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President-elect Biden and his team have already started their transition work, demonstrating skill, experience and purpose. Now that ascertainment has occurred, they can continue with the full support of the United States government. 

RESOURCES NOW AVAILABLE 

1. The Biden-Harris agency review teams may begin coordination with the 17 agencies with intelligence responsibilities. 

2. The General Services Administration (GSA) can release $6.3 million in congressionally appropriated funds to the transition team, along with 175,000 square feet of federal office space, including secure facilities for sensitive intelligence briefings. 

3. Career agency transition directors can coordinate with the Biden-Harris transition team and deliver the briefing materials they have been preparing for the past six months. 

4. The Biden-Harris team will be granted access to agency succession plans naming acting officials who will hold key positions until Senate-confirmed appointees are in place. 

5. The Department of Justice (DOJ) may begin the final step in adjudicating final, non-interim security clearances for transition team members and political appointees entering the administration on Day One. 

6. The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) can begin coordinating agency ethics officials to support nominees who must disclose, and if necessary, divest assets in accordance with federal ethics laws. 

7. The Office of Performance Management (OPM) can release guidance on personnel actions to take in preparation for the incoming administration, including a moratorium on agencies’ SES Qualifications Review Board process and the authorization for agencies to move forward with Temporary Schedule C and Temporary Non-Career SES hires. 

8. The White House Transition Coordinating Council will facilitate homeland security and emergency preparedness exercises as required by law. 

9. The National Archives and Records Administration will provide guidance to the outgoing administration and transition team on managing and preserving presidential records. 

10. The Biden-Harris transition team will be granted access to an official .gov website and government software applications for the intake of applicants for political appointments.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 

Q: How much time was lost due to the delay? 

A: Recent transitions have had about 77 days between the election and inauguration. The Biden team will have 57 days. 

Q: How does this delay compare with other recent transitions? 

A: For all recent transitions, the GSA identified the winner immediately following the election. The only exception was in 2000 during the tight election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. That year, the GSA identified the winner on Dec. 13 immediately following Gore’s concession speech. 

This year’s election outcome was substantially different than that of 2000. 

Q: What adjustments have been made due to the COVID-19 pandemic? 

When Biden’s transition team was given federal office space after the political conventions, the GSA informed the team of guidelines produced by the Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention. The transition team was responsible for determining how the guidelines would be implemented. 

Additionally, the GSA and federal agencies have increased the use of videoconference platforms and made documents available in digital formats. When in-person meetings are necessary, agencies and agency review teams will follow COVID-19 safety protocols to allow for safe in-person interactions. 

Q: Does a shortened transition impact a president’s first year? 

A: It can. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission, which studied the tragic terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, found the Bush administration did not have its full national security team in place for at least six months after it took office. 

Additional research by the Center for Presidential Transition showed that that the shortened transition in 2000 resulted in President Bush having half as many top appointees in place at the 100-day mark of his term as President Barack Obama did eight years later with a full transition period. 

Q: What are other available resources to learn more? 

A: For more information on the transition process, please refer to the following resources produced by the Center for Presidential Transition. 

 

Letter ascertaining the winner of the 2020 presidential election from GSA Administrator Emily Murphy to President-elect Joe Biden on Nov. 23, 2020, which triggers to resources and support from the General Services Administration in support of the presidential transition.

The Presidential Records Act outlines requirements regarding the maintenance, access and preservation of presidential and vice-presidential information during and after a presidency. The act states that presidential records are the property of the United States and must be preserved in perpetuity.

The Federal Records Act outlines how federal agency employees should determine whether information they create qualifies as a federal record and governs how federal records are to be collected, retained, and eventually either destroyed or provided to the National Archives and Records Administration for permanent archiving.

With a little over two months before Inauguration Day and the country facing a raging pandemic, an economic crisis and numerous national security and domestic challenges, the cost of withholding critical federal transition support increases every day.

Following the 2000 election, Bush-Cheney Transition Chairman Dick Cheney communicated the implications of a delayed transition, the requirements of building a new government and his thoughts on the General Service Administration’s denial of transition resources. These quotes are primarily from news conferences on Nov. 27 and Nov. 29, 2000.

The Bush-Obama transition is widely seen as the gold standard of smooth transitions, one that took place during two wars and a financial crisis. Not every handoff has been smooth. This exchange of letters between President Truman and Republican presidential candidate Eisenhower show a more heated transfer of power.

August 16, 1952 

Dear Ike:- I am sorry if I caused you embarrassment. What I’ve always had in mind was and is a continuing foreign policy. You know that it is a fact, because you had a part in outlining it. 

Partisan politics should stop at the boundaries of the United States. I am extremely sorry that you have allowed a bunch of screwballs to come between us. You have made a bad mistake and I’m hoping it won’t injure this great Republic. There has never been one like it and I want to see it continue regardless of the man who occupies the most important position in the history of the world. 

May God guide you and give you light. 

From a man who has always been your friend and who always wanted to be! 

Sincerely, 

Harry Truman 

Truman, Harry S. “Message to Dwight D. Eisenhower regarding President Truman’s invitation to a luncheon and briefing at the White House,” Aug. 16, 1952. Retrieved from The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, President’s Secretary’s Files, General File, Eisenhower, Dwight D. (2 of 2: 1950 – 1953), Box 101.

Aug 19. 1952

Dear Mr. President, 

My sincere thanks for the courtesy of your note of the 16th. I assure you that your invitation caused me no personal embarrassment. 

My feeling merely was that, having entered this political campaign, I would have become involved in the necessity of making laborious explanations to the public, if I had met with the President and Cabinet. Since there was no hint of national emergency conveyed by the telegram of invitation, and since I belong, no longer, to any of the public services, I thought it wiser to decline. 

I repeat my gratefulness for the invitation and for the offer to send me weekly CIA Reports. Through these I shall keep familiar with the foreign situation. Further, I assure you of my support of real bi-partisanship in foreign problems. 

With renewed assurances of my respect and esteem. 

Sincerely

Dwight Eisenhower 

Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Response to President Truman’s invitation to a luncheon and briefing at the White House,” Aug. 19, 1952. Retrieved from The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, President’s Secretary’s Files, General File, Eisenhower, Dwight D. (2 of 2: 1950 – 1953), Box 101

The modern-day Presidential Transition Act outlines multiple requirements for all stakeholders involved in presidential transitions. This document describes the requirements that apply to the post-election period.

The transition from George W. Bush to Barack Obama presents a model of how two administrations from different parties can work together to keep America secure in the face of challenges at home and abroad.

Previous presidential transitions have occurred during times of crisis. During the 2008-2009 transition, the two sides closely cooperated to hand over management of the government during the financial crisis.