Project. Then we will
hear from Max Stier, who is the president and chief executive
officer of the Partnership for Public Service, which has done a
lot of work on transitions. And finally, we will hear from Lisa
Brown, who was the co-director of Agency Review for Obama/Biden
Transition Project.
If the witnesses will be unmuted so we can swear you all in
as is the custom of our committee, and if I can see them. If
you can put them on the screen so I can see them.
[Technical issue.]
Mr. Connolly [continuing]. Max Stier and Martha Joynt, I
see you all. If you would raise your right hand.
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
[Witnesses are sworn.]
Mr. Connolly. Let the record show that all of our witnesses
have answered in the affirmative. Thank you. And without
objection, your full written statements will be made part of
the record.
With that, Ms. Kumar, you are now recognized for your five-
minute testimony and we welcome you before the committee.
STATEMENT OF MARTHA JOYNT KUMAR, PROFESSOR EMERITA, DEPARTMENT
OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, TOWSON UNIVERSITY
Ms. Kumar. Thank you very much.
Good morning, Chairman Connolly, Chairwoman Maloney,
Ranking Member Hice, and Ranking Member Comer.
And I would like to say a word about Paul Sarbanes. As a
professor at Towson University in Baltimore, Senator Sarbanes
was very generous with his time to students and both in having
students in his office as interns and as meeting with--the
sessions that the students greatly prized.
Following the hearing theme of the elements of a
Presidential transition, I would like to briefly explore three
elements that are important aspects of recent transitions.
First, the strength of the 1963 Presidential Transition
Act. In the 58 years since the president and Congress formally
considered transition legislation, the two branches have done
so in a bipartisan manner.
As the stakes in a smooth transition rose, they increased
the resources and the government institutions involved in
transitions. The General Service Administration was the lead
transition institution in 1964, but now our Presidential
transition is an all of government operation with the president
playing a lead role along with his departments and agencies.
Changes in the political environment, national security
concerns, transition experiences, and the increase in the
complexity of government all have played into the development
of the current shape of transition planning.
The two branches have constructed a transition framework
that now moves up the clock to after the major party nominating
conventions and provides funds to both party candidates, not
just a president-elect.
Laws also provide for an information structure that calls
upon the president to create a council setting transition
policy for departments and agencies.
Second, tacit understandings between presidents and
presidents-elect, and as important as the transition laws have
been in creating a supportive framework for Presidential
transitions, equally important is the support presidents have
offered to their successors.
Until this year, incumbent presidents who lost their
campaigns for reelection have quickly conceded their loss, and
second, called upon their staffs to pave a smooth road for the
president-elect and his team.
George H. W. Bush, our most recent one-term president who
ran for reelection, instructed his White House senior staff the
day following his 1992 defeat to, quote, ``Be helpful and leave
no ticking time bombs for the incoming Clinton
Administration,'' according to his White House economic and
domestic policy advisor, Roger Porter. ``The voters have
spoken,'' Bush said, ``and our job is not to make the task of
the incoming administration more difficult than it would
otherwise be.''
Third, planning their own truncated transitions. Both
George W. Bush and Joseph Biden were stalled for weeks from
receiving the information and materials developed for them and
their staffs. Instead of 75 days, their transitions were
limited to 37 and 57 days, respectively, prior to Inauguration
Day.
Yet, both developed strategies that ameliorated their
situations. In their campaigns, both Biden and Bush focused on
a digestible number of issues that they could easily translate
into governing priority proposals.
Both men focused, first, putting a Presidential decision-
making system in place by constructing a White House staff
prior to choosing their cabinet secretaries and announcing
their policy initiatives.
Additionally, Bush and Biden set up functioning personnel
systems well before the election in order to have a team in
place.
Dante Fascell, the sponsor and floor manager of the first
Presidential Transition Act, had a goal of institutionalizing
transition process based on access to information and
cooperation from government officials. His goal has been met
almost all the Presidential transitions since the Act became
law in 1964.
Congress and the president recognized then and continues to
acknowledge the importance of an effective transition to a good
start for a new president. Having a well-organized operation
developed early in the election year benefits a president and
the public as well.
With an experienced and knowledgeable staff, an incoming
president can seize the political momentum and establish his
brand of leadership at a time when the public is paying
attention. Transition law has provided presidents opportunities
to gather information----
Mr. Connolly. Ms. Kumar?
Ms. Kumar, if I could just ask you to sum up because we are
trying to ask everyone to do a five-minute summary and then we
will get into questions afterwards.
Ms. Kumar. Well, I just have two more sentences.
Mr. Connolly. OK. Great. Sorry. Sorry for the interruption.
Ms. Kumar. Oh, that is OK.
Transition has provided presidents opportunities to gather
information they need and to enable them to deal with the
national security challenges that inevitably rise in the early
days of an administration.
With the late start and the 2020 transition during a time
of a pandemic and with the economic crisis as well, we may be
at a point for Congress to revisit transition laws and assess
where there are needs for legislative fixes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much, and it was nice of you to
mention Dante Fascell. I knew Dante very well and worked with
him when I was a young Senate staffer before he was chairman of
our committee and after he became chairman of our committee. He
was a great American. Thank you for remembering him.
Ms. Kumar. He was very important to the development of the
legislation, starting in 1962.
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Mr. Stier, you are recognized for a five-minute piece of
testimony and, of course, your full statement will be entered
into the record.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF MAX STIER, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Stier. Many thanks, Chairman Connolly, and Ranking
Members Hice and Comer, for this hearing and for inviting me.
It is a pleasure to be here with Martha Kumar and Lisa Brown,
who are phenomenal colleagues in this area.
We have heard a lot already about how important a
Presidential transition is. It is ultimately about the--not
just the peaceful transfer of power but, ultimately, about the
effective transfer of power.
Come January 20, we will have a president and his team that
will be responsible for an extraordinary set of real
challenges: the pandemic, the needs around the economy, and the
list goes on and on. Those are the knowns, and there will be
unknowns as well.
The transition process is a monumental task. It is
impossible if there is no private sector analog it is so large.
You think about the contours of our government: $5 trillion, 4
million people, half of them military reservists and in
uniform, hundreds of operating units, and, as the chairman has
already identified, the 4,000 political appointees that need to
be brought in.
It is a massive task and the history is that it takes a
long time to get it done. The history is also terrific to see
that Congress has done so many updates of it and has learned
from past practice.
We are, obviously, not done yet. This is still the middle
of the race and, therefore, everything we are talking about is
really an interim assessment. But there are real opportunities
for improvement.
The Partnership and its Center for Presidential Transition
has been at this work for a very long time. Since 2008, we have
helped every team get ready for McCain to Obama, Romney,
Clinton, Trump, and now the Biden team. So, thanks to this
committee for the updates you did just this year.
We will do a review of what has happened when it is all
over. But in the meanwhile, we do have a set of 10 interim
recommendations captured in my testimony and I am going to hit
seven of them if I can, very quickly.
The first where there seems to be a unanimous view on this
we do need to clarify the standard for post-election transition
support. It should be a ministerial decision, it should be
clear, and it should be a low bar.
This is not about deciding who is president. This is
deciding whether someone is going to get the information they
need and help they need to be ready to govern if they are in
charge on January 20.
No. 2, we need to make more support available pre-election,
and this will actually help in a very substantial way this
first question around clarifying the standard. This, Congress
has already done a lot of great work about lengthening the
runway so there is more pre-election activity done in
transition planning.
One of the best examples of this is in 2004 when, in light
of the 2001 attacks, Congress came back and said, we are going
to allow for security clearances, interim security clearances,
to be done pre-election, and that was extremely important and
we believe that there are many things that could be done that
would move forward some of the support whether it is the Office
of Government Ethics, doing reviews blindly pre-election, or
many other places where you can actually help the transition
teams do work pre-election so they don't actually have to do it
post-election and so they are even better ready than they are
today.
No. 3, and very importantly, we need to reduce the number
of political appointees and those that require Senate
confirmation. The biggest task that an incoming team has to do,
and it is overwhelming, is to get 4,000 people in place.
Four thousand isn't the magic number. It is a number that
has actually grown over time. It has doubled since 1960 overall
and the number of Senate-confirmed positions have increased by
20 percent since 1980.
If you reduce the number you make it a lot easier for a new
team to come in and you will make our government work even
better. Senator McCain actually introduced legislation in 2010
to do just this and identify $800 million that could be saved
over 10 years by cutting the number of political appointees in
half.
No. 4, we do need to stop Schedule F. We have too many
political appointees. The last thing we need to do is create,
you know, 10, 100, X number of political appointees.
That is not how you get effective government. That is not
how you make sure we have efficiency in our government. We need
a professionalized civil service that will ensure that our
problems are addressed in the most cost-effective ways.
Schedule F runs exactly contrary to that.
No. 5, we also need to look at the burrowing rules where
there are some requirements that are relatively new that there
are reports to Congress.
They should be public, and I think we need to review to see
whether the actual transfer of a political appointee to a
career civil service position should actually have a higher
standard itself.
We also need, six, information. We need a modernized Plum
Book. We should have real-time information about who the
political appointees are, not just the Senate-confirmed ones
but the entire 4,000.
And, last, we also need to update the Federal Vacancies
Act. We have seen a bunch of issues associated with that. We
can do better.
And then, finally, and the most important think I can say
right now is, Congressman Sarbanes, I too join the list of huge
fans of your father, who was a towering public servant. You
have done remarkable work yourself. I am sure he was very, very
proud of you and I just want to give you my condolences and
thank you for following in his footsteps.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Max.
John, did you want to respond? OK.
Mr. Sarbanes. Yes, just--yes, quickly. Thank you, Max, and
others who have acknowledged my father's work. It has been
quite overwhelming the last few days, the tributes and
remembrances that have come in. But the constant theme which is
being echoed here today is that he was a workhorse, not a show
horse.
He put his head down. He just wanted to help people. He did
that every single day and he did it in a quiet but steady and
determined fashion. So, thank you for paying your respects. I
appreciate it.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, John.
Ms. Brown, you are welcome and we look forward to your
five-minute testimony. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF LISA BROWN, VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL,
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Ms. Brown. Thank you.
Chairman Connolly, Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Members Hice
and Comer, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank
you for inviting me to testify at today's hearing.
As Chairman Connolly indicated, I served as co-director of
Agency Review for the Obama/Biden transition. Since then, I
have participated in nonpartisan confidential convenings
organized by Max's Partnership to brief Presidential campaigns
for both parties on the importance of an effective transition
and what that entails.
I have also been on the other side of a transition when, as
counsel to Vice President Gore, I helped oversee an orderly
transition out of the White House after Vice President Gore
conceded the 2000 election to George W. Bush.
Presidential transitions are times of vulnerability for our
country. Not only is there a change in precedent, there is
simultaneously a change in leadership at every executive branch
agency.
Risks range from delays to oversight to errors, and on the
national security front to being caught flatfooted by a savvy
adversary with ill intent.
It is, therefore, vital that the transition of power from
one Presidential administration to the next be as seamless as
possible. No business would ever choose to have their entire
leadership leave on one day.
The only reason the executive branch is able to do so
successfully every four or eight years, including during times
of crisis, is because of the cooperation of the outgoing
administration and the professionalism and expertise of career
civil servants.
This is not a partisan issue. This is about the efficient
and effective functioning of government with the people it
serves.
I have personally benefited from such cooperation when I
became assistant to the president and staff secretary. I
entered the White House on the afternoon of the inauguration
and found an office that had little more than furniture and a
computer with a wiped hard drive.
I was expected to start work immediately. My ability to do
so seamlessly was due to the fact that during the transition I
had met with Raul Yanes, the final staff secretary to President
Bush, and his predecessor, then-Judge Kavanaugh, as well as
John Podesta and Todd Stern, staff secretaries for President
Clinton.
All had been gracious with their time, forthcoming and
helpful in advising me how to navigate my new job. It continued
a long nonpartisan tradition through many administrations, has
benefited both new officeholders and the country they serve.
Transition from President Bush's administration to that of
President Obama was successful because of the extensive
cooperation between the two. President Bush set the tone for
collaboration from his White House staff to Cabinet secretaries
and agency heads and their political and career staffs.
Federal Government is a complex bureaucracy, making any
transition a daunting task and a massive amount of work. Even
when one has the full allotment of time between Election Day
and Inauguration Day.
Agency Review, which is just one piece of the transition,
entails establishing a structure and process to review over 100
executive departments, agencies, and commissions.
Our structure involved over 500 people specific to use for
each agency. Thanks to the strong working relationship with the
White House, the members of our Agency Review teams had
received security clearances prior to the election and we had
agreed on a process enabling teams to go into the agencies soon
after.
I met with the GSA transition team the morning after the
election and our teams then spent days meeting with career
employees who were consummate professionals and absolutely
indispensable to the efficient and smooth transition. If we ran
into any glitches, we were able to raise them with the
executive director of the transition, who resolved them
expeditiously with his White House counterpart.
Why does all of this matter? The goal of Agency Review is
to complete a timely and thorough review of agencies in the
White House, to provide the president-elect, Cabinet
appointees, and their key advisors with the critical
information needed to begin governing the minute they take
office.
The information collected informs the policy and budget
planning process and personnel selection during the transition,
and ensures that new administration officials can hit the
ground running when they take office the day after
inauguration.
Agency Review ensures that new appointees will know what
they will immediately confront when they walk in the door, what
pressing legislative, litigation, regulatory, budgetary, or
programmatic matters will require immediate action so they
don't drop any balls or miss an opportunity to act.
Agency Review also identifies key opportunities to begin
implementing the president-elect's policy priorities of each
agency. This work, which must occur at every agency, is
critical to protecting and serving the American people.
The challenges facing the country today are even more
daunting than those we faced in 2008, making cooperation
between the outgoing and incoming administrations more
important than ever.
I look forward to answering your questions and thank you
again for the opportunity to testify. Let me please add my
condolences regarding Senator Sarbanes.
He was a remarkable public leader. I am a Maryland resident
and so have for a long time followed him and been grateful to
him.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much, and as a matter of fact, I
am going to call--out of respect for the memory of his dad and
for the wonderful work he is doing, too, I am going to call on
Mr. Sarbanes to--for the first questioning.
Before I do that, let me just run down for Ms. Norton the
order. Obviously, she could change it. But it is going to go
Mr. Sarbanes, Mr. Hice, Mrs. Maloney, Mr. Palmer, Ms. Speier,
Mr. Comer, and then Brenda Lawrence, Delegate Plaskett,
Congressman Lynch, Congressman Raskin, and I will probably do
cleanup.
So, in just a little bit, Ms. Norton, I am going to ask
you, if you would, to run the hearing while I go and cast two
votes. I have myself and the proxy. I will be as fast as I can
and try to come back. But I really appreciate your willingness
to do that, if that is OK with you, Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Of course, Mr. Chairman. Of course, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
And I now call on Mr. Sarbanes for his five minutes of
questioning.
What? Oh, sorry about that.
Ms. Speier, are you there?
[No response.]
Mr. Connolly. Mrs. Lawrence?
[No response.]
Mr. Connolly. Ms. Plaskett?
[No response.]
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Lynch?
[No response.]
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Raskin?
[No response.]
Mr. Connolly. All right.
Mrs. Maloney, are you prepared to go?
[No response.]
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Raskin, are you there?
[No response.]
[Laughter.]
Mr. Connolly. Well, all right. You know what? I think, Ms.
Norton, normally I would go last. But if you don't mind, I will
go now and then hand over the gavel to you while I go vote.
Ms. Norton. Of course. Of course, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much.
And, Mr. Hice, I believe you are there so you would be the
first on your side of the aisle.
[No response.]
Mr. Connolly. People are probably voting. OK.
On November 9--I recognize myself for my five minutes of
questioning.
On November 9, days after Joe Biden was projected as the
winner of the Presidential election, President Trump actually
instructed leaders of Federal agencies not to recognize the
Biden victory and to block cooperation with President-elect
Biden's transition team.
In addition to those actions, President Trump even proposed
the treacherous idea of state legislatures overturning election
results to favor him. Such actions, clearly, could undermine
trusted democracy and, in fact, do, and further hamper the
incoming administration's ability to access information to get
ready to govern.
Ms. Brown, when you were co-chair of Agency Review for the
Obama/Biden Transition Project, how important was it for the
incumbent administration to acknowledge the process and to work
with you rather than, effectively, against you?
Ms. Brown. President Obama----
[Technical issue.]
Ms. Brown. Sorry.
Mr. Connolly. Go ahead.
Ms. Brown. First----
[Technical issue.]
Mr. Connolly [continuing]. So, that we can hear Ms. Brown.
Thank you.
Go ahead, Ms. Brown.
Ms. Brown. Thank you.
President Obama himself has often cited President Bush's
collaboration as absolutely indispensable to his transition.
They worked very closely. The administrations worked very
closely together.
As you have indicated, President Obama was taking office
during a recession and it was a time of crisis, and President
Bush actually worked--his team worked with our team to tee up
decisions and say, which decisions do you want us to make,
which decisions do you all want to make, and in order to ensure
that at such a time of crisis the transition was as smooth as
possible.
And we were welcomed into agencies. We were able to get to
work immediately, and it made all the difference. There is
quite a lot of information that you access during Agency Review
that is not public.
So, you--it is not until that transition period post-
election that you are able to get access to classified
information, for example.
And so, certainly, with regard to national security matters
it is vitally important that the incoming administration be
fully briefed so that you don't have some type of a gap after
they take office.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
And I think that you--that point you make about national
security I am looking at the Center for Presidential Transition
identifying a number of national security issues that are
affected by the length of the transition and the cooperation or
noncooperation, you know, just beginning with a review of 17
intelligence agencies and their responsibilities and their
issues, you know, a number of other key officials that they
have to place into place, to say nothing of ongoing
international security issues that matter, right.
There is a war that just kind of got, you know, semi
settled in the Nagorno-Karabakh. There is an active war in
Ethiopia in the Tigray province. There is, you know, active
Russian meddling in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia. There is Chinese
activity on the Indian border that has gone kinetic.
I mean, there are lots of issues, plus terrorism and plus
the Middle East and, I mean, you know, the United States can't
interrupt its responsibilities in the world and national
security is--looms very, very large and it needs to be
seamless, to underscore your point, I think.
Ms. Brown. Chairman Connolly, I might add, I believe the 9/
11 Commission actually referred to the delay in the Bush--when
Bush came into office because of Bush v. Gore that he--his
abbreviated--I think it was 50-plus days of transition was part
of the reason that he was--it took him a long--much longer to
get his national security team into place and I have cited that
as one possible reason for 9/11.
Mr. Connolly. You are exactly right. It was quite explicit
that they cited that as a contributing factor to the
unreadiness of the U.S. Government to the threat that
ultimately, tragically, materialized on 9/11. Thank you.
On November 23, the head of the GSA, Emily Murphy, finally
ascertained the winner of the election, allowing President-
elect Biden to access post-election resources and information.
In her letter, which I now insert into the hearing record,
she suggested that Congress should create clearer guardrails on
what it means for the GSA administrator to ascertain who the
president and vice president-elect are.
On the other hand, as early as November 8 the Partnership
for Public Service and four former leaders of Presidential
transitions released a statement saying, ``We congratulate Vice
President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris on their
successful and historic campaign for the White House.
While there will be legal disputes requiring adjudication,
the outcome is sufficiently clear that the transition process
must now begin.''
I ask that this release also be included in the hearing
record at this point.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Stier, among those who signed onto that
letter I just referred to were Josh Bolten and former Utah
Governor, Michael Leavitt. Those are big names in the liberal
Democrat world, right?
Mr. Stier. I am just looking at Ranking Member Hice. Am I
permitted to answer the question, given the time?
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Mr. Stier. OK. I just wanted to completely--Yes. I--so the
Center for Presidential Transition is a part of the Partnership
for Public Service. It is a----
Mr. Connolly. No, my question was--my question to you was
Josh Bolten and Utah Governor Michael Leavitt signed that
letter. Are they liberal Democrats, to your knowledge?
Mr. Stier. My point to you is the answer is we are a
nonpartisan organization and we have leaders from both the
Republican and Democratic Parties that are involved in this.
Mr. Connolly. I don't know what's hard about this Mr.
Stier.
Mr. Stier. Yes. Yes.
Mr. Stier, to your knowledge, are they liberal Democrats or
are they Republicans?
Mr. Stier. Chairman Connolly, as you know, they are
Republican in their party affiliation. They are Americans in
their treatment of the transition.
Mr. Connolly. I understand that. I am trying to make the
point that you are trying to make, if you would cooperate, and
that is--that is that Republicans as well as Democrats signed
that statement.
This wasn't a partisan statement. It was a recognition of
the results of a free and fair election that were fairly
decisive. Would that be a fair way of describing it?
Mr. Stier. Yes, it would.
Mr. Connolly. OK.
Is Mr. Hice back?
Mr. Hice. Yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. OK, great. Mr. Hice, you are recognized for
your five minutes of questioning, and then, Ms. Norton, if you
would take the gavel. I am going to step out and go vote and
then I will come back.
Ms. Norton. Of course. Of course.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much for doing that.
And, Mr. Hice, you are recognized.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I think we are
having some computer problems and that may have been a part of
why you couldn't find someone else a while ago to ask some
questions.
As I get into this, I do want to highlight the fact that a
lot of the reason that we are here today, I think, is simply
because the Democrats, for this entire year, have been pushing
for vote by mail, and look, we all know when you have vote by
mail you are not going to be able to get results back in a
timely fashion.
We need look no further than simply to ask Chairwoman
Maloney about that. Her own election took over six weeks to get
an answer, finally, as to who won, and now we are looking at it
on a national basis and we are here complaining that less than
three weeks was involved in having a transition with GSA.
Well, a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that we
have been pushing and accepting across the country vote by
mail, which is a disaster on multiple fronts. But rather than
focus on the transition that is already underway, I would like
to speak to the fact that the majority is holding this hearing
because they are frustrated with the fact that states are
exercising their right to question and investigate
irregularities in this 2020 election.
And, frankly, I find this to be gross hypocrisy because the
Democrats were consistently questioning the results of the 2016
election until recently. In fact, the talk of impeaching
President Trump started before he was actually even elected.
In April 2016, Politico posted an article suggesting that
Representative Alan Grayson said that Trump's insistence on
building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border could lead down a
path of impeachment.
In 2017, Al Green and Brad Sherman, in the first years of
his presidency, introduced a resolution impeaching the
president due to high misdemeanors. Then there is the whole
Russian collusion thing that we have already talked about, a
falsely peddled narrative that went on for years and cost the
taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
You have Heba Abedin, the sister of Hillary Clinton's top
aide, Huma Abedin. She used Facebook to call on the Justice
Department to request an audit of the vote of the 2016
election.
Concerns about the voting machines also are nothing new. In
fact, a member of this committee on the other side of the aisle
validated fears in voting machine irregularities and introduced
legislation to prevent states from contracting with firms owned
or influenced by non-U.S. citizens.
This bill would have impacted at least two very large
companies, one of which would be the Dominion voting systems.
And a Democratic senator, in a speech at an election security
conference in Washington, DC, said that the voting machine
lobby literally, and this is a quote, ``literally think they
are above the law. They are accountable to no one and they have
been able to hot wire the political system in certain parts of
our country,'' end quote.
So, confidence in the democratic process is not a partisan
issue. If we spend millions of dollars giving credence to the
Russian collusion narrative then, certainly, we ought to be
able to give a few weeks to ensure that the election that just
took place was done so with integrity, and I would think also
that we should be holding legislative investigative hearings to
explore the elective--elect irregularities in order to earn
back the trust of the American people. I think all of this is
extremely important.
Mr. Stier, do you agree that a Presidential transition
doesn't just start after ascertainment or even once the
candidates are declared that the preparations for this huge
undertaking should actually take place months before the
election?
Mr. Stier. Absolutely. It is a very powerful point that you
make there. If you are going to be ready you have to start
early, and this committee and Congress has, over time, made it
easier and easier for that to happen and I think there are some
additional improvements that could be made that would reduce
the concerns around ascertainment because more work would be
done pre-election.
Mr. Hice. OK. And would you agree that that actually took
place?
Mr. Stier. Yes. The Biden team has followed best practice.
They started early, they started smartly, and they started with
good people.
Mr. Hice. OK. Thank you very much. I see my time has
expired. I yield back.
Ms. Norton.[Presiding.] The gentleman's time has expired.
Next on the list, as called by the chairman, would be Mr.
Sarbanes, if he has finished voting.
Mr. Sarbanes?
Mr. Sarbanes. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it.
Can you hear me OK?
Ms. Norton. I can hear you.
Mr. Sarbanes. Great. I want to thank the witnesses for your
testimony.
Mr. Stier, I would like to begin with you and may end with
you, depending on how long your answer is. But a lot of the
attention around the transition tends to focus on the higher
level political appointees and so the process by which one
group is anticipating leaving and the other one is coming in.
But I would like to get your perspective from the work that
you do. You know how the rank and file operate and do their
jobs inside these agencies and we are talking about
professionals who care deeply about the mission of the
organization that they serve.
They want to do a good job, and I imagine that these
transitions create a tremendous amount of anxiety for the rank
and file because they want to make sure that the agency handoff
is happening in a way that represents high standards and
professionalism.
So, perhaps you could speak to what that looks like, the
kind of inside mechanics. Pick an agency if you would like as
an example and talk about what it means for that civil servant,
that Federal worker, who cares deeply about their job and
making sure that the function of the agency is being carried
out in a--at a high level and how important it is for them to
have the transition done well or for there to be problems with
the transition.
Mr. Stier. So, Congressman Sarbanes, a fabulous question.
The reality is that it is the career work force that is the
engine room of our government and it is vital that that career
work force is tended well and engaged well by new political
teams if our country is going to be able to address the
critical issues that we have in front of us, the economy, you
name it.
A quick example. You said to give you an example of an
agency. The Small Business Administration in this past year had
to put out 5 million loans, which is 80 times what it has done
previously, and that was, obviously, to help critical small
businesses across the country.
That is a phenomenal workload and that work is being done
by career civil servants. So, you ask what the experience of
the work force, the career work force, in a transition.
The motivation of that career work force is to get mission
done and it needs leadership in place to help provide policy
guidance. The transition is often a time of uncertainty and
that uncertainty causes challenge. We all know that in any
management context uncertainty is the bane of good management.
And so in a transition context, it is very important for
the existing leadership to be supporting the career work force
and continuing the work of government and that the handoff in
leadership is smooth.
The first task of any new leadership team should be to
engage effectively that career work force because their ability
to get stuff done is going to depend on that relationship, and
that smooth handoff is exactly what we are talking about here.
It is one of the reasons why I think we should have fewer
political appointees because it would make that handoff easier
and you would have leaders that stayed around longer.
One of the big challenges in the context of the system we
have right now is we have short-term leaders that don't align
against the long-term problems that government is intended to
address or the health of the institutions that they are in fact
responsible for.
Last point, if you look at our testimony, we believe the
political leaders should be held accountable for good
performance and for their effective management of the career
work force, and then we would have better return on taxpayer
dollars for more effective government.
Mr. Sarbanes. Let me--thank you. That is exactly what I was
interested in hearing. Let me do a followup here.
If you had the political leadership in an agency resisting
the transition for any period of time, could that translate
into actually having rank and file staffers in these agencies,
effectively, being told to sit on their hands, so they are
literally stuck not being able to perform the duties that would
ensure a smooth transition. Could it take on that appearance?
Mr. Stier. So, one of the improvements that this committee
and Congress helped make this last year is to ensure that it is
a career leader in charge of the transition preparation in
every agency. That was an improvement that was quite important
that you just did and, I think, makes a big difference.
But, fundamentally, everyone should be on the same team and
that team needs to make sure that our government is working
effectively. The political team coming out needs to off board
as effectively as the incoming team did.
Lisa talked about the Bush exit as the gold standard of
handoff and we should use that as the model for how to do that
right.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you very much.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, and I thank the gentleman
whose time has now expired.
I now call on Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I do want to
express my condolences to my friend and colleague, Mr.
Sarbanes.
You are in my prayers, especially this time of year, and I
lost my dad in 2012 and I think about him often, and I hope,
and I know you do, you are going to have many fond memories.
But you will miss him.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank
you.
Mr. Palmer. Mr. Stier, are you aware of previous precedent
set by the Democrats in delaying the ascertainment of a
president-elect and circumstances of lately contested
elections?
Mr. Stier. I think the last time, and I am not sure if the
reference is to the 2000 election, the last time you saw a
delay in the ascertainment was in the 2000 election, and it had
real consequence.
We have already heard about the 9/11 report itself. You
know, if you look at the numbers, the 1,200 Senate-confirmed
positions, President Obama was the high water mark of getting
his senior team in place.
In the first 100 days he was able to get 69 in. That is--
you know, that is the high water mark. But President Bush, in
light of the shortened transition period, was only able to get
half that number in in the first 100 days. So----
Mr. Palmer. I would like to point out, though, in that Bush
43 transition that one of--for me, one of the really
problematic issues related to 9/11 was the delay over the
confirmation of John Ashcroft as the U.S.--United States
attorney general, which was entirely political. But that is
another topic for another time.
And I do appreciate your answer on that because it was the
former Clinton GSA administrator, David Barram, who testified
before this subcommittee about the delay, delaying the
ascertainment, and Dante--former Congressman Dante Fascell was
quoted by my good friend, Mr. Connolly.
I just want to read you a quote from the hearing regarding
the legislation that governs this from 1963. He said, ``There
is nothing in the Act that requires the administrator to make a
decision which, in his own judgment, he could not make. If he
could not determine the apparent successful candidate he would
not authorize the expenditure of funds to anyone and he should
not.''
I think in this case, as the process has gone along, the
GSA administrator has made a decision and the process has
begun. Would you agree with that, Mr. Stier?
[No response.]
Mr. Palmer. You are mute. I am sorry. You are muted.
Mr. Stier. Thank you for that. I am competing with the
clerk on who is unmuting so we are going back and forth on that
there.
But the answer is that I am very impressed with the fact
that I hear bipartisan interest in clarifying the standard for
ascertainment. I think it needs to happen.
We need to make sure that this is viewed in fact as a
ministerial decision, that there isn't as much discretion
involved so that we can see, you know, more investment in
transition activity faster.
Mr. Palmer. Well, again, quoting former Congressman
Fascell, he says in the unlikely proposition that would happen
and he was, at that time, it had only happened three times.
Actually, this is the fifth time.
He said that if the administrator had any question in his
mind he simply would not make any designation in order to make
services available by the Act.
With that in mind, I don't think the Act really contains
the guidelines to assist the GSA administrator. Do you think we
need to make some changes? Amend the Act?
Mr. Stier. Absolutely. I think we do and--or you do,
rather, and to amend it to make sure that you have clarity that
this is a low bar, and, as I indicated earlier, you could also
reduce the importance of that decision by allowing more work to
be done pre-election so this doesn't become as big a gate as it
currently is.
Mr. Palmer. I appreciate your response, and I need to go
vote so I am going to yield the balance of my time, Madam
Chairman, and I thank you.
Ms. Norton. I thank--I thank the gentleman for his
questions.
By order of seniority, next would be Mrs. Maloney.
If she is not back, by order of seniority, my questions
would be next.
I do want to express my condolences to my friend and
neighbor, my next-door neighbor from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes,
along with Republicans--as Republicans and Democrats have
already done on this committee.
I want to indicate that ranking--Ranking Member Hice cited
the Bush v. Gore as taking even more time to certify. But I
hope that we understand that that was because of the fact that
the election had not been called, I believe, in Florida because
of hanging chads. The election was called, for all intents and
purposes, on November 3 on this occasion.
My question goes to a serious concern I have about the
relationship of the--of the transition and its 20 days lost to
the public health emergency that we are now experiencing, our
record high daily case counts, even though there is, I am happy
to note, hope on the horizon that a vaccine will become
available in a few days.
My question, first, is to Ms. Kumar. How important is a
seamless transition threatened in the midst of a national
health crisis?
Ms. Kumar?
Ms. Kumar. Yes. Yes, I am now unmuted.
It is--it is terribly important to get a hold of the--of
the pandemic and to--in order to do that, the Biden team needed
to have information on the distribution process and all of the
different producers of vaccines of the differences between
them, and much of that information----
Ms. Norton. Go ahead.
Ms. Kumar. Yes. That information could not be provided
until the administrator ascertained a president-elect, and what
ended up happening was that they had to--the Biden team would
then have to do work arounds and talk to people who are
knowledgeable from--who had been in the administration earlier,
which is not a good substitute for getting the latest
information which is required on this.
So, that is a good example of the kinds of crises that
occur that you need to have the transition start as early as
possible and with the detailed information provided to the next
person who is coming into the presidency.
Ms. Norton. Yes, this pandemic does present much more than
a wrinkle for the transition.
Ms. Brown, how could--how could delays in assessing
national health information affect plans to distribute and
administer the vaccine?
Ms. Brown. So, I think Martha has addressed this. I think
you really want to make sure is that the incoming--that
President-elect Biden's team is fully briefed on Operation Warp
Speed, knows what CDC is doing, knows what DOD's distribution
plans are so that--and how are they working with states
already, what has been--how much vaccine has been ordered over
what period of time. All these questions.
It is, as you well know, an organizational challenge to
distribute the vaccine across the country. And so staying with
the nitty gritty detail of all of that is extremely important
for the country to make sure that when they take office that
there is no blip in that distribution.
Ms. Norton. Well, Mr. Stier, finally, as we look at what
the president-elect is doing on the pandemic response, can you
indicate what he is doing right on his response, given these
delays?
Mr. Stier. So, as has been--thank you, Congresswoman.
As has been noted earlier, the Biden team got, you know,
going very early with professionals to pre-election and I think
the most important thing they did right is starting very early
to prepare for the possibility that they would ultimately be in
charge and bringing in real expertise to--around public health
issues to get up to speed and to look at the different options.
You know, obviously, this is, as you just heard from
everybody else and you know yourself, a huge task, and I think
the only point I would offer beyond what has already been made
is that there are a lot of unknowns and one of the more tricky
aspects of this for an incoming team will be not only knowing
what has happened already but being up to speed and having the
relationships both with the career work force and with
colleagues across the government so that they can deal with a
fast-moving and challenging situation and make good choices.
That is really why we need great leader support.
Ms. Norton. Thank you. Thank you very much. The gentleman's
time has expired.
Next, would be Mr. Comer.
Mr. Comer, are you there?
Mr. Comer. Yes, I am.
Ms. Norton. You can--you may proceed.
Mr. Comer. Thank you. Before I begin my questions, I, too,
would offer my sincere condolences to Mr. Sarbanes.
Let me begin with Mr. Stier. Joe Biden has said that the
outreach from Federal agencies has been sincere, that it has
not been begrudging so far and I don't expect it to be.
Is that sentiment consistent with what you are hearing
about how the transition is going right now?
Mr. Stier. It is. I think that, again, it is the career
work force that is most central to providing information to the
Biden team.
My understanding is that those communications are now
happening and they are happening well. There are pockets of
challenge but there is also an escalation process in place, and
I want to doff my hat in particular to Chris Liddell, who was
the No. 2 in the Romney Readiness Project, is now deputy White
House chief of staff.
He is expert on these issues and I think has been really a
phenomenal leader in government in trying to make sure that the
right preparation happened and the right things are happening
now.
Mr. Comer. I am glad to hear that because I don't think
that is the message that is being portrayed by a lot of the
mainstream media. So, I am really happy that we have had this
hearing to get the truth out.
Ms. Kumar, let me ask you, Clay Johnson, who led George W.
Bush's transition team, has said that Biden, quote, ``Can't
wait to be sure that the president-elect really is the
president-elect. His advisors have to hurry up and move
forward.''
Do you agree with his sentiment that a candidate's
transition team should already be working on identifying key
senior staff and cabinet positions even before the official GSA
ascertainment takes place?
Ms. Kumar. Yes. I think that all of us would agree on that,
that the earlier you get started the better transition you are
going to have.
In Clay Johnson's case, he began in about over a year
before the--before the transition actually occurred. Was the
executive director and worked on the appointments process.
Because there is so much to do, you have to set up a system
where you are going to handle all of the resumes that come in,
where if you have--I think the Obama people had over 200,000
resumes come in, and you have to line up--line up your team and
figuring out the choices of what are your priority issues and
then work at filling those posts early. And you can see that
one of the first things that Biden did was filling a task force
on the virus because that was his priority issue.
Mr. Comer. Uh-huh.
Ms. Brown, you served as co-director of Agency Review for
the Obama/Biden transition team in 2008-2009. Is that correct?
Ms. Brown. Correct.
Mr. Comer. Can you describe how Agency Review works to
ensure that a president and their team is ready to hit the
ground running on day one?
Ms. Brown. So, they--essentially, the teams go into each
agency and try to do their best to learn what are the salient
issues, essentially, what is going to hit you in the face when
you walk in the door, and then what are the opportunities for
implementing a president-elect's agenda.
So, what this means is sitting down in multiple meetings
with career staff involved in the different elements of each
agency. If you think about something like HHS or DOJ,
obviously, they have enormous number of, essentially,
subagencies and so each one of those you need to go into, make
sure you understand what are they working on at the time.
And, often, Agency Review focuses on what is going to
happen in the first 100 days and so that you really make sure
that you are ready when you come in. You know what is going to
be on your plate and whether it is litigation, regulation, a
programmatic issue.
And if I might add to what Martha and Max added, one, even
if a president-elect has spent a lot of time before the
election thinking about who they are going to nominate, which I
agree is incredibly important. You need to back that up.
You still have to do background checks on everyone and that
becomes a bottleneck. It is something with the FBI, OPM. That
is something that often slows down the nominations and is
something that I believe can't happen until after the election
in thinking about announcements that----
Ms. Norton. The gentleman's time has expired.
Next will be Mrs. Maloney if she is back.
[No response.]
Ms. Norton. If she is not, next will be Ms. Plaskett.
Ms. Plaskett?
Ms. Plaskett. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank the
witnesses who are here. This is very important information that
we are going through and I appreciate all of your perspectives.
The Trump/Biden Presidential transition is the first time
that the majority of a transition will be conducted virtually
due to the pandemic. In fact, since March 2020, most of the
Federal work force has been working from home to adhere to
social distancing guidelines.
Given the rise in coronavirus cases, it does not appear
that teleworking is going to go away anytime soon. In addition
to dealing with the uncooperative outgoing administration, the
Biden transition team is in the throes of building a new
administration in an abbreviated transition, and virtually.
Mr. Stier, what challenges has the Biden transition team
faced due to this virtual operation, if you are aware of any?
Mr. Stier. Congresswoman, you did such a great job of
outlining the challenges. It is unbelievable, in the best of
circumstances, how large this task is and how meaningful and
difficult it is.
But it is, clearly, way more difficult in the context of
the pandemic, and as you noted, the Biden team is forced in at
least two ways to have to address doing things virtually for
itself, for its own team, is having to perform all the
functions of--just startup and a very intensive startup done
virtually and then having to interact, largely, with the
Federal work force virtually as well, and that includes,
obviously, engaging with potential appointments--appointees
that, you know, you might ordinarily have more face-to-face
contact with, in-person contact, than you can in this context.
So, you know, I think that the Biden team really, you know,
deserves a lot of credit for the intensity of its efforts very
early on. They saw this.
They began organizing in the springtime so they have been
preparing for having to do these things. It doesn't make it--
the problem--go away. You know, it just means that they are
better able to manage it and they have got great people doing
it.
I do think that one other point you made there, though,
about the Federal work force being virtual, I would hope also
at some point this committee could come back to the fact that
the Federal work force has done an exceptional job of acting
virtually and there is a lot of good lessons learned from that,
that government can be done even better, more efficiently, more
cheaply, by the virtual activity that is taking place now.
Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Stier, that was leading to my second
question was that experience of doing this transition virtually
can give us--you know, inform future Presidential transitions
and how to do it in a more truncated, potentially cheaper
fashion.
I think this would go toward your discussion earlier about
maybe there not being a necessity for having as many political
appointments or as many set confirmed appointments.
You know, not having to take people around to all of the
senators to have these discussions, or do we need to do it and
should it be virtual and will that speed up the process? So, I
am wondering if you have any thoughts about that.
Mr. Stier. So, certainly, on your first issue, I 100
percent agree with that and, again, I mentioned earlier Senator
McCain had introduced legislation in 2010 noting that it would
save $800 million over 10 years to cut the number of political
appointees in half and, actually, the number of political
appointees, the 4,000 that are used today, is double what they
were in 1960.
So, that is one plain lesson and I think you are exactly
right that we do see a number of overall political appointees
and those--especially those that are requiring Senate
confirmation would make this process a lot easier. The Senate
is a--you know, is a small pipe and a lot is pushed through it
and it, frankly, is undoable to get 1,250 people in in real
time.
On the virtual point, it is a very interesting one that you
raise. I noted earlier that we are still midway through the
race. I think we are going to learn a lot of lessons. When this
is all over, you know, we have always done an assessment after
the fact.
It has taken a bunch of time because there is a lot of
information to gather. But I am confident that there will be
improvements and efficiencies that are available that we can--
we can adopt longer term by doing things virtually.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
And with the short time that I have remaining, Ms. Brown,
there are review teams that physically need to enter Federal
buildings to do things such as reviewing classified material.
Given your experience with that review process, how might this
hinder the transition team's ability to be fully prepared to
take office on day one?
Ms. Brown. Congresswoman, you are absolutely right. There
are certain things that can't be done virtually, as Max has
indicated. I think we have all become, unfortunately,
accustomed to communicating this way. But it is not a perfect
substitute. It is harder to suss out the jewel that you were
talking to.
You can't deal--you cannot communicate classified
information over Zoom. I think that is, obviously, the biggest
challenge and so that needs to be done in person.
I will say it should be able to be done in person. Right
now, people are working at supermarkets and driving buses and
Federal employees who need to be at work are at work, and so I
think that is something that we, as a government, should still
be able to accomplish with, of course, all of the right safety
precautions.
But you are quite correct, that is a piece of it that needs
to be done in person.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the
opportunity to question these witnesses, and I yield back.
Ms. Norton. I thank the gentlewoman, whose time has
expired.
Is Mrs. Maloney back?
[No response.]
Ms. Norton. If not, we will go to Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Madam Chair. My thoughts, too, are
with my friend, John Sarbanes, and his family. His father,
Senator Sarbanes, was a model public servant who believed in
public service and was a champion of government and the people
who served us in it, and he will be sharply missed by the
people of Maryland and by the people of our country.
Madam Chair, this administration has been messing with the
civil service. First, the president issued executive orders
gutting collective bargaining and attacking unions. Then they
shut the government down. Then they tried illegally to abolish
the Office of Personnel Management.
Now, President Trump has issued an executive order calling
for the creation of a new Schedule F, which would allow
reclassification of hundreds of thousands of expert employees
in the Federal civil service and take away their ability to
appeal adverse actions taken against them, making them easy to
remove and easy to replace with unqualified or less qualified
political operatives.
Mr. Stier, you run a group that promotes nonpartisan good
government. Does this executive order make government better?
Does it promote the value of expertise?
Mr. Stier. Thank you, Congressman Raskin, and the answer
is, clearly, not. It is really a fundamental attack upon the
core notion that we need merit-based system professionals to
deal with the really difficult problems that we face as a
Nation.
And it is frightening, and I would just offer the
additional point that there has been some conversation that
this could be easily overturned by an incoming President Biden
and my view is that the damage that could be done between now
and the next administration is really serious, and to the
extent that this can be stopped it would be to the people's
benefit because, ultimately, it will lead to incredible
inefficiencies, incredible harm to the public and to public
servants.
It is worth noting that our system was based--
fundamentally, it started after a president was assassinated by
a would-be job seeker and there was a recognition that that is
not the way to run a government, that we actually needed people
who were selected for their expertise because they were public
stewards and had the ability to solve big problems. Those are
the ones that we needed in government.
Mr. Raskin. You recently wrote an op-ed in ``USA Today''
which, Madam Chair, I would like to submit for the record, if I
could.
Ms. Norton. So accepted.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
And in that piece you said that these actions could make
our government less accountable and less effective.
But, Mr. Stier, you have actually called for reform of the
civil service. I am wondering why do you think this is not the
reform that is required right now?
Mr. Stier. So, thank you again, for that opportunity to
answer that question.
There is no doubt that our system does need reform. You
know, you look at our pay system right now. It was created in
1949. I don't know of any other organization that is running
successfully with a pay system from 1949.
So, there is definite modernization that needs to occur.
The challenge with the Schedule F is that it undermines the
basic premise that our career work force should be selected for
their expertise and they should not be gotten rid of unless
there is a problem--there is a cause, a real cause, for getting
rid of them.
The Schedule F, what it would enable is a political
appointee to fire a whistleblower, someone who has identified
waste, fraud, and abuse, and therefore gets fired for it. Or
that person never raises their hand because they know they can
be fired. That does not serve the American people.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
Ms. Brown, you ran the Agency Review teams for President
Obama in the 2008 transition. How important was the presence of
career civil servants to you during that transition process?
Ms. Brown. Thank you for that question.
It is absolutely indispensable. Most of our names went into
agencies were with career civil servants. If you think about
it, it is only the very top level of these enormous agencies
that have--with political appointees.
Everybody else is a career employee and the individuals who
really know the ins and outs of programs, who are doing the
work of the government every day are career civil servants.
And so they are the ones that you really want to talk to
and need to be talking to as you are learning about what is
going on in that agency--agency review.
Mr. Raskin. Well, I appreciate that.
Madame Chair, I just want to say that OMB has identified
425 people, nearly 90 percent of its staff, for conversion to
this Schedule F, and this creates real risk that thousands of
people will be removed from their jobs right in the midst of
the pandemic, right in the middle of the holidays, and right
when we need them most for this Presidential transition. We
must not allow this plan to go forward.
And I yield back to you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton. All right. I thank the gentleman for those
remarks. His time has expired.
The next person who is available appears to be Ms. Speier.
Ms. Speier, are you back?
Ms. Speier. I am. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to focus on midnight rulemaking. In the final
months of any Presidential administration there is a high
volume of rules that are issued.
This is oftentimes called midnight rulemaking because in
the attempts in the waning hours of an administration to
achieve political policy goals they do them in the dark of
night.
So, it is an endless problem. It has gone on from one
administration to the next. I am particularly concerned about
what might happen at the end of this administration, and I know
that Chairman Connolly has introduced the Midnight Rulemaking
Review Act that would require GAO to create a kind of
spreadsheet of major rules promulgated near the end of an
administration.
So, Ms. Brown, would incoming administrations benefit from
a list of regulations that an outgoing administration
promulgated at the eleventh hour?
Ms. Brown. Definitely. Those are regulations that they are
going to need to be addressing the minute they walk in the
door. So, it would be extremely helpful to have those.
Ms. Speier. So, having said that, the only options to
reverse the last-minute regulations are the congressional
review authority, correct?
Ms. Brown. So, it depends upon the stage that the rule is
in. If it is proposed, then you could act quickly to pull it
back. If it is final, you are absolutely right, you are either
going to have to go through the congressional Review Act or go
through formal rulemaking.
Ms. Speier. And in that situation it is a majority of
members of both houses to overturn a last-minute regulation,
correct?
Ms. Brown. It is not an easy process. You are correct.
Ms. Speir. Ms. Kumar--thank you.
Ms. Kumar, you have studied Presidential transitions. What
have you found in terms of attempts to fill legacies through
the use of regulatory process at the end of an administration?
And you are muted.
Ms. Kumar. Yes. OK.
As Lisa has talked about the problem, and one of the things
that it does is it starts a new administration on a negative
note of things, particularly if there is a party change, that
they then have to spend their time rather than working on their
priorities, making sure that they--that they address the rules
that have been left behind.
In the Bush Administration, at the end of the
administration, Josh Bolten, who was the chief of staff and
also was running the transition out, sought to address this
issue by encouraging the department secretaries by giving them
a timetable that they had to--that they had for issuing rules,
and they had--his memo was on May 9 in 2008.
And so it said except in extraordinary circumstances,
regulations to be finalized in this administration should be
proposed no later than June 1, 2008, and final regulations
issued no later than November 1.
So, that was an attempt to, by the sitting administration,
to get hold of the process and it had mixed success because the
department secretaries are dealing with the hot-button issues
and they put this toward the end so there were a lot of appeals
that they had to deal with.
But it was an internal attempt to deal with it.
Ms. Speier. So, has that same process been used in the
Trump administration, do you know?
Ms. Kumar. No.
Ms. Speier. You don't know, or no, it hasn't?
Ms. Kumar. As far as I know, no, it has not. I think there
have been--there have been a lot of rules that have been
issued. One of the first things that an administration does
when they come in is they stop the printing of the Federal
Register for anything that might have been done at the very end
because if they are not printed in the Federal Register then
they are not--they are not--then they are not live.
Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
I just want to point out that the congressional Review Act
has been used to overturn 17 rules. Sixteen of them were
overturned by President Trump in the first two years and these
were rules of the Obama Administration that protected water,
fair pay, resource management, and unemployment compensation.
And with that, I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton. The gentlelady's time has expired, and the
chairman is back, I believe.
Mr. Connolly.[Presiding.] Thank you so much. Thank you for
doing such an able job, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate it.
Mr. Hice. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Connolly. Yes, Mr. Hice?
Mr. Hice. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Earlier, you made the point that Republicans had signed a
letter announcing the election to be over and calling for
ascertainment of the winner.
I would like to request unanimous consent to enter into the
record an article in the Washington Post by Beth Newburger, who
was a GSA associate administration for public affairs during
the Clinton Administration. The title of the article is ``Emily
Murphy Was Right Not to Recognize Biden's Win Until Now.''
So, basically, what we have is a Democrat, one who was very
much intimately involved in the process, saying that
Administrator Murphy was correct.
I would like to enter it into the record, please.
Mr. Connolly. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
And I just want you to know that, apparently, I am in good
company with President-elect Biden. I won my reelection with 72
percent of the vote, my best in a competitive race ever, by a
margin of 140,000 votes, and my Republican opponent has yet to
concede.
I not only was certified as the winner, I now have my
election certificate ready for framing. So, it is kind of a
common illness, apparently, among some to just not recognize
the results of elections.
I want to thank all of our panel and I want to particularly
thank my dear friend, Eleanor Holmes Norton, for filling in for
me while I had to cast several votes with my own and a proxy on
two bills before the House floor.
This is a very important hearing and I thank my friend,
Jody Hice, for his contribution. I mean, I do think we can--
look, we are not going to agree on some politics, a lot of
politics, surrounding this issue.
But I do think that Mr. Hice and I and others on the
subcommittee and the full committee can try to find common
ground, though, in dealing with some of the crevices that have
been exposed that need to be fixed in law.
You know, Emily Murphy herself, as the GSA administrator,
urged Congress to pass legislation to address the ambiguity
around the process of ascertainment and to better define what
ascertainment is and what it has triggered so that that burden
is not in the hands of some future administrator to make that
decision.
And I think my friend, Mr. Hice, might be receptive to
trying to address that legislatively, along with some other
issues we have got.
Mr. Hice. I am. I am, thank you.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Hice. I welcome that
collaboration and let us try to do that.
Mr. Stier laid out a number of legislative suggestions for
the partnership that I think we also ought to take a look at.
They are nonpartisan.
God knows Mr. Stier has gone out of his way to stress that,
and but that--you know, that is a good thing, and I do think
there is fertile ground there for further legislative action.
In my own opening statement, I talked about sort of a
midnight regulation process and, again, that is building on
bipartisan legislation using--utilizing GAO as the analytical
tool to try to bring to bear some judgment on what happened--
what is good, what is bad, what is indifferent, and what, if
anything, we can and should do about it.
So, I want to thank all of our witnesses for their remarks.
I want to commend my colleagues for participating in, I think,
a very timely and important conversation. I want to insert into
the record a statement of support for the hearing for the White
House Transition Project.
Mr. Connolly. I also want to thank our able staff. These
are not easy circumstances in which to organize a hearing. I
want to thank our witnesses for their cooperation and their
patience with the technology and with the schedule of the
House.
And without objection, all members will have five
legislative days within which to submit additional written
questions for the record, and if you go through the chair, we
will make sure they are entered into the record.
I ask our witnesses to respond as promptly as possible to
any written questions we forward to them, and with that, this
hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]