[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TRANSITIONING TO A NEW ADMINISTRATION: CAN THE NEXT PRESIDENT BE READY?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 4, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-279
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
75-062 PDF WASHINGTON : 2001
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512-1800
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology
STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JIM TURNER, Texas
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GREG WALDEN, Oregon MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
DOUG OSE, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Earl Pierce, Professional Staff Member
Elizabeth Seong, Clerk
Trey Henderson, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on December 4, 2000................................. 1
Statement of:
Barram, David, Administrator, General Services
Administration; Sally Katzen, Deputy Director for
Management, Office of Management and Budget; Stuart Gerson,
esquire, partner, Epstein Becker & Green, PC; Paul Light,
director, Center for Public Service, Brookings Institution;
Jonathan Turley, Shapiro professor of public interest law,
George Washington University School of Law; Todd Zywicki,
associate professor of law, George Mason University School
of Law; Norman J. Ornstein, resident scholar, American
Enterprise Institute for Policy Research; and Dwight Ink,
president emeritus, Institute of Public Administration,
former Assistant Director for Executive Management, Office
of Management and Budget................................... 68
Watson, Jack H., Jr., chief legal strategist, Monsanto Co.,
former chief of staff for President Carter, and director of
President Carter's Transition Teams; John H. Sununu,
president, JHS Associates, Ltd., former Governor of New
Hampshire, and chief of staff for President Bush; Hon. Mark
Gearan, president, Hobart and William Smith Colleges,
former deputy chief of staff and communications director
for President Clinton; Bradley H. Patterson, Jr., senior
fellow, National Academy of Public Administration, former
advisor to President Eisenhower's Presidential Transition,
and staff member, Nixon and Ford administrations; and Harry
McPherson, partner, Verner Liipfert Bernhard McPherson &
Hand, former counsel to President Johnson.................. 19
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Barram, David, Administrator, General Services
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 71
Biggert, Hon. Judy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Illinois, prepared statement of................... 11
Gerson, Stuart, esquire, partner, Epstein Becker & Green, PC,
prepared statement of...................................... 95
Horn, Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of
California:
Memo dated November 23, 2000............................. 82
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Katzen, Sally, Deputy Director for Management, Office of
Management and Budget, prepared statement of............... 79
Light, Paul, director, Center for Public Service, Brookings
Institution, prepared statement of......................... 104
Patterson, Bradley H., Jr., senior fellow, National Academy
of Public Administration, former advisor to President
Eisenhower's Presidential Transition, and staff member,
Nixon and Ford administrations, prepared statement of...... 30
Turley, Jonathan, Shapiro professor of public interest law,
George Washington University School of Law, prepared
statement of............................................... 115
Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Texas, prepared statement of............................ 7
Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 15
Zywicki, Todd, associate professor of law, George Mason
University School of Law, prepared statement of............ 136
TRANSITIONING TO A NEW ADMINISTRATION: CAN THE NEXT PRESIDENT BE READY?
----------
MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information,
and Technology,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Horn, Biggert, Davis, Ose, Turner,
Kanjorski, and Waxman (ex officio).
Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief
counsel; Randy Kaplan, counsel; Bonnie Heald, director of
communications; Earl Pierce, professional staff member;
Elizabeth Seong and James DeChene, clerks; Rachael Reddick,
intern; Phil Barnett, minority chief counsel; Kristin Amerling,
minority deputy chief counsel; Trey Henderson, minority
counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority clerk.
Mr. Horn. A quorum being present, the hearing of the
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and
Technology will come to order.
These are extraordinary times in American history. That
there is a need for this hearing is equally extraordinary, and
disturbing. On October 12 of this year, the President signed
into law the Presidential Transition Act of 2000, which I
happened to have introduced in the House. Regardless of which
candidate would be the next President, the 106th Congress
wanted to give him greater assistance in assuming the highest
office in the land. No one, however, anticipated the closeness
of this race for the Presidency or the unsettling events that
have followed.
The Presidential Transition Act as amended authorizes
funding for the General Services Administration to provide
suitable office space, staff compensation and other costs
associated with the transition process. The act also calls for
the Administrator of the General Services Administration to
ascertain the, quote, apparent successful candidates for the
office of President and Vice President. The Administrator, of
course, does not determine the winners. That responsibility, as
set in the Constitution, clearly belongs to the electoral
college and, failing that, Congress.
Obviously, the Presidential transition period must begin
well before Congress meets to tally the electoral college votes
in January. The brief transition period from the day after
election to the day of Inauguration is the time in which an
incoming President makes crucial administrative decisions. That
time is running out for the next administration.
Indeed, the 88th Congress clearly recognized the importance
of the transition period by stating in the 1963 law that ``any
disruption occasioned by the transfer of the executive power
could produce results detrimental to the safety and well-being
of the United States and its people.'' Yet today, nearly 4
weeks after the Presidential election, the Administrator says
he is still unable to ascertain a winner, and thus is not
providing the appropriate assistance required by the
Presidential Transition Act.
We've called this hearing to examine whether the
Presidential Transition Act provides sufficient guidance to the
Administrator on how to proceed when an election such as this
is disputed. Clearly the law allows the Administrator certain
discretion in complying with its provisions. It is imperative,
however, that those charged with implementing this law most
carefully consider the implications of their decisions and the
precedents they establish. Our ultimate concern is to ensure
the strength and continuity of the U.S. Government, most
especially in extraordinary times such as these.
We have assembled a distinguished panel of witnesses today.
I welcome all of you and look forward to your testimony. We
will now have opening statements limited to 5 minutes at the
most, and I start with the ranking member, the gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Turner, 5 minutes for an opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.002
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think it is clear to all of us that the orderly
transition from one Presidential administration to another is a
matter of utmost importance to the country. In order to
facilitate this transition, Congress passed the Presidential
Transition Act of 1963, which provides funding and guidance in
order to promote the orderly transfer of power from one
administration to the next.
Prior to 1963, there was no formal provision to assist in
the transition period. Under the act, the General Services
Administration shall provide fully equipped headquarters and a
variety of services for the President-elect's transition and
Inaugural teams.
The act calls for the Administrator of the GSA to release
Federal funds for transition once he or she has, in the words
of the act, ascertained the apparent successful candidate. We
know that the unique ongoing circumstances of the Presidential
election of 2000 are unprecedented for purposes of the act.
Additionally, there is no precedent, nor does the statute
provide guidance for the Administrator in ascertaining the
apparent successful candidate. The legislative history derived
from the discussion of the original act on the floor of the
House in 1963 provides perhaps our best evidence of the intent
of the Congress.
Mr. Fascell of Florida, the then manager of the bill, in
response to questions regarding how the Administrator of GSA
would ascertain the apparent successful candidate in a
situation where the election outcome is in question, stated,
``. . . if the Administrator had any question in mind, he
simply would not make any designation in order to make the
services available as provided by the act. If as an intelligent
human being and he has a doubt, he would not act until a
decision has been made in the electoral college or in the
Congress.''
We know that the outcome of this election remains in doubt
due to the fact that both campaigns have brought forth legal
cases that are pending in both State and Federal courts. I
fully appreciate the need for our next President-elect to begin
a comprehensive transition to ensure that government operations
continue running smoothly, yet we should not allow haste to
distort our view or our implementation of the Presidential
Transition Act. If the Administrator of the GSA were to
incorrectly release funds to one campaign under the act, aside
from breaking the law, it could result in a loss of public
funds, waste, duplication, diminished credibility for the
winner and a breach of proprietary information.
I am pleased to learn that the Administrator of GSA has in
the interim, during this period of uncertainty, attempted to
work with both campaigns to shorten the turnover time once a
winner has been finally determined, and I commend the
Administrator for their efforts in these difficult
circumstances.
I think our hearing today provides us with a unique
opportunity to review the law governing Presidential
transitions. If there is one lesson that we can learn from the
100 million votes cast almost 4 weeks ago, it is that our two
parties have a mandate to work together. I sincerely hope that
today's hearing can be an opportunity for us to set an example
of bipartisan cooperation that will be most certainly needed in
the next Congress as a result of the closeness of this
Presidential contest. Our ability to govern in the interest of
the American people will depend upon our success in this
endeavor.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to hearing from
all of the distinguished witnesses that we have here today.
Mr. Horn. Well I thank the gentleman. He is a good example
of the bipartisan cooperation that we've had on this committee
for the last 6 years.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.004
Mr. Horn. I now yield to the vice chairman of the
subcommittee Mrs. Biggert, the distinguished lady from
Illinois.
Mrs. Biggert. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling
this oversight hearing on the Presidential Transition Act of
1963. Given the unique and unprecedented situation in which our
country finds itself today during this Presidential election
year, this hearing is not only timely, but it is warranted and
necessary.
Almost a month has passed since men and women across this
great Nation and overseas cast their ballots for the candidate
they hoped the next day would be President-elect. Well, here we
are today, and still the keys to the transition offices and the
funding that goes along with them have not been turned over to
the successful candidate. It is not because there has been no
successful candidate. It is because that candidate's success is
being disputed, contested and litigated by the unsuccessful
candidate. So as the litigation marches on in these few days
remaining before the electors are seated and the final
deposition made, I think the question we must ask is how can we
help.
Not more than 2 months ago, we on the subcommittee hailed
passage of the Presidential Transition Act of 2000. We asserted
that our bill would make it easier for the next administration
to assume office, but what happened? We did pass a good bill,
but good bills, like good intentions, aren't always enough.
What this subcommittee did not foresee was that this year's
tight election could make this moot, at least as they applied
to this election cycle. What we also did not take into account
is how easily politics and political considerations can
overtake common sense and the common good.
It is no secret that the success or failure of a new
administration, at least for the first year of governing, often
depends on how well the transition process is carried out. As
some of our witnesses today have seen firsthand, it takes time,
and in some instances a lot of time, to put the thousands of
people, policies and procedures into place for successful
governance.
Four weeks have come and gone, and January 20, 2001, is
less than 8 weeks away. One-third of the precious time
allocated for the transition has expired, and yet no individual
has been afforded the assistance provided for by the
Presidential Transition Act. This assistance is needed, as the
1963 act stated, to promote the orderly transfer of executive
power.
Is this the fault of General Services Administration, the
agency responsible for helping new administrations get up to
speed? Is the GSA playing favorites or showing partisanship by
not allowing the Bush-Cheney team to access the office space
and systems that have been set up for transition purposes?
The GSA will state that it was unable to release the
funding because the election is too close. Well, just because
the election is close does not mean that GSA should abdicate
its responsibility. The law gives GSA the authority to grant
funds to the apparent winner. The law does not prevent the GSA
from using a little common sense and making funds available to
the likely winner. But because GSA has refused to grant funds
to the apparent winner, the Bush-Cheney team is compelled to
raise funds for its own transition efforts.
Ironically Governor Bush now finds himself in the same
position as did all other Presidents-elect prior to the passage
of the 1963 act. He must finance his own transition in order to
be prepared to take office on January 20. I commend him and
Secretary Cheney for taking this action, for, after all, they
are the ones ultimately responsible for putting a good team and
good policies in by January 20.
So what does this situation call for? At least for this
subcommittee it calls for us to write and pass legislation to
remedy the alleged defects in the Presidential Transition Act
by making crystal clear what steps the GSA must take if we
again find ourselves in a situation similar to this. That would
only be good for the country.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I commend you for calling this
hearing. I look forward to the hearing from our witnesses and
thank them for joining us today. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. I thank the gentlewoman. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Judy Biggert follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.006
Mr. Horn. And now we're privileged to have the ranking
member of the full committee, the gentleman from California,
Mr. Waxman, 5 minutes.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
We are certainly facing an interesting situation that I
don't think anybody quite envisioned, and that is that we
really after all this time, I think it's 27 days since the
Presidential election, we're not clear who the next President
of the United States will be. And evidently GSA is not certain
about that result either, so they haven't released the funds
for the transition period.
Now, the main legal issue under examination in this hearing
is the intent of the Presidential Transition Act and its
appropriate application in the unusual circumstances we're
facing. Now, the act requires release of funds to support the
transition efforts of the apparent successful candidate as
ascertained by the General Services Administrator. And the
application of the act during close elections was discussed
when this bill was on the floor. My colleague Mr. Turner quoted
from then Congressman Dante Fascell, who was one of the authors
of this bill, and he said, if they don't know who the winner
is, then the Administrator shouldn't make any designation.
Well, I don't know whether we ought to say in the future
the Administrator ought to make some determination tentatively
and release funds. That raises a lot of different questions,
and I think we ought to examine some of those questions. For
example, should the Presidential Transition Act consider the
implications of having the executive branch announce a judgment
regarding the election outcome while the judicial branch is
still in the process of considering significant questions
relating to the outcome? I would think we would want to strive
to minimize, not exacerbate, conflicts between the executive
and the legislative branches of government. In addition, we
should take a thorough look at the practical consequences both
of delaying the funding of transition efforts and the funding
of transition efforts that may have to stop if the other
candidate is ultimately declared the winner.
Would the delay of several weeks in GSA funding have a
critical impact on the effective operations of a new
administration? That's an important question. Would it be cost-
efficient to expend significant taxpayers' dollars on getting a
transition office up and running and conducting training and
orientation for one candidate if the other candidate is later
determined to be the winner and then requires the same
transition resources? Would it be appropriate to move forward
with briefings of transition officials that involve proprietary
information or otherwise sensitive government information when
we're not certain that these individuals will end up governing?
So maybe we want to look at alternative steps.
The point is we're in a very unusual situation right now.
We don't know at this point who the next President will be.
Now, my colleague from Illinois presented her opening
statements as if we know; we know it's already Bush/Cheney, and
therefore they ought to have the funds released to the Bush/
Cheney transition. Well, maybe if you keep saying that, it will
turn out to be true, but the decision as to who the President
of the United States is going to be is not based on how many
times you say it's resolved when we still have many courts
trying to sort through these issues.
I know there clearly is a strategy on the Republican side
to keep on with the mantra, well, we've won, therefore let's
don't count the votes; we won, therefore let's don't go into
the courts; we've won, give us the transition money. That seems
to me maybe good public relations to try to change public
attitudes about the idea that we ought to ultimately decide who
really won, but I don't think it makes good policy sense when
we're trying to adopt changes to legislation or evaluate the
laws that are on the books. The law says that there has to be
an apparent winner, and we leave that up to the GSA.
All of us want this resolved as quickly as possible. We
know it is important to have the transition funding. But let's
make sure we deal with the real substantive issues as to how
the law should work in unusual circumstances such as this and
not use a hearing or this strange situation we're in simply to
repeat the mantra that we won, so don't talk about anything
else, give us the funds. That's not really the way to make
decisions for these very important issues that are going to be
before us in the future, and I doubt that we will ever have a
Presidential election as we have today, leaving things as
uncertain as they are. If we do, then we ought to think through
the best way to deal with it, and if the law needs to be
changed, we should change it.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.009
Mr. Horn. I now yield to the gentleman from California Mr.
Ose.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am reminded yesterday
morning when my daughters opted to argue with each other that
at the end of the day what we need is a President who both he
and his team has had a proper amount of briefing and training
and education. And I am chuckling here somewhat because I ended
up dealing with my daughters by asking them, well, today what
are you? And they both scratched their head, and they finally
came up with, well, we're sisters. And I said, well, on Friday
what are you going to be? And they both scratched their heads,
and they both simultaneously said, well, we're still going to
be sisters.
Well, at the end of this entire process, we're all still
going to be Americans, and it would seem to me that the country
is best served, as Mr. Waxman and as Mr. Horn suggested, by
moving this thing forward as expeditiously as possible. I don't
understand why under such unique circumstances we can't take
members of both campaign teams and start the transition
process. I mean, it's not like we're going to spend all $5.3
million the first day.
So I am looking for answers as to how we prepare whoever is
going to lead this country for the 4 years that they'll be in
office for. At the end of the day, it's like my daughters. At
the end of the week, they're still sisters. They'll be sisters
forever. At the end of the day, we're all still Americans. We
still have to make this work. So how do we do that? That's why
I came today, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the opportunity.
Mr. Horn. I thank the gentleman.
Now I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania
Mr. Kanjorski.
Mr. Kanjorski. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I tend to agree with Mr. Waxman that we should shy away
from attempting to indicate our preferences for who may win
this very close election with the hope that it will have some
influence on the final result. I am just wondering whether or
not we are not spending a lot of time worrying about how often
a half dollar flipped will land on its edge, and we can go
through an awful lot of preparation here. It seems to me if we
have time to go through preparation here, we have time to go
through real reform of government rather than trying to see
what we can do after the fact of a close election and
transition. I am sure if I have any insight as to how the
Congress functions, nothing we do at this committee, nothing we
formulate now will ever get done in time to affect the incoming
administration, and that, in fact, maybe everything that we're
doing here has to do with affecting the final result. I hope
that's not the case, but I have a feeling that is what it is.
I just urge my colleagues to do what a lot of wise people
in the last several weeks have recommended: Let's step back,
take a breath and let the system go on, resolve this problem
and not try to cause a hysteria either in the country or in the
Congress or certainly for the next administration.
One thing I have to say about both candidates is they have
staff and advisors around them that are eminently qualified to
start the transition process. The fact that they may not have
rented facilities or some rented computers will not in any way
slow down the processes of the formulation of their government.
It will not impact negatively on their service as the President
of the United States. If anything it will impact, it's more our
hysteria and our failure to respond properly, act as a Congress
and in a bipartisan way.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. I thank the gentleman.
I see no other Members for an opening statement. I now will
call forward panel one of the witnesses. We have 13 witnesses
before us this morning. The first is the Honorable John H.
Sununu, Jack Watson, Mark Gearan, Bradley Patterson and Harry
McPherson.
There are cards here, gentleman, and we'll swear you all in
at once. Mr. Watson, Mr. Gearan, Mr. Patterson.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. Please be seated.
Mr. Sununu will be here shortly. Let me just say how we
operate. Some of you have prepared statements, and a number of
you don't have prepared statements because of the last minute
that we asked you, and we are very grateful to you. This bit of
individual talent, some of whom I have known over the years,
starting way back in the Eisenhower administration of which I
was a part, and probably to somebody listening, they're saying,
gee, did he say the Lincoln administration? But we have a lot
of talent here, and we're delighted to tap your brains.
So we are going to start with Mr. Watson, the chief legal
strategist for Monsanto Co., former chief of staff for
President Carter, and director of President Carter's transition
teams. Thanks for coming.
STATEMENT OF JACK H. WATSON, JR., CHIEF LEGAL STRATEGIST,
MONSANTO CO., FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF FOR PRESIDENT CARTER, AND
DIRECTOR OF PRESIDENT CARTER'S TRANSITION TEAMS; JOHN H.
SUNUNU, PRESIDENT, JHS ASSOCIATES, LTD., FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW
HAMPSHIRE, AND CHIEF OF STAFF FOR PRESIDENT BUSH; HON. MARK
GEARAN, PRESIDENT, HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES, FORMER
DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR PRESIDENT
CLINTON; BRADLEY H. PATTERSON, JR., SENIOR FELLOW, NATIONAL
ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, FORMER ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT
EISENHOWER'S PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION, AND STAFF MEMBER, NIXON
AND FORD ADMINISTRATIONS; AND HARRY McPHERSON, PARTNER, VERNER
LIIPFERT BERNHARD McPHERSON & HAND, FORMER COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT
JOHNSON
Mr. Watson. Thank you Mr. Chairman, distinguished members
of the subcommittee and the committee, for the opportunity to
be here today and to comment briefly on the subject of
Presidential transitions, and specifically on the circumstances
and challenges that are presented by the current transition.
There is no question in anyone's mind about the importance
of the transition in getting a new administration off to a
strong and effective beginning. Under the best of
circumstances, it is a formidable challenge for the incoming
President and Vice President to do in approximately only 10
weeks all those things they need to do in order to assume
office on January 20 with a ``running start.'' The whole
purpose and intent of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963,
as amended in 1976 and 1988, and of the Presidential Transition
Act of 2000, are to assist the incoming and outgoing Presidents
and Vice Presidents in achieving as smooth and seamless
transition of power as possible from one administration to
another.
Although the circumstances of the current Presidential
election have unquestionably created an extremely trying and
difficult situation for Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney on
the one hand, and Vice President Gore and Senator Lieberman on
the other, there is, in my opinion, no constitutional,
Presidential, governmental or other crisis here. There is quite
simply an incredibly close Presidential election, the outcome
of which needs to be, and, I submit, will be, resolved as
fairly and expeditiously as possible in the coming days.
Both Presidential candidates have turned to the courts for
help in addressing the current situation, as both have a
perfect legal right to do, and the State and Federal courts
are, as we sit here this morning, addressing those requests and
reviewing the parties' respective positions. The courts fully
understand the importance of the issues presented, as well as
the incredibly high stakes involved, and, I am personally
confident, are trying to do everything within their
constitutional responsibility and authority to resolve the
issues in a legal, just, and expeditious way.
The courts have an important role to play here, and they
are playing it. Once they decide the issues to be decided, the
outcome of the election will be determined, once and for all,
and the duly elected President-elect and Vice President-elect
and, thankfully, the country itself will go on about the
Nation's business.
As unusual and exasperating as the current situation is, we
should take care not to overreact to it. The sky is not
falling, and we shouldn't act as though it is. We should be
calm, have confidence in our judicial system's ability to deal
with the current situation--if not in our rather outmoded and
outdated voting machines--and let the system run its proper
course as the Constitution intends it to do.
Having said that, Mr. Chairman, there is something very
important and very significant that we can do to address
another serious problem related, not only to the Presidential
transitions, but to the proper functioning of the Presidency
itself. The problem is that we have a nomination and
confirmation process that is broken and needs fixing. The
appointments process in the Federal Government takes far too
long, and the lags in getting people into office are taking a
terrible toll on good governance. The gathering of seemingly
endless, questionably relevant, but legally required background
information and the filling out of redundant forms takes too
long; the FBI field investigations take too long and, in many
cases, are of questionable value to begin with; and the Senate
confirmation process itself also takes too long. This is a
problem, as all of you well understand, that will not easily be
solved and which can only be addressed, much less fixed, by a
genuinely determined and broad-based bipartisan effort.
Groups as varied as the 1989 National Commission on Public
Service, chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul
Volker, the 1996 20th Century Fund Task Force on Senate
Reforms, and the Transition to Governing Project of the
American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution
have all recommended much needed reforms in this area that
deserve careful review and considered action by the Congress
and the executive branch. I respectfully submit, the sooner,
the better.
For the sake of the country, we need to put partisanship
aside and institute reforms regarding the Presidential
appointment process that will permit our Presidents,
irrespective of their party affiliation, to form their
administrations and exercise their leadership without undue
delays and unreasonable impediments.
Although time does not permit a fuller discussion of this
crucially important matter, I strongly commend to the
committee's attention an excellent article on the subject which
appeared in the November/December 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs
Magazine. The article was written by Norman Ornstein, one of
the witnesses you will hear from, I believe, this morning, and
Tom Donilon. The article not only concisely discusses the
nature and extent of the problem, but outlines several specific
recommendations for change.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to take questions
at the appropriate time if the subcommittee wishes.
Mr. Horn. Well, I thank the gentleman.
And I see that Mr. Sununu has arrived. If you will stand
and take the oath, we will swear you in.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that all witnesses have now
taken the oath, and we were going to start with Mr. Sununu, so
here he is.
Mr. Sununu. I apologize, Mr. Chairman. I hope that you had
been informed that I was going to be arriving at that hour.
Mr. Horn. We were.
Mr. Sununu. And I thank you for your indulgence.
I will try to be very brief, but I want to emphasize a
couple of points. With all due respect to what I did hear of
Jack Watson's testimony, the issue is not whether it is a
crisis or not a crisis. The issue is whether it is good not to
facilitate transition or not good not to facilitate transition,
or more specifically whether it is right or wrong to not take
advantage of tools that have been put into place very wisely by
legislative bodies, the Congress, and the executive branch in
the past having gone through the pain and difficulty of the
reality of a transition process.
Most of the needs are relatively mundane. There are needs
for space, there are needs for phone, there are needs for
communication, there are needs for travel, there are needs for
staff. But they come in a concentrated time--in a concentrated
way at a time when there is a premium on that commodity of
time.
It is so important to permit a new administration to get
started correctly, and I suggest that whatever we do under the
breadth and capacity of existing law, we find a way to fund
that process as soon as possible. It is not just a matter of a
1-month delay. There is no time that will be as precious for
transition to any new administration as these days and weeks.
It is, in fact, the only time where they can focus on
presentation rather than focus on fulfilling responsibilities
of office. A 1-month delay now will be reflected in a 6-month
to 1-year delay in getting things really started.
I'm doing this by memory because I did not have time to
research the exact number, but my recollection is there were
40,000 to 60,000 resumes that arrived at the transition office
within the first 2 weeks of opening the Bush transition office
following President Reagan's service, and that was in a
transition of like party where, sadly to say, most of the
people who are already in office as Republicans, had been
appointed as Republicans, thought they were going to be
reappointed. And I would suggest to you that the hardest
transition is a like-party transition, not a different-party
transition, because the hardest thing to do is to do the
preparation to get people out, not to get people in. They are
both challenging, they are both demanding, and they are both a
very important part of the time that is in front of us.
Having said that, I want to emphasize that the impact of
delay is not linear. A 1-day delay is probably equivalent--now
is equivalent to 6 to 10 days of delay after Inauguration.
I am not a part of the current transition. I do not expect
ever to be asked to be a part of the current transition. I have
not offered my services--I have received about two dozen
resumes, unsolicited, of people who want me to somehow impact
the appointment process.
I will reiterate what Jack Watson has said about reform of
the process of appointment and confirmation. It is one of the
most critical things we can do to make government work better,
and it is part of this transition process. One of the most
disappointing things to me as one who had a responsibility
during the transition and as one who had a responsibility
serving as Chief of Staff to President Bush in trying to
continue the efforts of the transition in the early days and
then fill in voids as they occurred is the reluctance, in fact,
sometimes clear unwillingness, of individuals to go through the
pain of the vetting process, not because they have anything to
hide, not because they're uncomfortable with revealing data,
but because of the cumbersome nature of the process and,
frankly, in some cases the unbelievable cost.
It is not unusual for a major potential appointee to spend
between $10,000-$60,000 on legal and accounting fees in
preparing the forms to be named to a senior position in the
Federal Government. That is ridiculous. It makes that position
in some cases unable to be attained by people who are not of
significant means. The process of the forms, the process of the
field investigation, and, frankly, the long delay between
appointment and confirmation is a discouraging factor to the
best and the brightest and those that we should have in
government. And so if there is any dividend that you might
achieve out of this set of hearings which are focusing on the
needs of transition, may I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that it would
be extremely worthwhile to the country if you could somehow
make a very pointed comment and recommendation in that
direction.
Having said that, I would recommend that whatever you do,
you find a way to encourage the allocation of some of the
existing funds, even if it has to be done initially in a
somewhat divided way, to get the two candidates who are still
in somewhat doubt as to which one has been selected, to get the
two of them started in an effective way. To force them to rely
on private funds is exactly the wrong thing to do, and the
history of the legislation that wisely provided the structure
and funding will tell you very clearly how much people
understood the value of the legislation that was eventually
passed.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to
participate this morning.
Mr. Horn. Both you and Mr. Watson have had a good opening
for us, and I agree with the practicality that both of you
faced, and you all made some good points. I think we can work
out a situation, but we'll save that for the question period.
And we would like, obviously, all of your views as how do you
split it up in the short time we have before the administration
has to take office one way or the other.
So we will now go to Mr. Mark Gearan, now president of
Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY, one of the
youngest presidents. He was former Deputy Chief of Staff and
Communications Director for President Clinton in working on
various transitions, but he was also the director of the Peace
Corps, which is dear to all of us.
Mr. Gearan.
Mr. Gearan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for that
nice introduction. You observe that at the time of my
appointment as president of Hobart and William Smith I was at a
young age, but I believe your tenure as a distinguished college
president named at the age of 38 far exceeds my youthful
appointment.
So I thank you for this invitation. I am glad to be in your
company as well as the other members of the committee, and I
appreciate the opportunity to be here.
I come before you today to answer the question that you
have posed to this panel: Can the next President be ready? I
come to you as having gone through a Senate confirmation
process myself as the Director of the Peace Corps and as a
member of President's staff having gone through the requisite
clearance and vetting procedure. So in that context I offer my
testimony, in addition to my service here on Capitol Hill as an
aide, and I appreciate this opportunity.
You have asked us the question: Transition to a new
administration, can the next President be ready? My answer
without hesitation is yes. The next President can indeed be
ready to take over the office on January 20, 2001. While we are
witnessing an extraordinary transition to be sure, I have full
confidence that the next President will be able to start his
administration with the necessary complement of White House
staff and members of his Cabinet in the beginnings of the more
complete administration as they take power.
In fairness, I think it should be observed that the answer
to your question has different dimensions for Vice President
Gore and Senator Lieberman than it does for Governor Bush and
Secretary Cheney. To state the obvious, the Vice President has
the opportunity to continue to rely on members of the Clinton
administration political appointees as holdovers, while
Governor Bush would undoubtedly wish to bring in his own team.
Nevertheless, it is the case, that both transitions are
currently under way as we speak and are being coordinated by
exceedingly able individuals that I know very well. Roy Neel
for Vice President Gore and Secretary Andy Card for Governor
Bush are knowledgeable about the intricacies of a transition
and are well-positioned to deal with this unprecedented set of
facts. Indeed, Secretary Card was my liaison as the Deputy
Director of the Clinton transition, while Secretary Card
represented the Bush administration.
But when one considers your question, ``can the next
President be ready?'' I answer the following reasons for my
very affirmative response: First, when you work backward from
Inauguration day, what must the President-elect, the newly
sworn-in President, indeed have? Certainly a White House staff
that must be named and cleared, and while those appointments
obviously do not carry Senate confirmation, those clearances
are important; and second, the Cabinet officers as well in
place early in the administration. Given that most Cabinet
appointees come generally from Federal or State elected or
appointed office, the procedures, the necessary background
information is frequently known about these appointees.
I was pleased to read a recent report in which the FBI has
stated they have already taken steps to increase the number of
investigators to clear top appointees in a week to 10 days
compared with the usual 3-week period. I'm sure that will help.
The upper level of Presidential appointees, the second, third
and fourth-tier appointees, generally follow the Inauguration
day.
Second, President Clinton's recent Executive order creating
a transition coordinating council will, I think, serve as a
useful vehicle for streamlining and facilitating this process.
This seems to be a good idea in any transition but it is
particularly propitious this year.
And, third, the President-elect and his team will have the
benefit of some very important source materials for their
appointees. Notably, the recently released Brookings
Institution ``Survivors Guide for Presidential Appointees''
that was issued in coordination with the Council on Excellence
in Government provides a treasure trove of information for
political appointees.
In my judgment, this abbreviated transition from the
expected 73 days may cause some delays into the administration,
but there is no doubt in my mind that the new President can be
ready with his key appointees. The second, third and fourth-
tier appointees may take some longer period of time into the
administration. However, to the extent that Cabinet secretaries
and agency heads have the opportunity to work with career
public servants in their departments, in their agencies, this
may very well be a silver lining in our current dilemma. The
new appointees will have the chance to see firsthand the skill,
the dedication, and the commitment and competence of career
employees of the Federal Government.
In addition, I am hopeful, like Governor Sununu and Mr.
Watson, that this abbreviated transition and the spotlight it
is placing on this entire appointments process may lead to some
very long-needed reforms.
Scholars from the Brookings and Heritage Foundation have
noted the increase in delays, confusion and embarrassment in
the appointment process. They've also found that the entire
appointment process favors individuals who have had prior
government experience. Indeed, when one observes the growth and
the sheer numbers of top-level executive branch appointees,
going from 196 in 1961 to 809 in 1993 to 774 in 1998, when you
combine those numbers with the sheer length of time it takes to
get an appointment, it's not surprising that we witness such
inefficiencies. At a time when we need able and competent,
dedicated women and men to come into public service, this is
very troubling.
On my college campus at Hobart and William Smith, I see a
great deal of interest from our students in public service.
There is a great deal of interest in contemplating coming to
Washington or in State governments and local governments and
serving in public service. Anything you can do to streamline
this process would be critically important.
So I commend the reforms that have been suggested to
encourage more training and orientation for new department
heads and agency heads and Presidential appointees to enhance
their focus. And, again, the spotlight on the antiquated system
of the Presidential appointment process will lead to
streamlining and standardizing and coordinating the financial
disclosure reports and avoid the duplication of effort that is
frequently so vexing and frustrating to appointees, in addition
to reducing the burden of filing in both the White House, the
Office of Government Ethics and the U.S. Senate.
And finally, I think one other aspect--that I am not sure
that even any kind of funding issue would result from your
part, but one element--of this transition that will be missing
is the opportunity for the President-elect to build and develop
a honeymoon, to put chips in the political bank that will serve
him well in his tenure as President. Transitions traditionally
allow for that reintroduction, if you will, to the American
people of the newly elected President and his priorities and
his values with his statements. I am not sure any legislation
will take back that time.
Nevertheless, it is my view, to answer your question again,
will the next President be ready, most affirmatively yes. This
is a resilient country. The Presidency has been tested in the
past many times in this decade and in this century, and I have
full confidence that with the capacity and competence of the
individuals involved on both sides in this present transition,
and with your good effort, that the next President can come in
ready and proceeding in good faith.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify, sir.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. Those were very helpful
comments, and I am sure more questions will come out between
different transitions once we get to the questions.
The next gentleman is truly an American civil servant as
well as a political appointee to several Presidents. Brad
Patterson started in the State Department in 1945, and when I
first knew him, he was putting together the Cabinet secretariat
of President Eisenhower.
Needless to say, when President Eisenhower, who probably
had more experience than any President in terms of
international coalitions and all the rest of it, when he got in
there, he couldn't believe it. There was hardly any staff
around, and he was used to a staff in the military as Supreme
Commander in Europe. And Mr. Patterson helped pattern all of
that.
And he has also written a major book now put out by
Brookings, the White House Staff: Inside the West Wing and
Beyond. That has nothing to do with the current TV West Wing,
but they might well take a few examples from Mr. Patterson's
book. It is bipartisan. Lloyd Cutler and Dick Cheney have
endorsed the book.
We're delighted to have you here.
He's helped everybody from the Indians to the Alaska
earthquakes and all the rest of it. So, Mr. Patterson, we're
glad to have you.
Mr. Patterson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your very kind
introduction.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am honored
to appear before you this morning and doubly honored to be in
the company on this panel of such distinguished fellow veterans
of service on the White House staff.
I think the contribution I could best make to the subject
of the Presidential transition would be to address two aspects
of the transition which are important, but not right now in the
limelight. First, let me speak about the implications of the
transition for the professional staffs of the modern White
House. And second, I would like to mention the pertinency of
the transition for a major enterprise also occurring on January
20 next: the Inaugural activities which accompany the swearing-
in.
About the professional staffs of the modern White House. In
my recent book, the White House Staff, Inside the West Wing and
Beyond, I give the total number of what I call the White House
staff community. It is 5,915 men and women. That figure
includes the domestic, economic, and national security affairs
staffs; the White House Office, including the First Lady's
group, the Vice President's Office, the Residence, the Military
Office, the Secret Service units directly serving the
President, the National Park Service, Postal Service and GSA
support teams, the White House fellows, detailees, volunteers
and interns. It excludes the rest of the Executive Office
except those in the Office of Administration directly
supporting the White House. So that White House staff family
numbers nearly 6,000 people.
On January 20 what will happen? Will all the desks be
vacated, all the file cabinets cleaned out, all the shelves
emptied? Fortunately, no. As to people, there are two
traditions in Presidential service. The first tradition is that
no person has tenure in his or her desk at the White House.
That means that every person's service in the White House staff
community is entirely at the pleasure of the President. The
second, equally strong, tradition is that while policy
officials change, hundreds of the technical and support
personnel of the modern White House are invited to stay on to
serve the next President. In fact, many have served several
Presidents over three or four decades. One executive clerk,
Bill Hopkins, served 40 years under 7 Presidents. One of Mr.
Hopkins' predecessors, Maurice Latta, served 50 years.
The Office of the Executive Clerk is a particularly good
example of professional continuity at the White House. That's
the office which handles all of the public papers of the
President: enrolled bills coming through Congress, Executive
orders, proclamations, commissions, messages to Congress--A
little vignette: In the years past, such messages to Congress
were delivered by the clerk dressed in formal attire, riding a
bicycle to the Capitol.
The Executive Clerk's Office is a treasure house of wisdom
on White House procedures. On January 21, for instance, if a
brand new White House staffer exclaims, ``How do we get an
Executive order issued?'' He or she can ask the executive clerk
and find out immediately. The present executive clerk has been
there for 21 years.
The new First Family will be welcomed into the executive
residence by the Chief Usher, a 32-year veteran. Some of his
91-member staff have served in the mansion for more than three
decades. The new First Family can bring in a new chef, of
course, but they would be damn fools if they fired all the
butlers and waiters or the telephone operators or the 2,200 men
and women who staff the Military Office, fly Air Force One and
the helicopters, manage Camp David, and who set up the
incredibly sophisticated communications equipment which keeps a
U.S. President, while visiting a hamlet in China, tied into all
his worldwide military commanders.
100 National Park Service Staff maintain those White House
18 acres; 133 GSA engineers keep up the EOB and the East and
West Wings; 1,200 Secret Service professionals protect the
First Family wherever any of them are. The President, the First
Family, the Nation are fortunate to have such dedicated and
strictly nonpolitical associates in the modern White House.
They personify the Presidential transition at its best.
One Reagan White House veteran remembered, ``When we came
here, there were some people who wanted to dismiss every single
person who was on the White House payroll. Now, the President
certainly has the authority to do so, but there had been a
time-honored group of people within the White House who
basically live from President to President, serve the
Presidency, were proud of that association, but kept things
working. The White House telephone operators are a perfect
example of that. And yet there were some in our transition who
said, `Let's get rid of the White House operators.' I fought
those actions, and the President agreed. We were successful in
preventing inexperienced people from the campaign from coming
over to the White House and getting jobs that might embarrass
the White House or the President.''
As for those file cabinets, not totally empty luckily. I
have peeked at the executive clerk's current files. The first
entry is dated 1911. The clerk's office maintains a collection
of loose-leaf notebooks, the pages of which set forth the
statutory authority for every single Presidential appointment.
The clerk lets no nomination document pass up to the Oval
Office unless it conforms to the legal parameters. That card
file and those notebooks stay right in the White House.
In the counsels' and chief of staff's and the President's
physicians' offices is another vital collection of papers, the
emergency manual. When, following the Reagan assassination
attempt in 1981, Counsel Fred Fielding started to discuss the
25th amendment and saw the Cabinet's eyes, as he said, ``glaze
over,'' Fielding and his successors, among them C. Boyden Gray
and Lloyd Cutler, worked to compile a manual covering every
possible contingency of a Presidential disability. That
compilation remains in the White House.
So, hopefully, will the new 131-page staff manual which the
Clinton White House has put together summarizing White House
procedures and rules of the road for its employees: how to book
a conference room, how to arrange for a foreign visitor. The
staff manual lays out all the laws and regulations about ethics
for White House personnel. Such a compendium is surely designed
to survive the transition.
In finishing this section of my testimony, allow me to
quote one paragraph from my book: ``The White House then is not
empty at the inaugural noon. Throughout its expectant halls, in
its foyers and kitchens and its switchboards and guardposts,
men and women are on duty who will serve tomorrow as they
served yesterday. Some have walked taller in the mornings of
two, three or four decades, skilled committed and proud, to
support the office which they honor and the house which they
revere. They will continue to be unknown to their fellow
Americans, and some of them even to their President, who years
later will depart as they again remain. Their respectful
loyalty is always transferred to each new chief executive, and
President after President is rewarded by their service.''
Now, in addition to empty transition offices--about which
the subcommittee will hear other testimony this morning--there
is another contingent of nervously expectant men and women in
town: those preparing for the Inaugural. There are three
Inaugural institutions here. There's the Joint Congressional
Committee for the Inaugural, which is in charge of all the
swearing-in preparations and the ceremony itself. I'm sure the
work of that committee is well under way; although committee
members will be needing to get word about the list of
dignitaries and friends to which to send the formal
invitations.
There's the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee [AFIC], which
is also already organized and at work, since the Department of
Defense, the Military District of Washington and the various
armed services contribute so much to all the Inaugural
activities.
The overall direction of the Inaugural will however come
from the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the chair and vice
chair and members of which must be chosen right away by the
President-elect.
And the Inaugural program consists of much, much more than
the swearing in. Typically those include: a reception for
distinguished ladies; the Inaugural gala; a Governors'
reception; a reception honoring the Vice President-elect and
his wife; a dance for Young Republicans/Democrats; an Inaugural
medal; Inaugural decorations; Inaugural license plates; an
Inaugural concert; the Inaugural parade; a cocktail buffet for
the national citizens for Bush/Gore; and the Inaugural ball
held in eight or nine separate downtown locations.
It was expected that the transition period this year would
be, as usual, some 74 days, and, as you can appreciate from our
listing of Inaugural activities, every last day of those 74 is
desperately needed as lead time for these massive events.
Having thousands of enthusiastic celebrants at the Inaugural
concert; designing and striking the special Inaugural medal;
engraving, addressing and mailing 100,000 invitations to the
ball; organizing and staging a 3 or 4-hour parade and so forth.
We used to have 74 days. Now only 47. To quote Senator Slade
Gorton, ``I am cautiously pessimistic.''
I'll finish my testimony a little early. I do want to
compliment the General Services Administration for setting up
not only the Presidential transition offices as per the
legislation, but there is another piece of legislation, Public
Law 90-626, which authorizes the GSA to support the Inaugural,
and there is another separate suite of empty offices which
they've established with a little committee and staff of 30
already there at 600 Independence Avenue.
So the GSA is poised and ready to go. The question is, are
we?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Patterson follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. That's most interesting, and
I think probably everybody's ears went up when you said 5,900
staff members at the White House and when you think that the
Brown, Lowe Commission suggested to President Roosevelt that
you could get along with six anonymous assistants, and he ran
the Second World War on that basis, both civil and
international.
We now go to a gentleman that has been here many years,
both in the Capitol for the legislative branch and in the
various White Houses, as well as various departments. Harry
McPherson is sort of a legend around here, and if you want to
read the finest book that has ever been written on the Senate
of the United States in the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's, read ``A
Political Education,'' Atlantic-Little Brown 1972. Mr.
McPherson is not only a great observer, he's also a very
literate writer. It's the finest book I have ever seen on the
House and the Senate and the executive branch.
So, Mr. McPherson, we're delighted to have you here.
Mr. McPherson. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for that more than
I can say. You and I go back to the days of Lyndon Johnson and
Tommy Kuchel in the U.S. Senate, and it's wonderful to be
before you today.
I'd adopt almost everything that's been said here, because
I think it's all right on, and I hope the subcommittee has
absorbed it. I have no prepared testimony, but I have a few
observations and anecdotes to tell, as anyone has who's been
around here too long.
One is that I share Jack Watson's view that this is not a
crisis at the moment for the reason that both campaigns, both
potential Presidents, are surrounded by veterans of Washington.
This transition procedure that the Congress has encouraged and
developed over the years I think is most valuable for the
administration coming in from the hinterland with very little
experience in Washington. That's not the case with either the
Bush or the Gore campaigns.
Governor Bush himself was here with his father. His Vice
President served as chief of staff in the White House as well
as Defense Secretary. Vice President Gore, Senator Lieberman,
that doesn't require dwelling on. Both of them are surrounded
by veterans of past administrations, from the Pentagon and
State Department and elsewhere. This is not, ``Mr. Smith Goes
to Washington,'' somebody coming from the country who's never
seen the White House or the Washington Monument. That's not the
situation at all, and so I think the transition assistance that
is most desperately needed by an ingenue administration is not
so required by either of these.
In my view, the biggest question for a new administration
is not so much where it's going to be housed or how many bucks
it's going to have to pay for this or that transitional
assistance; it's an attitudinal one. The biggest question is
whether the incoming group is prepared to listen to the people
who are already here. If the Bush group is willing to sit down
and pay attention to serious people in the Clinton
administration as they talk about the issues they have
confronted, it will help alot. There is just no way for even
these veterans I have just been talking about to be thoroughly
up to speed on the big issues that a new President will
confront right from January 20th on.
The Middle East, relations with Russia, with parts of Asia,
Latin America, the foreign policy issues are the most obvious.
But there are domestic ones, as well. My own experience in
1968, made this a particularly poignant question. Lyndon
Johnson was determined that his administration would leave
behind not only a Great Society, but would have the best
transition effort that any administration ever had. So each one
of us in our offices was told to prepare everything that
anybody would need coming into our office.
I prepared two enormous notebooks for my successor, a guy
named John Erlichman. I've told this story before in
Erlichman's presence, so I don't feel as if this is abusing the
departed. I spent 2 hours talking to John about what the
special counsel to the President did, and I showed him
memoranda that I had written to Lyndon Johnson that were quite
revealing--in fact, maybe even dangerous by revealing--because
Johnson had told us to do that, tell him everything that we
have had to confront.
He never asked a question and, you know, after a while,
even if you're special counsel to the President or a
Congressman or whatever, if you have described what you do for
about 2 hours, you've pretty well run out of steam.
So I said, well, what would you like to do and he said,
well, could we have some lunch. So we went down to the White
House mess, and he said, ``I do have two questions. Who gets to
eat here in the White House mess?'' That was one, and the
second one was, when do you get to use White House cars for
personal purposes. I mean, you can say that John Erlichman
really had his eye on the ball and not on all this talk about
policy and stuff. But I was rather appalled because I had done
my best.
When I talked to him about it--I have to say this--when he
got out of prison and he and I were on a panel one time, I
mentioned this story, and he said, you know, I was such an
arrogant jerk when I came in, I just didn't want to hear
anything from anybody in the Lyndon Johnson administration.
So my point in telling this story about Erlichman, who I
came to like a lot and was a good guy--my point in telling the
story is that both sides, both the incumbent administration and
the new one coming in, have got to really talk, to really open
up, and it's a matter of attitude more than statute or
appropriations.
To go back to what the gentleman from California said in
his opening remarks, I don't see any reason on Earth why the
current administration can't work with both campaigns about
serious, emergent issues right now. I'm talking about sitting
down with them and saying, here's what's going on in the Middle
East. There's no reason why that has to wait until this Florida
recount is resolved. It can happen today, it can start today;
and it's the kind of urgent issue that if we want our new
President to be able to handle, that's something that can be
done if they will it to be done.
The last thing I will just say is just ``amen'' to what
everyone has said about the appointment process. It is nuts.
The press has a lot to do with it. I don't know how you can
change the press and get them off this business of nitpicking
every appointment and somebody's holding of a mutual fund that
may have 50 stocks, one of which will ultimately be affected in
some way by that person's decision in the executive branch. We
have to get real because otherwise people are simply not going
to put themselves through this mess of an appointments process.
Thanks.
Mr. Horn. You're not quite done yet.
Just before, since you're under oath and you want to swear
to this, were you there in the meeting that President Johnson
called with his six top aides and what he told you about what
you should do with Members of Congress. Valente tells the story
very well.
Mr. McPherson. No.
Mr. Horn. Well, every administration coming into the White
House, regardless of party, ought to take that advice, and I
believe what he said was, look, when you get a call from a
Member of Congress, the Senate or the House, you answer it this
day, even if it's 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., and if you don't I'm going
to kick you right out of here.
Mr. McPherson. I have heard Jack tell that story.
Mr. Horn. I didn't do the other things that Johnson said,
of course, to make it really register, but that was a very fine
administration in relating to the Hill, obviously because he
had been a former leader.
Well, thank you very much. We appreciate all the wisdom
we've had from all of you here, and now we'll open it up to
questions. I'm going to start with the ranking member, Mr.
Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It seems to me that
all of our witnesses today have talked about the difficulty of
the appointment's process and confirmation of potential
appointees, the vetting process that must take place.
Mr. Watson, I know you addressed that in your remarks. Give
us some concrete suggestions here. You're talking about this
subcommittee perhaps trying to make improvements in this area,
and yet I'm not sure I have gotten a handle on exactly what we
ought to consider doing as a matter of change in the law to
improve that situation.
Mr. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The article that I commended to the committee's attention,
is an article that appeared in the November-December issue this
year of ``Foreign Affairs.'' It is written by Mr. Norman
Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Mr. Tom
Donilon, who in the Clinton administration, served as chief of
staff to the Secretary of State.
In that article, Mr. Turner, are numerous recommendations
as to what can be done by both the executive branch and the
Senate and, indeed, the Congress at large to improve the
appointment's process. A great deal of the change, as Mr.
McPherson said and as John Sununu and others would agree, is a
matter of attitude. It is a matter of a genuinely profound
bipartisan determination to do something about a system that's
not working as the Nation needs it to work.
One of the things the article points to is the custom in
the Senate to place a ``hold'' on nominees, that frequently has
absolutely nothing to do with the merits or demerits, the
qualifications or lack thereof, of the prospective appointee,
but rather with matters totally impertinent to that issue.
Another example of change is that there are literally a
half dozen different complicated forms, Mr. Turner, that have
to be filled out in which there is an enormous redundancy. As
John Sununu said, people have to spend between $10,000 and
$60,000 in retaining lawyers and accountants simply to fill out
those forms, much of the information of which is of extremely
doubtful relevance to the issue of the person's fitness for
office. So, eliminating redundancy and duplication of forms,
creating--as the American Enterprise Institute and the
Brookings Institution are recommending--a common electronic
nominations form that will serve all purposes is another idea.
Another is to decriminalize the appointment process. Under
current law and practice, information that is provided in the
course of filling out those forms can serve as the basis for a
criminal investigation, when I think it was not the intent of
Congress to do that in such a wholesale way. So, again, that's
a subject that requires careful congressional review. I'm not
suggesting that we suspend the judicial process in all these
matters, but I do believe this is a subject that needs to be
looked at.
Still another is to streamline the FBI background check,
setting a clearer set of standards as to what it is we should
be looking for in terms of information that pertains to the
qualification of the man or woman who is being nominated to
fill a particular post, and focusing on that information and no
other. It has also been suggested, and I think this deserves
careful congressional consideration, that we have full field
investigations only for the most sensitive national security
and defense positions and not for other, even high-ranking, but
less ``sensitive'' positions in the government.
A fair question, Congressman, is, do we really need full
field investigations for an Under Secretary of Health and Human
Services or an Assistant Secretary of Transportation? I say
that, not meaning to imply that those positions are of any less
importance, but rather that the nature of their role and
responsibility in the government is so radically different that
it calls into question, certainly in my mind, whether we need
full field investigations for them.
There are several other Senate procedural reforms that were
outlined in that 1996 20th Century Fund Report I mentioned in
my testimony, to which I would refer the committee's attention;
but, by way of example, Congressman, these are some of the
things I think deserve very, very close attention and reform.
Finally, virtually no reforms would make a great difference
unless the Democrats and the Republicans come together and say,
we are going to fix this process together, no matter who the
next President is.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Watson.
Mr. Horn. I now yield 5 minutes for questioning to the vice
chairman of the subcommittee, Mrs. Biggert, the gentlewoman
from Illinois.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In a memo dated November 13, 2000, John Podesta, the White
House Chief of Staff, issued a memo to the heads of executive
departments and agencies in which he said that, and I quote,
you may continue to provide the kind of information or
assistance, if any, that you typically provide to Presidential
candidates and to continue to prepare for the transition so
that we are able to provide full assistance quickly to the
Office of the President-elect.
Do you think within those parameters that either the
Republican or the Democrat receives the necessary information?
You were talking about sitting down and having policy
discussions, and yet I wonder if--as a President or
Presidential candidate, whether they really have access to some
of the information that they might want to start on early on.
Maybe--Mr. Gearan, I think you talked about that.
Mr. Gearan. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Yes, I think Mr. Podesta's intent there certainly is clear.
And I think it underscores as Mr. McPherson's point which I
think is the salient point here. As I mentioned, I was
Secretary Christopher's deputy and walked into my very first
meeting in the Roosevelt Room with the outgoing Bush
administration. Mr. Baker and Andy Card, with Mr. Card being
our main liaison, and because of our friendship and because of
his personal integrity and character, the relationship of that
transition was vastly enhanced. And certainly I believe it's a
credit to Mr. Card in particular. But they were honoring that
process as well.
It would be my hope that's the intent of Mr. Podesta and
certainly the President who would want to provide that kind of
access. I think the President's Executive order certainly is
consonant with that; it is a tonal dimension to this transition
that can end the awkwardness, whether it's a friendly takeover
or a hostile takeover of administration. But those
relationships, I think, starting with the top would be access
provided and with that goodwill. Certainly they would provide
any incoming transition team with the access and support that
they would need.
Mrs. Biggert. Governor Sununu.
Mr. Sununu. I don't want to be the one that is on the other
end of the spectrum here alone, but I don't mind doing that if
necessary. I think something is being missed here.
The transition void that is being created is not in being
able to name a true handful of the complete Cabinet in kind. It
is not in not being able to name the 10 top staff members in
the White House. The problem is not being able to have the
detailed interaction, for example, that allows the potential
President and his staff to prepare a budget for presentation to
Congress with full access into the Office of Management and
Budget.
It is an inability to put together the full structure of a
personnel office that will move into the White House and then
begin to add personnel after the Inauguration date. It is the
inability to prepare a staffing structure and have them begin
to interact fully with the existing press office and begin to
prepare for a smooth transition there. It is the inability of
the legal counsel and the supporting members of the legal
counsel's office to begin to prepare all the materials and
assist everybody in filling out these unbelievably complex
forms and to begin to inform them of the subtle issues that are
involved in the criminalization aspects that were addressed by
Jack Watson. It is the inability of putting together a staff
support structure and having them interact and have full access
to the manuals that Mr. McPherson and Mr. Patterson referred
to, and all the archives that are there, on a full basis so
that they can begin to deal with the issues that are associated
with paper flow for the President, the issues that are
associated with making sure the staff is aware of all their
responsibilities, not just the mythical responsibilities of
each position that are there. It is the telecommunications
access that is necessary to begin to communicate back and forth
all the details that are necessary for potential members that
are going to be appointed to understand what is happening.
So it is not the problems at the top. It is the problems
and layers through--2 through 10 that are not being supported
in this void, and it is that that is going to be the most
dramatic problem.
Let me give you one example from my own personal experience
that was absolutely critical, and it had to do with the savings
and loan issue. If we had not had full briefings and
opportunities to go into details with second, third, fourth and
fifth-tier members of the departments that were associated
there, we would never have had the capacity to get a good head
start in making a new policy decision on what should or should
not be done to deal with the savings and loan crisis, and I
think one of the most important things President Bush did is
immediately, on coming into office, having had his--what was
then his transition group and then his new Cabinet speak
directly and forcefully on the basis of their briefings. He
made the quick decision of fix it and fix it fast, which I
think was absolutely critical in restructuring the financial
institutions in this country; and I believe it was the critical
factor in fueling the kind of recovery that we eventually had.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. My time has expired.
Mr. Horn. If I might, since I think that's a relevant
question for all of you, let me put it this way: What's the
biggest mistake made by administrations you belonged to that
could have been avoided by a more complete or comprehensive
transition? Because that's sort of what you're talking about,
Mr. Sununu.
I'd like to hear, I think the panel would, from each of
you, where would a shortness of it and, you know, the little
we've had of it, it's an evolution here, but did you see
mistakes made because of the impression of that?
Mr. Watson.
Mr. Watson. Mr. Chairman, it would take too long to get
into all of our mistakes in 1976, but on a more serious note,
any transition, whether it's 10 weeks or less, absolutely
requires the people running the transition to exercise a
process of exclusion, to keep things off the agenda that don't
need to be there, in effect, focussing only on matters that the
President must deal with in the first 6 months of his
administration, for example.
The purpose of a transition is not to plan for an entire
Presidential administration; it is to get the President and his
new administration off to a running start and deal with those
issues, key appointments, and so forth that must be addressed,
in the period between January 20th and the first August recess
of the Congress.
So I would say, Mr. Chairman, a mistake we made in the 1976
transition in some respects, and that almost every transition
makes to one degree or another, was trying to focus on and deal
with too many things. The internal and external pressures on a
President-elect to put things on his transition agenda are
overwhelming. Everybody wants to have their issue, their
perspective, their priority, their item on the agenda, and you
have to be very careful to limit what you try to do.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Gearan, anything you want to add?
Mr. Gearan. Well, I think that's very well said, Mr.
Chairman, and similarly, I'd agree. We do not have the time to
detail all of our----
Mr. Horn. Give us a few horror stories at least.
Mr. Gearan. I can easily do that. I would make one
observation from our point in Washington, where we put together
briefing books and cluster groups to study all the Cabinet
departments and agencies, everything from the Tuna Commission
to the Department of Defense. But what we did not study, per
the then-President, was the White House in any kind of detail
and rigor. I think the President would certainly join me in his
observation that the transition team, should study the Cabinet,
agency departments in detail, and would be well-placed to have
that kind of rigorous study and analysis of the White House.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Patterson.
Mr. Patterson. Mr. Chairman, as you will recall, precisely
what Mark was talking about, about conservations between
outgoing and incoming White House staff. The objective of the
very helpful amendment which your committee approved and the
Congress approved in the Presidential Transition Act of 2000,
namely for providing workshops and briefings, that had not been
the case in the past and now is the case.
Of course, the problem is, the time is creeping shorter and
shorter, but that authority is there, and the public
Administrator such as the distinguished gentleman you will be
hearing from later--Dwight Ink, behind me--and many others and
your committee and the committee in the Senate were wise enough
to approve that amendment, and it is on the books. So as soon
as a new team is for sure, definite, those new provisions will
be there, and I know that many of us in the public
administration community commend the Congress for that wisdom.
Mr. Horn. Mr. McPherson, because the compression of that
thing is of course different, it was a party within an
executive branch when you started with the Cabinet members and
other key advisers after the President was tragically
assassinated, President Johnson had his hands full.
Mr. McPherson. He did. I was not in the White House for
that first year, but I was fairly close to him and others; and
I believe that if Lyndon Johnson had a heyday in the
Presidency, if he really made a gigantic contribution that
people in both parties would acknowledge, it was in his
handling of the government, of the Presidency, in that first
year after November 22, 1963.
He did it using his tremendous knowledge of Congress, but
going far beyond that. He connected with everyone of
significance in the life of a Presidency--business leaders,
labor leaders, civil rights leaders; he made it a practice to
bring in everybody who hated him and whom he hated, but who was
significant. He lined them up.
I was with him 9 days after he became President, one
Sunday. I spent Sunday sitting in the Oval Office with him just
listening to him talking to people whom I knew he despised and
who certainly didn't like him, but whom he needed if the
government was to function. And each of those people came out
and said things to the press that were very supportive: We
really want to help this President, he's really going to try to
work. He was on the phone constantly with every person, and
Charlie Halleck and the leaders of the Republicans in the
Congress. He really worked it 16, 18 hours a day. His staff, as
Jack Valente would tell you and would tell you if he was
sitting here, was worked down to the bone by Johnson, who was
determined not just to win the election in 1964, but to make
the country work again after it had been brought to a
shuddering halt in Dallas.
Mr. Horn. Any other addition?
Mr. Sununu, you opened that question, so do you want to
close out on it?
Mr. Sununu. Well, the biggest mistake I think we made is,
even though we heard to a great extent everything you're
hearing today about the difficulties of the appointment process
and about how hard it is to get good people to come in, I think
we underestimated to some extent the burden that would be in
getting the good people approved and confirmed and through
there.
You hear the words, you read the words, you get good
counsel, and until you do it, you don't understand how serious
that problem really is; and I think we underestimated it a bit.
Mr. Horn. Well, let's see, go over here now to--we'll yield
to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Kanjorski, for
questions.
Mr. Kanjorski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In listening to the observations and some of the testimony,
I see us going in what I think is a very positive direction,
that is, the real problems associated with transitions of
administrations as opposed to the immediate problem that we're
faced with of not having a certainty of who is actually the
next President. I'm glad to see everyone taking that course,
because there's nothing that should come out of this hearing
that gives any indication of who should be the winner or the
loser of this contest that's before us.
But, Mr. Chairman, I have to confess that I have been
around here long enough now to have experienced some of what
the gentlemen are talking about, and that really scares me. So
maybe I have been here too long. I agree with Mr. Sununu.
I sat on the Banking Committee and the most impressive
activity of President Bush was on January 8th, some 12 days
before his Inauguration, he sent the formulation to the Banking
Committee of how to handle the S&L crisis, and I have to say,
I'm a Democrat, as you know, Mr. Sununu, but that impressed me
so much----
Mr. Sununu. I had noticed, sir.
Mr. Kanjorski. That quite impressed me, so much that this
incoming President would take such a difficult issue and
complicated and understandable issue by the general public, but
to resolve it--as you know, we had been trying to resolve that
issue from the early 1980's. But I had great hopes for his
Presidency as a result of that. I won't go into what errors may
have been made later on in the Presidency.
The experience I had in the transition in 1992 after the
Bush administration, and I don't know whether it was the court
cases that were going on at the time, but I remember so well
being in the White House the day after Inauguration. I remember
trying to get something done that had to be done concurrently
between the new and the changing administration, and all the
computers were gone, the guts were taken out of the computers;
and we were actually working, rather than using computers,
through documents. We had to go back to manual typewriters, and
I saw the wrinkled brow. I think it may have been a court
order, some litigation that was pending, that seized all that
information to make sure they could find out what people were
thinking or writing about. But it certainly did slow down the
implementation of that administration.
And then I remember a fact that everybody was astounded
about, that they had a Lyndon Johnson telephone still there,
about 20 years behind times, and that situation took a little
bit to rewire.
So every White House, coming and going, has its
difficulties. What I'm interested in is the observations
perhaps from this distinguished panel of how badly do we do up
here on the Hill. And it's interesting, we can put a committee
together to handle an Inauguration and do a pretty nice job,
but I don't know any committee that comes together of the
Congress, the House and Senate, for transition purposes--and it
strikes me, it is much more important than having a parade--to
have a nice smooth entrance of the leadership with the new
government, which we easily could facilitate here on the Hill.
Finally, I can't help but ask this question. Every
administration that I've seen come through and every transition
and the last one we had, Nannygate and drugs. Are we over those
two things now and does anybody have any idea what the next
disqualifying, past, vicious occurrence, other than hiring a
nanny, is going to be for all these people that we have to cast
aside? Does anybody have any idea out there what we should
prepare the American people for?
And I'm just wondering whether or not that is a political
activity that's occurring? Are we in the Congress throwing
these things out and trying to weaken people who are qualified
to serve from coming; or is that a media circus that's
occurring, and if so, what can we all do about it?
Remember, I'm calling the Nannygate and the drug
situations, if we think about it, the beginning years of the
Clinton administration, so many very fine qualified people had
to step aside and leave and not be considered, or be terribly
embarrassed those who were considered, and drug process out--I
think we're looking at the Acting Attorney General during those
hard periods there when we couldn't even put into place someone
at the Department of Justice.
Are we doing that again? Is that a possibility, and if you
will----
Mr. Sununu. I can't tell you what the next Nannygate-type
issue will be. You will have to ask the press. They will find
one and they will make it.
What is incumbent upon us collectively, Republican and
Democrat, is perhaps to commit ourselves not to exploit what
they raise; and the easiest way for that to be snuffed is for a
bipartisan, significant bipartisan group to say, we hear what
you're saying, that is not a qualification that we care about
for Attorney General as it was in that case. We hear that, we
see that. It is a flaw that can be remediated, and we are going
to only address the significant qualifications for that office.
Now, that's not easy to do. I don't pretend that it is easy
to do politically. We are often tempted beyond our capacity to
do the right thing, but if we keep worrying about it and
talking about it and having a dialog on how to deal with it,
maybe eventually we can give each other mutual strength and be
able to come to that point where we can stand up and say, it's
really not significant, let's move on.
Mr. Watson. Mr. Kanjorski, two quick points in response to
some of what you have just said.
One, I agree with John, we can't predict what the next one
is going to be. But what we can predict is that whatever it is,
it will take courage and common sense for Members of the
Congress to deal with, whatever it is. Focusing on the real
question that's put to the Congress in terms of the
confirmation procedure, is the person who's been nominated for
the post fit or not fit for the post, and all information that
is relevant and important to that question is what we should
consider and not other endless, intrusive, unnecessary
intrusion into the person's private life.
Point two, with respect to your earlier question about what
more the Congress can do, I can only speak from my own
experience, Congressman. In 1976, I'm afraid I bore more
resemblance to ``Mr. Smith comes to Washington'' than to the
``seasoned old hand in Washington affairs.'' I can tell you,
Mr. Chairman, that the reception cooperation and help I
received as director of the transition for President-elect
Carter in 1976 from the Members of Congress, from the committee
and subcommittee chairs, members and staff, was exemplary.
As I sit here, I'm looking at the Portrait of Congressman
Jack Brooks behind you. It was Congressman Jack Brooks that I
worked with to amend the 1963 act to increase the funding under
the act from $900,000 to the $3 million put into place in the
1976 act, and all I had to do with Mr. Brooks was to come to
him and say, Mr. Brooks, will you help us understand and
analyze what needs to be done here, and he did it.
So I think with the transition acts which the Congress has
passed, with the funding it has made available, with the
amendments it has passed in the 2000 Presidential Transition
Act in terms of briefing support and orientation support, the
Congress is doing its part.
Mr. Patterson. Mr. Chairman, just an observation as a
footnote. One remembers constitutionally there is no
transition. Power changes at noon on January 20.
I recall President Eisenhower in his last Cabinet meeting,
at which I was present, admonishing them, first of all, to
collaborate with the Kennedy folks and help them out in every
way possible. But then immediately he reminded the Cabinet
``There's just one President, gentlemen, and that's me until
noon of the 20th''; and he didn't want any of the new folks
making statements or pretending to speak for the government. So
he just reminded them that January 20 noon had that
constitutional aspect to it.
Mr. Horn. OK. I see no more answers to that question, and I
will now yield 5 minutes for questioning to the gentleman from
California, Mr. Ose, who will be followed by the gentleman from
Virginia, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really only have one
question. I want to direct it to Mr. Watson and Mr. McPherson,
and any others can respond.
From a legal standpoint, does the Presidential Transition
Act provide flexibility in a situation like we are experiencing
today or does it narrow our choices? In other words, is there
an interpretation that can be made in the Presidential
Transition Act that would allow both campaigns basically to be
provided the assistance they need in anticipation that one of
them will be the winner?
Mr. Watson. Congressman, I would not present myself as an
authority on the Presidential----
Mr. Ose. You're a former Chief of Staff.
Mr. Watson. I have read it carefully, however; and I'll try
and answer your question.
We really have two lines of help coming here, at least two
lines of broad categories of help. One is money. If my memory
serves me, we have $7.1 million appropriated for this purpose
currently. About $5.3 million of it to be divided among the
incoming and outgoing Presidents and Vice Presidents. That's
one category. And I think that the act is somewhat less
flexible as to the release of those funds than it is with
respect to the second category.
The second category of assistance really goes to what John
Sununu was talking about. It is the ``making available of
information.'' It is the sharing of briefing books that have
already been prepared. That sharing, with both camps, in my
opinion, would be fully permissible under the act, of budget
information, of other information related to defense and
economic issues, etc.
Again, I would refer back to what I said a few moments ago,
sir, that we must keep in mind that in a transition you're only
able to focus effectively on the most immediate and highest
priority issues with which the President is going to have to
deal in the early days, weeks and months of his administration.
With respect to those issues, I think there is flexibility
under the act for the assistance to be provided to both camps
in the current situation.
Mr. Ose. If I might followup on that, Mr. Watson. The issue
you're pointing out is that particular assistance, that second
type, is not something that would necessarily fall to GSA. As
Mr. Sununu implicitly suggested, that's something much more
personal. It's something like the height of responsibility. One
of you is going to be President, come in here.
Mr. Watson. Yes, exactly. And I will tell you again, from
my own experience, Congressman, in 1980, when we lost the
election to Governor Reagan, at the President's direction, I
again headed the transition, this time from the position of
chief of staff at the White House. We had prepared in all the
departments and major agencies of the government briefing books
for the new people, which we immediately made available to
Governor Reagan and his people.
I believe--I'm not a part of any of the current transition
efforts, but I believe, based on what I have read and
understand to be true, that such briefing materials are
available now, and it would be my recommendation that, on that
informal basis which is permitted under the act, that
information be made available to both sides.
Mr. Ose. I want to go to Mr. McPherson.
Mr. McPherson. I don't see any bar to the kind of
cooperation we've been talking about between the incumbent
administration and both campaigns, not at all so far as the
serious stuff is concerned, the issues that they're going--the
new guy is going to confront.
Mr. Ose. From a practical side, Governor Sununu, any
observations?
Mr. Sununu. Yeah. In order to share materials you have to
have people with a place to be where that material can be
shared. You have to have people in place and you have to have
offices for those people in place and you have to have
telephones for them to use in a coherent basis, not picking a
phone up in one law office or another office in town but in a
concentrated area. So, in theory, what Jack has addressed can
be done. In practice, I don't think it can be done unless GSA
makes available facilities, phones, and a support structure so
that the people that are going to share this material have a
place where they can come together as a coherent entity and
start working to take advantage of what is being shared.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Chairman, may I have, just with the liberty of
the committee, ask one other question?
Mr. Horn. Certainly.
Mr. Ose. Are you aware of any bar under the current
Presidential Transition Act that precludes GSA from providing
such assistance today to both campaigns?
Mr. Sununu. I am not a lawyer, and I thank the Lord for
that, so I can't give you a legal answer to that, but from what
I have read in the documents there is nothing that would do
that except that they would be giving less money eventually to
the one that is chosen. In other words, some of the funds will
have been expended on someone who would end up not being the
President, but other than that bar in terms of the total amount
of money that's there, I do not believe that there is a
problem.
Mr. Ose. So if we had $4 or $5 point something million,
split it equally $2.65 each--I mean, we spend $2.65 million in
the space of time I've had to question the panel. So I mean I
don't see this as something that's----
Mr. Sununu. It's not a problem except that someone would
have to make do with only $2.65 million until such time as that
you added it, and the question is whether you feel you can add
to the process when the final winner is selected.
Mr. Ose. Do any of you know of any bar that would prevent
GSA from offering such assistance to both camps?
Mr. Watson. I know of no such.
Mr. Patterson. The statute, of course, says that ``the
terms President-elect and Vice President-elect shall mean such
persons as are the apparent successful candidate for the office
of President as ascertained by the administrator.''
Mr. Horn. The Administrator is in the room; and we will,
after those questions of Mr. Davis, why we will get to that
with the Administrator.
Gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, again, I guess you
could give it to both--probably give it to both and come back
to Congress. We're still in session. I'm sure we could make it
work. I'm concerned that the fact that the funds haven't been
transferred, they're out in the fundraising mode trying to get
money up to get the transition working smoothly, I think that
is going to have an effect in the early days of a new
administration. What is your judgment on the impact the delay
of releasing transition funds would have on a new
administration? Anyone want to take that?
Mr. Sununu. I go back to what I said originally, Mr. Davis.
I think it's a very nonlinear effect. One, this is quality time
for transition. You can focus on it, you can do the background
work, you are not burdened by the responsibility of
administering under the duties that you will eventually get
after January 20th. So there's a very disproportionate non-
linear impact. My guess is that if you lose a month in
transition it will delay you being up and running by about 6
months in the process.
Mr. Davis. Mr. Watson.
Mr. Watson. Mr. Davis, again, not being part of the current
transitions, I can't give sworn testimony as to what they are,
or are not, doing. But based on what I read and understand
about both the efforts of Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney
and Vice President Gore and Senator Lieberman, they are under
way informally with the kinds of efforts they need to have
under way to vet their appointments, make their appointment
decisions and so forth; and indeed I think I saw Secretary
Cheney has established transition offices in Virginia for that
purpose temporarily.
So I think we should not assume here--because I do not
think it would be practical or realistic to assume--that
nothing's being done right now in these two camps. I think a
great deal is being done, point No. 1.
Point No. 2, I agree with John Sununu that the other thing
we need to keep in mind is that this Presidential election is
going to be decided very shortly. So that the period of time we
are now dealing with in terms of selection of who the winning
candidates are here is a very short window. We are not talking
about another month, but, I suspect, another week or so.
Mr. Davis. No, but we've lost a month.
Mr. Watson. But we can't do anything about that lost month
at this point. It's lost, and so the question is what can we do
prospectively.
Mr. Davis. Yeah. Well, you still worry about bringing
people on and having to hire; and it just seems to me these are
distractions. It's on the margin but didn't have to happen. And
Mr. Ose's suggestion, maybe you give a little bit to both sides
and you come back and have Congress sort out, these are really
small amounts in the scheme of things that the new
administration can get up and operating on a timely manner
instead.
Mr. Gearan. Mr. Davis, if I might, I share Jack's view that
this is time that has been lost certainly. But I believe as Mr.
Light will tell you from the Brookings Institution, that long
before the election they had a whole project of the
Presidential appointee initiative, a bipartisan effort, and
estimated at that time, even with a full transition, even with
a landslide election that could have occurred, that it would
have been October in the year 2001 before all Presidential
appointees were at their desks. That was their estimation,
which underscores what I tried to present in my testimony: the
need for reform. This month is lost. I think the President-
elect can go forward with it, but hopefully the kind of
streamlining reforms that could be put into place will be
prospectively helpful.
Mr. Davis. Let me just ask, do you think Congress ought to
do anything? Instead of putting the burden on the GSA
Administrator, we could do something legislatively to define an
apparent winner by certification or something like that? Is
there any particular language anyone would suggest?
Mr. Watson. I have a strong view on that, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. I'd love to hear it.
Mr. Watson. It is that our judicial process has before it
now the election contest issues which the parties have a legal
right to have before them; and it is my most respectful but
firm view that neither the legislative branch nor the executive
branch should interfere with the proper functioning of the
judicial process in this situation. Let that process work and
run its course, as it is about to do, without interference.
Mr. Davis. Let me followup. What if you had an electoral
vote that was clearly going to the House? Under those
circumstances here, you couldn't release anything to anybody
until the election went to the House of Representatives in
January, where you probably would be better off giving money to
each side to at least plan.
Mr. Watson. That's why I think we are unanimous in our view
on this panel that everything as an informal and practical
matter that can be done to share information and make these
people, both sides, both groups of people prepare, facilitate
and expedite their preparation should be done.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Horn. I might add to that question just some figures.
We have it easy if we want to pursue that, because the Vice
President, it would be part of the $1.8 million we have
designated for President and the Vice President, the outgoing
administration. That would be, according to the Congressional
Research Service, our fine support staff is $305,000. If Mr.
Gore was made President, that money would revert to the
Treasury because he's not leaving.
But I think it's pretty simple and the principal witness
will be, I am sure, helping us with some of the figures. And
that's the next panel, with the Administrator of the General
Services Administration. That is a solvable problem, and it
makes it easy because nobody is losing anything. The Vice
President at that point is coming out.
The concern most of us have is, good heavens, can't we get
some money to them so they don't have to go hat in hand, which
I think was pointed out is not a good thing to be doing because
somebody will make a lot of hubbub about it. And we ought to at
least give them some decent planning space and communications
and so forth so they can do the necessary things that all of
you so eloquently have noted.
Gentleman, I have no more questions, and I don't think my
colleagues do. We thank you very much for sharing your
experience, and I must say, Mr. McPherson, I enjoy C-SPAN on
Saturday afternoon when it tells me all about Lyndon Johnson's
phones and who he's talking to. And as you say, he hit the ones
that liked him and the ones that didn't like him; but he was a
dynamic President. Thank you all for coming.
We now call forward the second panel. The second panel will
be the Administrator of the General Services Administration Mr.
Barram; Ms. Katzen, Deputy Director for Management; Stuart
Gerson, a partner in Epstein Becker & Green; Paul Light,
director, Center for Public Service at Brookings; Jonathan
Turley, Shapiro professor of public interest law at the George
Washington School of Law; Todd Zywicki, associate professor of
law, George Mason University School of Law; Norman Ornstein,
resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Policy
Research; and we will close with the Honorable Dwight Ink,
president emeritus, Institute of Public Administration. He's
probably served more Presidents than everybody else put
together.
If we have everybody behind the right sign, we will
administer the oath. If anybody is going to be, for those in
the administration, assisting them, please have them raise
their hand so the clerk can note if you are dependent upon any
aides. We don't want to have to give the oath in the middle of
the hearing. So if you've got people that are going to give you
information for the record, let's have them in back of you.
I don't see any, so we'll deal strictly with the witnesses
that are listed.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that all witnesses have
affirmed or sworn.
Now we will get the star witness, and he's at the edge of
the table. Maybe that's because the door has closed, but anyhow
we have a very distinguished member. He has been very helpful
to this committee and Congress in the years we've been here,
and that's the Honorable David Barram, Administrator of General
Services Administration. They have a fine job they do during
the year, and this one probably surprises GSA Administrators to
get into it, but the Congress thought that would be sort of a
neutral way, and they were in charge of getting all those fine
things like space and documents and all the rest in collusion,
we will say, with the National Archives which--we now turn to
Mr. Barram, and we're delighted to have him, and please
proceed.
STATEMENTS OF DAVID BARRAM, ADMINISTRATOR, GENERAL SERVICES
ADMINISTRATION; SALLY KATZEN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR MANAGEMENT,
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET; STUART GERSON, ESQUIRE,
PARTNER, EPSTEIN BECKER & GREEN, PC; PAUL LIGHT, DIRECTOR,
CENTER FOR PUBLIC SERVICE, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION; JONATHAN
TURLEY, SHAPIRO PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC INTEREST LAW, GEORGE
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW; TODD ZYWICKI, ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR OF LAW, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW; NORMAN
J. ORNSTEIN, RESIDENT SCHOLAR, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
FOR POLICY RESEARCH; AND DWIGHT INK, PRESIDENT EMERITUS,
INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, FORMER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
FOR EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
Mr. Barram. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members
of the committee. As I've said many times to you and anybody
who will listen, this is not your father's GSA, and never has
it been so profoundly interesting as it is right now.
I am very pleased to be here to talk about the
implementation of the Presidential Transition Act and how GSA
plans to assist in an orderly Presidential transition of 2000/
2001.
By the way, I would like to put into the record or make
sure it gets into the record an opinion by the Department of
Justice about whether we can fund two candidates, and their
answer is no. Although I think, like a lot of people, it would
be nice if we thought the law would work to do that for the
reasons you said.
But, anyway, under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963
as amended, GSA is the provider of a fully equipped
headquarters and a variety of services for the President-
elect's transition team. Most of the facilities and services we
provide to the President-elect and his transition team are
generally the same as we provide to all our customers: office
space, telecommunications, IT services and equipment, and
furnishing supplies and other things they need to do their job.
Because GSA is the custodian of Federal transition funds,
we also serve as the financial advisor, accountant and payroll
office for the transition.
Under the Presidential Transition Act of 2000, GSA was
given two new responsibilities. The first is coordinating
orientation activities for high-level nominees and appointees.
The second is to work with the National Archives and Records
Administration and others on a transition directory. Congress
has appropriated $5.27 million for the 2000/2001 incoming
transition to pay for those services and facilities as well as
compensation for transition staff. $1 million of that will pay
for the orientation activities and directory.
In order to facilitate an orderly transition, we have been
working with both campaigns since August, and we continue to do
so on a daily basis. We have leased office space, provided
security for it, fully furnished and equipped it, and arranged
for telecommunications and information technology services to
begin as soon as the President-elect is apparent. We have begun
planning the orientation activities and have prepared a working
draft of the transition directory.
The Presidential Transition Act of 1963 makes it my
responsibility to ascertain the apparent successful candidates
for President and Vice President before the funds, services and
facilities authorized by the act become available to the
transition team. While the act gives no explicit criteria or
deadlines for making this ascertainment, as the legislative
history demonstrates, Congress made it perfectly clear that if
there is any question of who the winner is in a close contest,
this determination should not be made.
As Representative Fascell explained during the 1963
discussion of the bill, ``in a close contest, the Administrator
simply would not make the decision.'' Representative Fascell
went on to explain that ``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.''
A few people have speculated about whether the GSA
Administrator is the right official, but the law seems quite
clear to me. Under the Presidential Transition Act, GSA has no
role in determining who the next President will be or affecting
the contest for the Presidency. The law does not authorize me
to pick the next President or predict who the next President
will be. Instead the law creates a simple common-sense
requirement for me to identify the President-elect after it is
clear that one candidate has won the election.
In this unprecedented, incredibly close and intensely
contested election, with legal action being pursued by both
sides, it is not apparent to me who the winner is. That is why
I have not ascertained a President-elect. In extremely close
elections State laws provides for various means to ensure that
the results are correct. The country is going through that
process now.
I don't intend to predict when it will be apparent who the
winner is, but I am confident that we will all know and
probably all agree when the winner is apparent. Both candidates
are honorable men, and each is convinced that he has won this
extremely close race. I intend to respect the integrity of
their public statements.
During the last 3 weeks our American political system has
faced a huge test. In my view, our system as usual is working.
We Americans trust each other enough to believe we can get
through this challenge.
Because the President-elect will have a shortened
transition period, we at GSA have been working diligently to
give the transition team the tools it needs for a smooth
transition. We continue to work closely with both campaigns to
shorten the turnover time so that what once took a week or more
can now be done in a day or within hours. We have talked with
both campaigns before the election to ensure that we were
setting up the space and systems so that they could use them
productively. In the last few days we have suggested additional
steps to speed the turnover, such things as creating Local Area
Network and e-mail accounts and passwords, providing their
staffs with remote access to the transition intranet, preparing
financial and contractual documents for goods and services
their teams will need, even ordering stationery. We are acting
professionally and with no bias toward either candidate as we
have been since August and will continue to do.
With so many rapid technological changes, I think this may
be actually the last transition where the transition team will
need 90,000 square feet of office space and 500 computers in
one location in Washington, DC. For example, staff of both
campaigns are already linked in virtual space. Compare this to
the last transition in which laptops were invisible, and
wireless technology barely existed. We already see that many of
the administrative paper-based transactions of 1992 will now be
done electronically, saving time and money for the taxpayers.
We think that the preparations GSA has already made, including
taking advantage of technology, will help make the 2000/2001
transition, though short, a smooth transition. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. We thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Barram follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Before we go to questions, I would like to hear
from Ms. Katzen, the Deputy Director for Management of the
Office of Management and Budget.
Ms. Katzen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me here to testify about
OMB's implementation of the Presidential Transition Act. Given
the events since November 7, 2000, we do not know who the next
President will be. Nonetheless, much work has already been
done, and we are ready to ensure that a smooth transition from
this administration to the President-elect, whoever that may
be, will, in fact, occur.
The Presidential Transition Act of 1963, as amended,
provides for an efficient transfer of authority from one
administration to the next, and it outlines specific roles for
a number of Federal agencies, including GSA, the Office of
Personnel Management, the Office of Presidential Personnel and
the U.S. Archivist.
OMB does not have a specific role outlined in the act.
Nonetheless we have been doing our part to assist in a
transition process. As you know, OMB was instrumental in
obtaining funding for the Presidential transition and
specifically in helping secure funding in the continuing
resolution so that funding would be available for out
successors. Funding was, in fact, appropriated for the incoming
administration, and the $5.3 million in funds that was provided
for the incoming President was apportioned by OMB and is
available for GSA to release when the Administrator determines
that the statutory test has been satisfied.
In addition, OMB, like every other Federal agency, is doing
everything it can, preparing briefing materials on the
organization, function and duties of the organization, that
were referred to by the previous panel to assist the President-
elect and his staff. We are preparing to share that material
with the next OMB Director or other appropriate representatives
of a President-elect. The delay in identifying the President-
elect has absolutely not affected our work in this area.
As you know, the bulk of OMB staff are career professionals
whose mission is to serve the Presidency and the Nation, not
any individual President. Our senior career staff is actively
working with OMB leadership to prepare for the transition. The
expertise and institutional memory of OMB's career staff will
be invaluable to the next President regardless of which
candidate ultimately is inaugurated.
In addition, several weeks ago OMB began work on an
Executive order that the President issued on November 27, 2000,
creating a transition coordinating council. OMB Director Jacob
J. Lew is OMB's representative and member of the Council. The
Council will provide the President-elect's team with
coordinated services and will ensure that we are as prepared as
we can be for an orderly transition to the new administration.
Specifically, the Council will oversee the transition
activities of the agencies and departments and direct that
training materials and orientation sessions be prepared for
appointees nominated by the President-elect. In addition, the
work of the Council will memorialize the process under which
the President's appointees and the President-elect's appointees
will collaborate during the transition process.
The administration is seeking to do whatever we can in the
way of providing transition assistance on a parallel basis to
both candidates. We at OMB are prepared to do our part in that
process. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Katzen follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We thank you very much, and before we go down the
line, and I know you all have excellent ideas, I am going to
stop here for some questions on the first two administration
officials, and I want to put into the record a memorandum for
heads of executive departments and agencies from John Podesta,
chief of staff, Presidential Transition Guidance, dated
November 15, 2000, and the Administrator, I know, is well aware
of it because everybody has asked him on that question.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5062.041
Mr. Horn. And in Mr. Podesta's memoranda it says, ``until a
President-elect is clearly identified, therefore no transition
assistance as contemplated under the Transition Act is
available. You may continue to provide the kind of information
or assistance, if any, that you typically provide to
Presidential candidates and should continue to prepare for the
transition so that we are able to provide full assistance
quickly to the office of President-elect.''
With that, Mr. Barram, did that memo of Mr. Podesta have
any influence on your decision?
Mr. Barram. No.
Mr. Horn. And you stated a legal opinion, and I don't know
if the staff and Members have it. Do we have it? If so, we'd
like a copy of it. We'll get a copy of it so we can all see it.
Mr. Barram. The legal opinion I mentioned was from the
Department of Justice to Beth Nolan, counsel to the President.
It was fundamentally around the question that Mr. Ose raised
about whether there could be money provided out of this fund
for more than one candidate. And the answer, their
interpretation of the law, is clearly no.
Mr. Horn. Go ahead, Mr. Gerson.
Mr. Gerson. I've looked at this as a lawyer and as a
denizen, a former denizen, of the Justice Department, and I
believe the Administrator is right. I remember an old contracts
case in which there were two ships called the Peerless. I don't
think there can be two apparent winners. That's one of the
things that I think is implied by Mr. Ose's question and that
you perhaps would like to address. I can speak about it later
in my remarks.
Mr. Horn. Obviously one of the ways if we don't have any
more signals along the way would be since the Clinton
administration has funds of $1.8 million to go out of the
administration and the offices they hold, and if the Vice
President was the President-elect one way or the other, or
possible President-elect, he would return the $305,000 for the
Vice President's Office to the Treasury. Now, obviously one
thought is if he's already got $305,000 no matter what he does,
would it not be possible to at least give $305,000 or something
in that range to the other contender for the Presidency? What
do you think of that?
Mr. Gerson. My guess is that the Administrator would balk
at it because as he sees his entitlement, and I think he's
right, although we may disagree about how he exercised it, he
is only entitled to make available the cash, space and services
to the apparent winner. The other part does take care of
itself, you are certainly correct about that. I think that's a
matter that you want to address. I mean, had he seen it another
way, he likely could have done that with respect to Governor
Bush, but I think he feels constrained, and I think the plain
meaning of the statute constrains him from doing what is
otherwise entirely reasonable.
Mr. Horn. I am told that the Supreme Court of the United
States has held that the Florida Supreme Court had no
justification for extending the vote count deadline. The case
was remanded to the Florida Supreme Court to explain how they
came to their decision. Is that a little road stone along the
way, that might get some money loose for the possible but
likely President-elect of the United States?
Mr. Barram. Is that a rhetorical question?
Mr. Horn. No, it's a question, does that give you a little
more of a signal?
Mr. Barram. I don't want to predict how I could decide on
the apparent winner. I don't think it's going to be that
complicated, frankly, and there are a lot of things going on,
and they'll certainly shake out. Nobody wants to have this
prolonged any longer than necessary. I don't want to say that's
a little step or a big step, but obviously it's important.
Mr. Horn. Yes, Professor Zywicki.
Mr. Zywicki. Yes. A quick note. Section 4 of the original
act says that for the outgoing President or Vice President,
that the funds that the Administrator is authorized to provide
are requested for a period not to exceed 6 months from the date
of the expiration of his term. If the expiration of the term is
January 20, one would think that the outgoing funds would not
be made available to the outgoing Vice President until after
that date.
Mr. Horn. Yeah. It says in section 4, as you referred to
it, that it shall not become effective with respect to a former
President until 6 months after the expiration of his term of
office as President.
Mr. Barram. Actually I think it might start 30 days in
advance and proceed 6 months afterward.
Mr. Horn. Well, any other questions, my colleague, Mr.
Turner, gentlemen, the ranking member?
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it is a good
suggestion that we have heard made by some of the members of
our committee. It would be nice if we could provide both Vice
President Gore and Governor Bush some assistance during this
difficult period that we find ourselves in due to the legal
proceedings surrounding the outcome of the election. But, Mr.
Barram, I gather what you're telling us is that as you read the
statute and as you've been advised by legal counsel, you don't
have the option of sharing the money between the two
contenders. That is not an option even available or in any way
that could be construed from the reading of the act.
Mr. Barram. That's correct. Regardless of what I would
personally like to see, that's the way I read the law.
Mr. Turner. In fact, the language of the legislation itself
actually defines for you the terms ``President-elect'' and
``Vice President-elect.'' And I am reading from the act here,
it says, ``The terms `President-elect' and `Vice President-
elect' as used in this act shall mean such persons as are the
apparent successful candidates for the office of President and
Vice President.''
So you're trying to follow the statute and determine who is
the apparent-to-all successful candidate, and as of yet that
does not seem to be apparent to any of us with the ongoing
legal proceedings that have clouded the outcome of the
election. Is that basically the position you've taken?
Mr. Barram. Yes, yes.
Mr. Turner. It wouldn't even allow you under that language
to say, I think it's probably going to be Vice President Gore
or probably going to be Governor Bush, and therefore I will go
ahead and release funds.
Mr. Barram. I took an oath to well and faithfully exercise
the responsibilities of the office, and I see it that way. And
I know it's not popular with some people, and it makes some
people nervous, and it makes some people in GSA nervous. If
Governor Bush would become the President, some people are
wondering whether he would take it out on them. I don't see it
that way. I think he's an honorable man. Take it out on me. You
are welcome to take it out on me, but my agency has done a
spectacular job of putting together the facilities, the
capability, the resources, and our people are eager for a
President-elect to be apparent so that person and his team can
get working in our space.
Mr. Turner. I noticed in your testimony before the
committee, your written testimony, that you actually had gone
back and cited in a footnote the debate on the act when it was
originally passed in 1963 where Mr. Fascell, the gentleman from
Florida, was asked what happens if there is a close election.
And I noted that when he responded to that inquiry about what
would happen if you don't know who is the winner, he said it is
an unlikely proposition, which I guess turned out to be false
because we have that situation today. But he said, if it were
to happen--and I'm reading from page 13349 of the Congressional
Record in 1963--if the Administrator had any question in his
mind, any question, ``he simply would not make any designation
in order to make the services available as provided by the act.
If as an intelligent human being he has a doubt, he would not
act until a decision has been made in the electoral college or
in the Congress.''
And as I recall, you actually cited that provision in your
testimony.
Mr. Barram. I meant to cite the intelligent human being
part. I don't know if I did. It's amazing to me how Florida
figures prominently again.
I never thought when I came to Washington I would be
reading the Congressional Record about discussions between
Members 40 years ago, but I did read that, and some things
never change. The conversation was a lot about whether we
should spend any money at all, and Representative Fascell was
arguing for why this was a good idea, and Mr. Gross from Iowa
was saying, I don't think any of these candidates that I see
coming on the scene in 1964 are going to have any trouble
buying their next sandwich, so why do we have to give them any
money? Things are funny how they go. They seem not to change no
matter how much time goes by.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. You're quite welcome.
I now yield to the lawyers now on our side; that is, the
vice chairman of the subcommittee, Mrs. Biggert, the
gentlewoman from Illinois.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The chairman referenced the memo from John Podesta of
November 13, 2000. Do you know who he consulted with before
that memo was issued?
Mr. Barram. Who the chief of staff consulted with? No, I do
not know.
Mrs. Biggert. OK. But it was sent to all the executive
agencies?
Mr. Barram. Yes.
Mrs. Biggert. And you received that?
Mr. Barram. Yes.
Mrs. Biggert. And I know in your testimony you spoke about
the type of assistance that GSA was providing to both the Bush
and the Gore teams. Could you be a little more specific about
what is actually being done right now?
Mr. Barram. Well, we have had extensive conversations--we
have a woman named June Huber, who is our career executive who
is leading the GSA transition activity. She has been in
constant contact with Clay Johnson and Roy Neel, and other
members of the two transition teams for a couple of months,
maybe 3 months now, to do a couple things; one, to make sure
that each of them would have the kind of productive work space
that they want. So we've been working and talking to them about
that.
Mrs. Biggert. But one of the things that Governor Sununu
mentioned, that it's very hard when you don't have the keys to
the office and you don't have the space, and you have to maybe
go from lawyer's office to lawyer's office, so there really is
no physical space available that these transition teams could
have.
Mr. Barram. There's no government-provided transition
space.
Mrs. Biggert. Are you aware that they have a transition
space where this is accomplished, then, if you've been meeting
with these people?
Mr. Barram. You mean the space in Virginia that----
Mrs. Biggert. Yes.
Mr. Barram. Yes, I am aware that they have some space.
Mr. Horn. Could I take that point, if I might? The space
you were going to give either one, I believe, is the one where
the Y2K effort of Mr. Koskinen occurred?
Mr. Barram. Right.
Mr. Horn. I was told by a reporter when he leased that
space, it was a $50 million operation. I said, you've got to be
kidding. Now, how long is that lease? Is anybody in it now?
Mr. Barram. Nobody's in it now.
Mr. Horn. And if it's empty, why couldn't we move people
into it now, because we aren't going to spend much money? I
think you've already got a lease with that building. Who does
own the building?
Mr. Barram. GSA has a lease for that space, 90,000 square
feet, which we are planning to turn over to a transition team
soon.
Mr. Horn. What does that 90,000 square feet cost?
Mr. Barram. I think we're projecting $700,000 during that
period of time.
Mr. Horn. $700,000 over what period?
Mr. Barram. I think it's 'til 30 days after the
inauguration. That's correct.
Mr. Horn. Well, Y2K was over as of January 1999, going on
2000. Was that just a long-term lease even though we didn't
have any use for it?
Mr. Barram. I don't think I know the answer. Nobody was in
that space for a period of time.
Ms. Katzen. I can tell you that the Y2K facility, known as
the ICC, was used through at least late May, early June. There
was the problem not only of the December 31 date change, but
also concerns about what would happen with leap year. And then
there was some other problem that the technical people were
concerned about. We started backing out of the space and moving
things out, but I don't think it was until at least end of May,
early June that the Y2K effort relinquished control of that
space.
Mr. Horn. Who was put in it?
Mr. Barram. From May until now I don't think anybody. We
have a 10-year lease with that building, I am told, and we have
follow-on tenants in mind to go in there.
Mr. Horn. So the lease is already being paid regardless who
is in it. So conceivably you could move at least one of the
``Presidents-elect,'' that have come along and give them the
space at $1 a week or something? Because, I think it's not very
smart for anybody to be putting their hand out to have various
people want influence and this kind of thing because that's the
way it will look from some nitpickiness, as Mr. Sununu said, I
think, or somebody said it, that a nitpicking member of the
press might take it that way.
Mr. Turley. Mr. Chairman, can I just interrupt for 1
second, before the Administrator leaves, I was handed a note
that says that the Supreme Court has apparently ruled
unanimously for Bush. I thought that might be relevant--your
staff may want to confirm it before the Administrator leaves--
to see how that would affect his decision not to designate
President Bush as the President-elect.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Chairman, if I might interject. We have not
seen the decision from the Supreme Court, and I am not quite
sure it's fair to Mr. Barram to put the him on the spot.
Mr. Turley. I didn't mean to put him on the spot, but I
expect this is a contingency that he might have thought of. If
it's true, I thought it would be a relevant question.
Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Chairman, could I reclaim my time?
Mr. Horn. Yes. Go ahead. I apologize for taking so much of
it.
Mrs. Biggert. I would like to ask Mrs. Katzen also about
the detail of assistance, but do you know whether John Podesta
acted in consultation with the President as far as his memo?
Ms. Katzen. I do not know.
Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Barram, you don't know?
Mr. Barram. No.
Mrs. Biggert. Could you then return to a little more
specifics on the type of assistance that is being given to the
transition teams?
Mr. Barram. There are a lot of things that any enterprise
doing what they're going to do needs to deal with. How do you
pay your people? What kind of personnel services do you need?
How do you lay out space? What kind of technology support do
you need? For example, normal course of events would be for a
tenant to plan to go into a space, and we would work with them
to lay out the space. Doing it fast it might take 4, 5, or 6
days. What we have talked to both camps about is let's talk
about how you might want to configure it if you were going to
go in tomorrow.
So we are trying to do those kind of things in advance.
We've talked to them about what kind of resume managing system
would they like to have? How do you want the telephones to
work? You asked me for specifics. What kind of domain name do
you want on your e-mail addresses so we don't have to spend an
hour or 3 hours or 2 days getting that simple thing fixed up?
And that has nothing to do with ascertaining an apparent
winner. It's just mechanical, logistic stuff that we ought to
do in advance.
Mrs. Biggert. What about, then, briefings on foreign
affairs or things that might be security complications? Is this
part of your job?
Mr. Barram. GSA's responsibility is to prepare the space,
provide the support. Those kind of things you talked about are
the purview of the relevant governmental agency.
Mrs. Biggert. Are you aware of what the other Federal
agencies are doing then in this context?
Mr. Barram. I know that I'm aware that they're doing it. I
couldn't give you specifics about what each agency is doing. I
know that we at GSA have prepared a very extensive briefing
book. We think we can tell our story to the people that want to
know very quickly and efficiently.
Mrs. Biggert. Have those books been delivered to both?
Mr. Barram. The books haven't been delivered yet.
Mrs. Biggert. So they're waiting--you're waiting until
there is an apparent winner.
Mr. Barram. Yes.
Mrs. Biggert. So really the only thing that has been done
is what?
Mr. Barram. I've tried to explain all the things that we
have done in preparation for the transition. We have the
building space ready. We have worked very hard on the----
Mrs. Biggert. But there's been no actual contact where
you've actually sat down with the teams?
Mr. Barram. I don't want to say no to that because we have
spent a lot of time with the teams, but I think your question
is have you started with the briefings with those teams, and
the answer is no.
Mrs. Biggert. And, Mrs. Katzen, you would say the same
thing as far as what you're doing?
Ms. Katzen. I would make two different comments. First,
with respect to national security, immediately after the
conventions arrangements were made to have national security
briefings for both candidates. The question of whether that was
sufficient was raised, I think, by Mr. Card in a conversation
with Mr. Podesta. The White House press secretary, Jake
Siewert, announced at the end of last week the White House was
that prepared to provide more detailed national security
briefings to both parties, leading me to conclude that, where
there is a time-sensitive matter requiring immediate
consultation, we will be able to work our way through the
problem.
So in response to your question, I do think on the national
security front that more information is being shared with both
of the candidates. Second is that we have----
Mrs. Biggert. How is that being done?
Ms. Katzen. I don't know. It involes national security, so
it would probably be handled through the National Security
Advisor who was responsible for the briefings of both the
Governor and Vice President's offices after the conventions.
But the details of the arrangements have not been shared with
me.
The second comment is that the OMB briefing books, which
are quite voluminous, hopefully will be very helpful. I took
some comfort from the unanimity of opinion on the preceding
panel that it was important for the new people to listen to the
incumbents as they describe some of the problems they had faced
and some of the solutions they had thought of and were
pursuing. But those books are in the final stages of
preparation, and we are prepared to provide those at the
appropriate time.
My own experience with the 1992-1993 transition was that
kind of information wasn't really made available until late
December or early January in some instances, but I think it
would be desirable in a perfect world for us to do it sooner
rather than later.
Mrs. Biggert. So the kind of assistance or information that
is given to Presidential candidates would not include these
types of briefings since they have not been delivered; is that
correct?
Ms. Katzen. That's correct.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. We thank you.
Before we leave that question that we posed, that Mrs.
Biggert and I posed to Mr. Barram, I did not have a chance, as
the other representative of the administration, Mrs. Katzen,
are you familiar with the November 13 memorandum from Mr.
Podesta?
Ms. Katzen. Yes.
Mr. Horn. Did he consult you?
Ms. Katzen. No.
Mr. Horn. Did the President consult you?
Ms. Katzen. No.
Mr. Horn. Because we're told that both of them consulted
each other as you would think, the President's chief of staff
would certainly ask the President on a delicate thing. But you
weren't one of them that was consulted on this?
Ms. Katzen. That's correct.
Mr. Horn. OK. Because we're told that they all down there
have consulted on it. They just won't admit it. So I was
curious. Neither one of you claim that anybody asked you and
you weren't consulted.
Ms. Katzen. I would have to say that it is not customary
for Mr. Podesta, the chief of staff, to consult me on each of
the memos that he sends to the agency heads. So I had not
expected to be consulted on this document.
Mr. Horn. Well, I would think that when you're talking
Presidential transition, that cuts across the whole board. It
isn't just one or two. So, OK, we will now move to Mr.----
Mr. Turner. I have one.
Mr. Horn. Sure. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. I want to inquire as to one matter that caught
my attention and it hasn't been mentioned yet today, and that
is that in 1988 the Presidential Transition's Effectiveness Act
which amended the original bill, required the disclosure of
private contributions for purposes of transition. Prior to that
time, there was no disclosure of any privately donated funds
used by any President-elect or Vice President-elect. And I
noted that in an answer to a question propounded by the
committee you mentioned that the Clinton administration
actually expended $5.2 million in transition expenses from
private sources which were disclosed according to law. So I
gather it's not all that unusual to have President-elects
expending private funds during the transition period.
Mr. Barram. We only had one really significant transition
since 1988. So in the transition from Reagan to Bush there was
a relatively small amount raised that I noted, and in the
Clinton transition there was $5 million. I forget whatever the
number was I wrote in the answer. So that's the sample.
Mr. Turner. Does this include expenses such as those raised
for inaugural parties and those kind of things, or are we
strictly talking about transition expenses as we've been
talking about?
Mr. Barram. Transition only. Inaugural is another kettle of
fish.
Mr. Ink. Before 1963, that's the way they raised money was
through private resources. However, I think everybody will
agree that was not the desirable route to follow.
Mr. Turner. And I can appreciate that.
Now in 1992 during the Clinton transition where we were
expending according to your numbers, $5.2 million in private
funds, the Federal Government had appropriated $3.5 million for
that purpose. Fortunately, we have increased that amount in the
Presidential Transition Act appropriations effective for this
year to $7.1 million. So at least we double the amount that the
Federal Government is willing to pay to assist in the
transition. But obviously, when Clinton took office in 1992,
the $3.5 million must not have been enough to pay for the
expenses of transition since $5.2 million in additional donated
funds came in to accomplish that task.
Mr. Barram. I wasn't here. If Mark Gearan were still here,
he might tell us what they spent it on, why they needed it. But
things are expensive and there's a lot of work to be done.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. The gentleman from California, Mr. Ose.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to examine
something here. Mr. Barram, excuse me. I don't know if it was
Mrs. Katzen or Mr. Barram. One of you indicated that we've got
a 10-year lease on 90,000 square feet costing $50 million.
Mr. Barram. I didn't say $50 million.
Mr. Horn. No, I said that, what a reporter told me when Mr.
Koskinen had him in.
Ms. Katzen. That was the total cost for the entire
operation, which included not only the space, but also all of
the fitting out, and all of the contractors who were hired to
work for approximately 6 to 9 months, if not a year, before the
date change. The whole ICC was estimated initially to be $50
million; it was not the space alone.
Mr. Ose. So you had interior improvements, partitions,
demountable and otherwise, put in within the $50 million. The
question I have, this is finished space, this is carpets,
walls, all this stuff.
Mr. Barram. Yes, but every time you change tenants, you
change a few things here and there. And in the case of the Y2K,
there was a lot of equipment that was taken out. So we had to
redo some of the space. So yeah, we've done a little bit of
that.
Mr. Ose. Have we done any of that since late May early
June?
Mr. Barram. In the days up to the election, we were getting
that space fitted out.
Mr. Ose. In anticipation of someone occupying it?
Mr. Barram. Yes.
Mr. Ose. So you've had the space planning done?
Mr. Barram. Well, there are two parts to space planning.
We've had the big spaces available. But once a tenant wants to
go in, he's going to want offices in a certain configuration
and technology lines drawn a certain way. We tried to
anticipate as much of that as we can, make it simple, like we
do for all our tenants, but there's still some of that work
that has to be done.
Mr. Ose. Have either of the campaigns given you any space
planning parameters?
Mr. Barram. We have talked with them. Only the basics, but
not the details, and that's what we have been talking about
with them, even in the last week, about--can you be more
specific so we can be ready to hit the ground with you.
Mr. Ose. This is the issue that I'm trying to get at. Once
we determine who wins or who won, then you have the space
planning process. And from my experience that can be rather
lengthy, and then you have your construction period. Tell me
how that's going to work.
Mr. Barram. These days with modular furniture and moveable
walls, and if we have CAD systems that help us design space
much faster, we think we can do this in a very short period of
time. We're talking hours and days, not days and weeks. This
should not be a gating factor to somebody being efficient.
We're trying everything we can to make sure that doesn't
happen.
Mr. Ose. That's what I was trying to get at. I have another
question, Mr. Chairman, if I might.
Mr. Horn. Certainly.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Turner referenced the act itself, and I asked
this question earlier about a bar to who might be provided this
assistance, and I'm looking at the act, and I followed Mr.
Turner when he read it and he read it word for word, but
there's nothing in here. In fact, it refers in the plural to
the apparent successful candidates.
Mr. Barram. That's Vice President and President. That's why
it's plural, I think.
Mr. Ose. Then it refers in the plural to such persons as
are the apparent successful candidates, and I suggest within
the body of the Congress, you might have some disagreement as
to who are the successful candidates, but I'm just trying to
find a way that we can start the ball rolling for whomever
wins. And with all due respect, I see Mr. Gerson shaking his
head.
Mr. Gerson. I wish you were right, I really do, because
what you're suggesting is entirely reasonable. But what I think
I heard the Administrator say, and I believe I heard him
correctly, he is correct that the operative terms ``President-
elect'' and ``Vice President-elect'' are then defined as such
persons as are the apparent successful candidates. That's the
way that the statute reads. Let me say in saying that I'm a
textural literalist. I believe in following the plain meaning.
I think the Administrator could have come to a different
decision. On the other hand, I think if you want to do the
thing that you want to do, you can do one or both of two
things. One, you can change the statute for the future; and
two, the House can deal with it as a special appropriations
matter as you are still in session. But I think that even
though we are on opposite sides of the track on much of this,
the Administrator's reading of the literal words of the statute
is correct. As I said, I don't think he applied the term
correctly, but in that regard ``persons'' means President and
Vice President. I don't think there is a doubt about it.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Chairman, when we get around to considering
this, I would suggest that the word ``apparent'' offers the
opportunity for an interpretation that would allow at this
juncture, in a circumstance such as we've enjoyed today, so to
speak, it would allow the apparent candidates to have access to
this space. Somehow or another the business of the country has
to be addressed. This has to move. I mean, this is the United
States of America that we're talking about.
Mr. Horn. Well, I agree with you, especially when the space
is already leased. There isn't an extension just for the
President-elect and Vice President-elect. They've got the
space.
Mr. Ose. If we have to, I'll go out there with my Magic
Marker and I'll draw a line down the middle of the room, and
we'll put one on one side and the other on the other. I don't
care. But somehow or another we've got to break this.
Mr. Horn. In the British tradition of a shadow cabinet.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Any questions from my colleagues before we move
down the line with Mr. Gerson. We don't want to lose the
precious talent we've got here. We might run through this
several times in the next few decades. Anything to add, Mr.
Gerson.
Mr. Gerson. Not at this time.
Mr. Horn. OK. We'll start with Mr. Light then.
Mr. Gerson. Oh, I'm sorry. You meant in terms of
additional----
Mr. Horn. I'm sorry.
Mr. Gerson. I would like to say something if I could.
Mr. Horn. Yeah, go ahead.
Mr. Gerson. I would address what I think were the real
questions. Let me note at the outset two things, that there's a
certain symmetry in my following, Mrs. Katzen. We have been
opponents, we've been colleagues, but at the end of all of
this, like Mr. Ose's daughters, we'll still be the same. We'll
still be friends. And I say also while I'm here in a purely
private capacity, I know that the Bush/Cheney camp bears no ill
will to the Administrator whom they believe is trying his
mightiest, given the way he reads the statute and is providing
a substantial assistance within the bounds that he feels he
can. So I want to make that clear as well. He's not on the
spot. I think it's all of us who are. While I respectfully
disagree with him, I certainly think that he's acting
honorably.
In sum, it's my view that this subcommittee will likely
want to consider clarifying amendments to the act. I believe
that the act already provides the authority and the obligation
to the Administrator to fund and support the transition to the
administration led by Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney, whom
I believe are the apparent winners of the 2000 election. At the
same time, given the vagaries of the statute and the dearth of
definitional guidance that has been provided, it is
understandable why the Administrator has been reticent in
committing to the expenditure of resources at this time. We've
learned a lot in recent weeks that we didn't think we needed to
know about in regard to the conduct of elections, and the very
narrow question that brings this particular panel together fits
into that category.
I would say, though, at the outset that I think the
questions addressed to the previous panel are at least as
important, perhaps more important with regard to the need for
collegiality in the actual transition. It was in this room
while I was serving as the acting attorney general at the
beginning of the Clinton administration that a now-departed
Member of Congress, he's still alive but he's no longer a
Member of the Congress, said under the watchful eye of Mr.
Brooks, with whom I had actually consulted on the issue that
this other fellow thought was so controversial. He said, I
thought we had an election to get rid of people like that, Mr.
Gerson, who still seems to think that he's running something.
That aside, the need for collegiality between ingoing and
outgoing administrations cannot be underestimated. At the same
time, though, I think John Sununu was absolutely correct in
saying you need the facilities in order to get it done too, and
I think that's an important issue.
In all of the functions that encompass a transition--I've
been involved in several on either side as part of an incoming
administration, on part of an outgoing administration and then
sort of with my feet in both camps in 1992, 1993 it's readily
apparent that the national interest is best served by a
vigorous transition effort that begins early and allows an
incoming administration to gain mastery of the activities of
the governmental departments and put in place the competent
individuals able to serve the public forcefully and properly
starting on day one, the day that the administration formally
takes office.
The understanding of this need for promptness pervades the
legislative history of the act. And recent history has shown
especially where there is a change of governing political
parties, that this is a matter of continuing national
importance.
The Act defines the operative term ``President-elect'' and
``Vice President-elect'' as the apparent successful candidates.
And here, Mr. Ose, I wanted to address in a different way, I
think, the point that you very legitimately are trying to
raise. The use of the conditional word apparent as opposed to
some other word voted in by the electoral college or something
else, strongly suggests that the drafters of the statute knew
that the Administrator's determination could be upset by
subsequent events both related to the electoral process and
otherwise. Given the use of that term in the statute, I suggest
respectfully that the Administrator could have determined that
the Bush-Cheney ticket were the apparently successful
contestants once the election returns in Florida were so
certified by the secretary of state of Florida. At that point,
the ticket had apparently 271 electoral votes, a majority
sufficient to assure ultimate election.
In declining to proclaim the success of the Republican
ticket, the Administrator has cited a number of things, one of
which was the exchange that Mr. Turner pointed out in his
questioning between Mr. Fascell and his interlocutor. These
exchanges exist, but that doesn't substitute for what actually
gets written into a statute. And what the statute said is
something that's conditional that is subject to opinion and to
determination.
Now, again, I respect the decision that the Administrator
has made, while I might disagree with it, and hence, I think
that there are things that you might want to address. One is
changing the nature of this altogether, and creating a statute
or changing the statute to the point that it can encompass the
events that we have today, an election which the sum is too
close to call, which it certainly has equivocal aspects to it
where it makes all the sense in the world for the very points
that have been made since Lyndon Johnson himself was the
majority leader of the Senate, and so spoke to this very bill,
that you need to get running early, quick and hard, and that's
one thing that you might wish to do.
The second thing, of course, is to change the definition to
something clearer. And the third is to alter or remove this
idea, that there is discretion in the Administrator that is
otherwise unreviewable. Now, I don't know how a court would
determine it. We've had too many lawsuits, and nobody is
suggesting that anybody sue anybody, but there ought to be
clearer guidance, and it ought to be clear that there is at
least a potentially reviewable external decision that would
allow for the encompassing of the vagary of the term that the
Congress itself chose, ``apparent,'' not absolute, not
scientifically certain, clinically certain or anything else but
apparent. With that, I ask that my formal remarks be made a
part of the record and I thank the chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gerson follows:]
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Mr. Horn. I might say, and I should have the minute we
introduce you, that your full remarks are automatically put in
the record.
What's concerned me on some of this is several weeks ago
after the election, and after a number of States did get most
of their ballots through the system, Mr. Card, the designated
chief of staff by Governor Bush, phoned the White House and
never got any answers for a long time. Now, apparently, that's
changed. But what worries me is, are they just trying to make
life tough for their successor? It seems to me that when they
raised $5 million or so back in 1993 to do a lot of this, they
certainly ought to know what the problems were. And I would
think that they would try to get a lawyer that put a broad
stretch to this law. It might not be as clear as it should be,
but just say hey, let's give them the space.
Mr. Gerson. Well, I don't disagree. Ms. Katzen is from OMB,
and she knows more about the expenditure of public funds than I
do. But conceivably, if you're looking to push the envelope a
little bit, that might relate to the ability, for example, of
GSA to lease the space at a marginal rate, given the real
estate realities that two or three members of this subcommittee
have already pointed out. There may be other ways to address
it. I want to be clear that what I'm addressing is this
statute, and I think it does have problems, and we're
experiencing those problems. That's not to say that there are
not some interstitial solutions that might practically be
available, the press and other inquirers notwithstanding, I
think we all know how the public interest best would be served,
and that would be to provide as much information to whomever
might be the incoming administration as is usually possible to
do.
Ms. Katzen. Mr. Horn, I simply wanted to respond to the
speculation that there may be some thought in the west wing
that we should make it more difficult for the incoming
administration. And I have to unequivocally and absolutely say
that is not the case. The President made it very clear before
the election that he wanted to make the transition as smooth,
as helpful, as constructive as possible. You heard during the
earlier panel discussions about there not being computers in
the west wing in 1993 and in some of the other Executive Office
of the President facilities. You heard about a number of other
things that did cause us problems, and the President was
determined that this would be a constructive, helpful,
supportive transition. Any thought that any action that we are
taking is designed to make it tough on the new guys is just not
founded.
Mr. Horn. Well, I'm sure they are when they work for you,
but there's a lot of people around this place downtown.
So, let's see, any other questions on this? Then we'll move
to Mr. Light. Oh, go ahead. The gentlewoman from Illinois, Mrs.
Biggert.
Mrs. Biggert. One thing is that if either the Bush team or
the Gore team is using their own finances to do this, and then
later becomes the President-elect, will they be reimbursed for
funds that have been used, private funds that have been
reimbursed?
Mr. Barram. The law is I think clear that you can't--until
the Administrator ascertains the apparent winner, money cannot
be expended. So money spent before couldn't be reimbursed. One
of the things that I comfort myself with as a citizen is that
in lieu of the conversation earlier about how much money the
Bush team is going to raise and the Gore team would raise, I
imagine to supplement the amount of money that you have
appropriated, hopefully it will settle out soon enough so that
money will get to be spent on the front half. We'll see.
Mrs. Biggert. Would you recommend clarifying that law or do
you think that it's proper the way it is?
Mr. Barram. Oh, sure. If you want my personal opinion, I'm
not hung up on the ability of the Administrator to make and
ascertain an apparent winner. I think the real serious issue in
America is the kind of voting machines that we have. So that is
something to worry about.
I would also be happy if the Congress were to tackle the
question that Mr. Ose was raising, and others, that there ought
to be a way to split this money and have enough available in
this unusual circumstance. You know, Representative Fascell was
right; it's unusual for this to happen. It isn't going to
happen that many more times. So you don't get to burden
yourself thinking if we had twice as much available in this
kind of a situation that we're going to be breaking the
Republic. It's not going to happen that way. I just think the
law makes it impossible for me to do anything that, to use Mr.
Gerson's words, would be common sense.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. Let's hope it doesn't happen again
soon.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. We now get to Paul Light,
director, Center for Public Service at the Brookings
Institution. Mr. Light is probably one of the finest
commentators on the executive branch in the country. So we look
for your wisdom.
Mr. Light. Well, I'm afraid to say right off the bat that
we're now looking at another statute that I encountered earlier
in my career and worked on as a staff member of the Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Light, can you move that microphone closer,
please?
Mr. Light. I guess we're now on. I was saying that this is
another statute that I worked on earlier in my career as a
staffer for Senate Governmental Affairs. And I don't recall
ever having looked at the apparent successful candidates
problem. We didn't think it would come up. We didn't focus
attention on it at all. We embedded in the 1988 Presidential
Transitions Effectiveness Act disclosure requirements as a
condition of taking transition funds, the President-elect and
Vice President-elect would agree to disclose the sources and
purposes of their private fundraising. And luckily, Governor
Bush and Secretary Cheney have agreed to disclose, even though
they don't have to.
I should acknowledge at the very beginning here that we
wouldn't be arguing so much about the value of this space for
the transition if GSA hadn't done such a terrific job in
developing and preparing this space. If this space were down at
the Navy Yard and it hadn't been done so well, I'm suspecting
that we might have a transition elsewhere anyway. June Huber
and her staff have done a terrific job and the Administrator is
to be congratulated for his leadership in pushing the agency to
be prepared on time.
I should say that, you know, in 1988 when we did have the
Transitions Effectiveness Act hearings Dante, Fascell did
testify. His testimony showed the primary purposes of the 1963
act again to be that we have a prompt start to the transition,
that we move quickly to provide the President and Vice
President-elect access to resources that could help them get a
hold of government. It was also designed to drive private
funding out of the transition business. The authors of the 1963
act worried about the amounts of private fundraising going on
and they thought it was untoward that the President-elect
should be in that business.
I do not believe we are yet at a crisis point in the
transition. We would have spent the last 3 weeks doing the
enrollments, getting things set up, picking the Cabinet
members, but we are reaching the point of crisis. I believe
within the next half week to week and a half, we are at a point
where action to basically define the apparent successful
candidates will be needed if we're to have a successful
transition and successful first year in government.
I should say that our primary concern at the Brookings
Institution and at the Presidential Appointee Initiative which
is housed at Brookings is the appointments process; that delays
currently in the startup of the transition have a multiplier
effect further on down the line. There will be no difficulty
here with the President-elect, Vice President-elect, nominating
and securing the confirmation of their Cabinet secretaries and
senior-most officers. That's not the problem. The problem is
not at the very top of the Federal Government in terms of the
appointments process. The problem is at the second, third,
fourth, and fifth vertebrae of the Federal hierarchy where you
have an onslaught of positions that you need to fill in order
to take firm hold of the Federal establishment. That is the
deputy secretaries, under secretaries, assistant secretaries,
and Administrators who occupy the neck of the Federal
Government.
As I've said elsewhere, we are at risk not of having a
headless Federal Government next year but a neckless Federal
Government, meaning that we won't have the connections between
the leadership of the Federal hierarchy and the career work
force. I think that is a serious problem which should motivate
us as we try to resolve this dispute.
In my testimony I take a look at the legislative record. I
am not a legal scholar, I'm a legislative scholar. My reading
of the record is that the Administrator could have made two
choices last week, both of which would have been fine. He could
have made the decision to allow the transition to begin. I
believe that he had the statutory authority to do so, and I
believe there's embedded in the statute and in the record
appropriate support for deciding that there were apparent
successful candidates that he could let the transition begin. I
also believe that he could have denied the transition funding,
as he did, but not for the reasons that have been embedded in
the ongoing conversation of these last few days.
I do not believe it is an appropriate reason for denying
transition support that we just have a close election; for in
fact, the drafters of the statute had just been through one of
the closest elections in American history, and Dante Fascell,
every time the discussion turned to the issue of doubt about
close elections, when the conversation turned to the issue of
allowing the Administrator authority when he had a doubt to say
no, Dante Fascell talked about the fact that there had only
been three close elections in America in the whole of American
history.
I believe by that statement the representative from Florida
qualified the authority to deny funding in close elections.
Closeness by itself did not create the presence of a demand
that you not release the transition funds. It was closeness of
a type. I believe the Administrator does have the authority to
deny transition funds in the close election, but he needs to
make painfully clear exactly what the conditions are in a way
that does not allow future losing candidates to deny the
transition funds by merely contesting an election.
That's not to say that the Gore contest is ill founded.
It's to say that we need a definition of apparent successful
candidates that does not put the power in the hands of the
losing candidate to deny the beginning of a transition that the
drafters of this bill felt was so important to taking hold of
government. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Light follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you. Are there any questions? The gentleman
from Texas, Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. I was just reading Mr. Fascell's testimony or
his remarks in the debate as you were referring to him there.
And I may have missed a little bit of what you said, but it did
strike me in reading the full description of the debate that
one of the issues that was discussed in some detail was the
concept raised by Congressman Haley that in fact under the
Constitution, the President-elect and Vice President-elect are
determined officially after the electoral votes are counted in
the Congress.
And so it seems to me that one of the purposes of the 1963
legislation was to enable someone who was the apparent winner
to begin to receive funds prior to that date. But it does also
seem logical to assume that the use of the word ``apparent''
was designed to remedy what would otherwise be a problem if we
said that we're going to provide transition funds to the
President-elect, who is in fact only determined when the
electoral votes are counted by the Congress.
So, and I read the reference that was mentioned with regard
to there being only three close election situations that you
referred to, but it was only a sentence after that where Mr.
Fascell made the statement in which he said ``if it were to
happen, if the administrator had any question in his mind, he
simply would not make any designation in order to make the
services available as provided by the Act. If as an intelligent
human being, and he has a doubt, he would not act until a
decision has been made in the electoral college or in the
Congress.''
In another section of that debate the question is raised,
which perhaps is the question that we haven't talked about here
but is so obviously apparent, when Congressman Haley said,
``And if there is any doubt in his mind, and if he cannot and
does not designate the apparently successful candidate, then
the act is inoperative. He cannot do anything. There will be no
services provided, no money expended.'' Mr. Fascell says,
``certainly.''
Mr. Gross in this debate asked the question which I think
is perhaps on all of our minds. He says, does not the
gentleman--referring to Mr. Fascell--think that those
designated as President and Vice President by the present
Administrator of General Services would be given psychological
or other advantages by designating them as President and Vice
President? Mr. Fascell says, ``I do not think so, because if
they were unable at the time to determine the successful
candidates, this act would not be operative. Therefore, in a
close contest, the Administrator simply would not make the
decision.''
So it seems just from reading the totality of the testimony
that what the words ``apparent President-elect'' meant was that
it would be apparent to one of common intelligence as to who
the winner is; and if there was any doubt in the mind of the
Administrator where there is discretion placed, then he would
simply not make the decision.
Now, that may not be the best outcome, and I certainly
agree with my colleagues who suggested that perhaps we ought to
look at amending the act to allow some funds to flow to both
candidates in this very difficult circumstance. But I certainly
can understand where Mr. Barram came up with his conclusion not
to expend public funds in a circumstance as clear as this bill
seems to be to me.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Light. I wish that Representative Fascell had not,
after saying these things, said that there were only three such
situations in history, because that then tempers his broad
grant. Now, it's a thin brew we're dealing with here in
legislative history. We don't have anything in the legislative
record really, the Senate and House reports that accompanied
this legislation, to really give clarity here. All I suggest is
that the Administrator needs to come forward and say one of the
following two things: He needs to say, look, the election of
2000 is like the elections of 1800, 1824, or 1876 in the
following ways, and therefore meets the test of one of the such
close elections, as Representative Fascell said; or it's unlike
the very close election of 1960 in which Jack Kennedy won the
Presidency by 114,000 votes; or it's unlike the election of
1888 in which we had a popular vote winner who lost the
electoral college. That's all the Administrator need do.
The problem for Congress is that it's likely the
Administrator would end up saying the reason why it's like
this--you know, why we can declare this a close election as
Fascell--as Representative Fascell said, is that the loser has
filed a challenge, and that puts the power in--or the apparent
losing candidate, or the possibly losing candidate, or that
somebody has filed a contest, and you end up putting the power
then in the hands of the person who may not be the winner to
deny the transition funds.
I think you need to legislate on that so that in the future
we don't create a situation where people who are behind by very
large distance don't try to tie up the transition in an unfair
or frivolous way.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. I might say just for the record, put in the word
``apparent'' from Random House Unabridged Dictionary, second
edition, 1993, and that's about when you came to town, Mr.
Administrator. And I'm going to give you this and see if you
can find the way to, now that we have a court decision, that
this fine facilities which GSA has, and has a lease on, and is
there, could be utilized. So put that in the record, without
objection, and give it to the Administrator.
It seemed to me--I know you're leaving the GSA and those
were long plans that you had, and we wish you well on that. So
don't go so far. You could make a lot of people happy if you
just said hey, a new factor has been in and we ought to get
this going, because otherwise we are going to be in a mess if
we have to wait until the electoral college is coming up and
that's certainly a major step in the road.
But I just make that as a suggestion, because there's got
to be lawyers in the administration that say yes, because they
sure said yes to a lot of things. And there are also the ``no''
type lawyers, and you know about that. So we need a ``yes''
lawyer as opposed to a ``no'' lawyer.
And anyhow, Mr. Light----
Mr. Barram. Are you suggesting a no lawyer policy?
Mr. Horn. I had long ago suggested that one. But I'm being
delicate this morning.
Mr. Light, we appreciate all your thoughts on this. Mr.
Turley has to leave here and I want to get him in before the
last three witnesses. So, Mr. Turley, go ahead.
Mr. Turley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize that I
have a slight cold.
Mr. Horn. Put the microphone a little closer. And Mr.
Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at the
George Washington University School of Law.
Mr. Turley. I appreciate the indulgence of the committee
and the indulgence of my co-panelists in allowing me to go out
of order. I am sorry that I have to leave the hearing. I am
very honored to have the chance to speak to you on this
subject. It's a subject, obviously, of considerable importance.
I'd like to start out by saying, as with many of the people
at this table, I don't have a dog in this fight. I do have a
considerable academic interest in its outcome. With regard to
its outcome, I should note that I have the opinion of the
Supreme Court here, which was faxed to me during these
proceedings. The Supreme Court indeed did unanimously rule in
favor of Governor Bush in the sense that it has reversed and
sent this issue back to the Florida Supreme Court. That ruling
was very narrow and it turns on the lack of clarity as to
whether there's a Federal question in this issue. So it will be
sent back to the Florida Supreme Court for a determination on
that question.
What that means is that doubt will be prolonged as to who
is the rightful President of the United States. Now, there has
been great discussion about the transition to the Presidency,
and I think that we're at a point today where we have to speak
frankly on that subject. When we had our first transition in
1791 from George Washington to John Adams, the transition was a
relatively modest affair. In 1800 there were less than 4,000
people in the executive branch. Today there's almost 6,000
people in the White House alone. There's over 3 million
civilian employees and there's roughly 140 agencies. The
incoming President has 11 weeks to try to fill the necessary
vacancies in this government to carry out the mandate given to
him by the people.
Governor Bush is at greater peril than Vice President Gore
in this regard. Vice President Gore has the benefit of a
continuity of policy and party. There are also great pressures
upon Governor Bush because of the concerns raised as to the
needs for reform, particularly when it comes to the White
House. I have a recent article in Maryland Law Review detailing
the many issues for transition that have to be looked at as to
the White House alone. Those issues will largely stay in
abeyance during this point of uncertainty.
Ultimately we are left with the Presidential Transition Act
of 1963 and the language of an ``apparent'' successful
candidate. This act is extremely curious and is possibly the
worst statute I have ever read in my career. I direct a
legislative project. If a student had handed me this statute, I
would have sent the paper back without a grade in deference to
that student.
Frankly it is bloody ridiculous to have a constitutional
system that labors through checks and balances as to when we
announce who the President is. We go through a bicameral
process and various contingencies to guarantee in our system
that these significant political questions are dealt with in
the legislative branch. That's where James Madison wanted most
things that divided us to be answered. But weeks before that
decision is made in the electoral college, an unknown Federal
official takes an intestinal check and determines whether he
will announce one candidate is the apparent successor or
another. I submit that's simply absurd. I have no idea why the
law was written this way, except that the law was written for
extremely good constitutional weather and terrain. Ironically,
we have a Constitution that's built for the worst possible
scenarios. It took Congress to write a statute to introduce a
flaw into that system. That's what this statute represents.
I disagree to some extent with the statements made as to
proper interpretation of this statute. Yet, I have great
sympathy with the Administrator. I expect that he probably
would have liked guidance and he would like to do anything to
have this bitter cup pass from his lips.
I also am sympathetic with this subcommittee. This was not
your drafting, and you are dealing with a problem that you
inherited. It's a problem I hope that you will solve. I listed
various possible changes that you can make in legislation to
make this problem go away.
The reason the Supreme Court decision today is relevant is
because the interpretation by the Administrator leaves you with
one obvious question: When do extrinsic actions or rulings get
to the point that an Administrator is satisfied as to the
outcome? That's the problem here. We don't know if the
Administrator is waiting for the Supreme Court. I expect that
he isn't, because at issue in the Supreme Court is not a
determinative question as to who is the President of the United
States. I assume that he is not waiting for the ruling of the
circuit court judge as to Leon County, and I assume he's not
waiting for Seminole County. But that's the question: It's not
clear what we're waiting for. That's the central flaw in the
statute.
What is clear is that our present status is wholly at odds
with the intent of Congress. Congress wanted to avoid these 11
weeks being frittered away when we have very serious business
to get to. It also wanted to avoid the need to raise private
funds. We have now realized both of those dangers in this
crisis. I agree that you cannot divide up the funds. This
Administrator does not have that authority given to him by
Congress. If he makes the decision that he has made, it is not
clear what the judicial review is. This is the first statute
which I have searched to try to find a basis for judicial
review. It's obvious that this would probably go to a fallback
under the APA. But once you go to an APA review, I'm not too
sure what the court would ask. Short of announcing that Ralph
Nader is the apparent President of the United States, I don't
see much of a basis for a court to reverse a decision, even a
bad one by the Administrator.
I will quickly note the three suggestions that I have made
in my written statement. First, this Congress should change the
law so that the GSA Administrator does not make this
determination. The position of the Administrator has no
relevant constitutional or legal function. It should rest
either in the Attorney General or a specially designed
commission.
Second, the Congress should lay out language that clearly
sets forth how we deal with this type of controversy. It can do
that in two ways. It can either allow for a dual-track
transition, which is an easy issue and would be cost efficient.
The government in such circumstance as this could give initial
funding to start the transition. As an alternative, it could
allow a candidate to spend private funds with the understanding
that there is a qualified indemnification provision, so that,
if you are in fact successful in your challenge, the Federal
Government will in fact pay for those costs. We have that
already in some analogous provisions dealing with litigation
and executive branch officers. Either of those would alleviate
out current problems.
Finally, the Congress needs to make these responsibilities
mandatory, and not discretionary, so that we have meaningful
judicial review. I am very encouraged that this subcommittee on
a bipartisan level has recognized that we are in a rather
absurd situation. That absurdity can be rectified. However, I
would note that this is not a weakness in our constitutional
process, which is remarkably strong; it's a weakness because we
tried to improve upon it. We were acting in good faith, but we
acted with the worst possible means. I strongly encourage you
to enact legislation to correct these problems.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Turley follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Mr. Turley, I'd be delighted to have any language
you wish to submit. We won't grade it.
Mr. Turley. I would be delighted to submit it, sir. Thank
you.
Mr. Horn. If you can get it to us this week, we're going to
move on it, or this next 24 hours, so we would appreciate it.
Mr. Turley. I will get it to you within a couple of days,
sir.
Mr. Horn. OK. All right. Thank you. And I know your
colleagues will be handing this up here.
And our next speaker is Todd Zywicki, the associate
professor of law at George Mason University School of Law.
Mr. Zywicki. Thank you Mr. Chairman, distinguished
representatives, it's a pleasure for me to be here to speak on
the Presidential Transition Act of 1963. I'm just a law
professor, I've never participated in a transition like some of
my colleagues have, and if the price tag is $10,000 to $60,000,
I doubt my wife will ever let me undertake such a situation. So
I'm going to just talk on the law.
And as I interpret the Presidential Transition Act of 1963,
unlike some of the other people that have spoken today, I don't
see any ambiguity in this act. I think that it is my opinion
that under the facts of the current situation, the
Administrator's refusal to release the transition resources to
the Bush-Cheney transition team is inconsistent with the
language, the policies, and the scope of the discretion
afforded the Administrator under the act.
We've heard reference to some of these things, but I think
it's worth fleshing them out to understand this. As you said,
the plain language of the act is that the Administrator is
supposed to release the funds to the apparent successful
candidates. ``Apparent successful candidate'' is not a defined
term in the statute. But there are some things that are clear
from the statute and are clear from the congressional debate
surrounding enactment of the statute. First, it is obvious that
the mere fact that contingencies may intervene that may mean
that the apparent candidate is not the actual winning candidate
at the end of the day does not change the fact that the
apparent successful candidate is still the apparent successful
candidate. The legislative history and debates are peppered
with discussions about what happens, for instance, if you have
faithless electors, electors that pledge to vote for one
candidate, and on the day vote for another candidate. Does that
undermine the fact that when they pledge to elect the
President, that this is the apparent successful candidate? No,
it does not. The fact that they may switch their vote does not
undermine the fact that it is in fact an apparent successful
candidate.
As was discussed during the debates, Congressman Fascell
remarks on the close election point, ``The gentleman previously
pointed out in the last election we had one that was as close
as we would want to have an election and nobody had any trouble
in deciding who was the apparent winner.'' During the 1960
election, of course, my understanding is that Richard Nixon had
litigation going in several States, I think I've read as many
as 11 States after the election, recounts were ongoing for
weeks if not months. Florida--or Hawaii didn't complete their
recount until late December. There was litigation and recounts
ongoing for weeks after the 1960 election. And Congressman
Fascell says nobody had any difficulty determining that John
Kennedy was the apparent successful winner in that election.
You can imagine all kind of different contingencies that
might arise in addition to recounts and litigation. You can
imagine, as I said, court challenges, faithless electors, any
variety of contingencies could intercede that would make it
such that the apparent successful winner does not actually turn
out to be the actual winner.
Second, I think under a functional interpretation of the
policies, I don't think we need to dwell on this, but it's
obvious that the apparent successful winner is in fact the
Bush-Cheney team. There are two policies that are embedded in
here. First is for an orderly and speedy transition. Second is
to insulate the process from the appearance of impropriety
arising from having to rely solely on private funding.
Clearly as to the first one, an orderly and speedy
transition, this suggests that there is a one-way street built
into this legislation, that money can be replaced, time cannot.
So that the idea is that there is a reason why we swiftly and
promptly determine who the apparent successful candidate is and
release the money.
Second is concerns about reliance on the private funds. My
understanding is that the Bush-Cheney team has undergone heroic
actions well exceeding what is provided for under the law in
order to prevent that from happening, from actual influence
being a problem. But the perception is what the drafters were
concerned about first. And second they were concerned about the
fundamental unfairness of this--this is a governmental
function. They defined it, the transition, as a governmental
function. It is simply unfair and inappropriate to have that be
held hostage purely to private funds.
So what this all means is that if you look at the
legislative history and the plain language, it is clear what
they have in mind is a majority of pledged or certified
electors is sufficient and mandatorily triggers the apparent
successful candidate provisions of the statute, and the fact
that might later be reversed does not change that result.
Finally, there's been question about the scope of the
Administrator's discretion. I think if you read the statute in
its full context, and the legislative history is clear what we
are talking about, is very, very narrow--narrowly circumscribed
and limited discretion to make a predicate factual finding that
one candidate is the apparent successful candidate. Under
standard--this isn't a court of law, but under standard legal
principles, a factual finding of that sort must be supported by
substantial evidence. There is really--there is certainly no
substantial evidence that anybody other than Governor Bush is
the President-elect. And there is no substantial evidence that
Governor Bush is not the President-elect, given that he has 271
pledged and certified electoral votes.
Also, the Administrator is clearly a primarily ministerial
actor, under this act at least. It is simply absurd to think
that Congress would define the Administrator's obligations
under this act as being ministerial in scope and then give
gigantic discretion on the front end to determine when he has
to release the funds. It is simply in this--to some extent is
related to what Professor Turley said. It is simply not a
reasonable understanding of the statute to think that they
meant for the Administrator to have sort of a free-ranging
portfolio to make that sort of determination.
I see I'm over time, but I might ask if I could have leave
for a minute or two just to comment on some of the other
arguments that have been made with respect to the law.
First, I do agree that regardless of whether or not
Governor Bush is named the President-elect, Vice President Gore
cannot be called that. I don't think there's any basis for
that, which would respond to Congressman Ose's question about
whether or not we could release funds to both. I checked, and
in fact for the Vice President, in response to your question,
Mr. Chairman, the time period does begin 30 days. It was
amended in the 1988 version.
There's an interesting colloquy in the legislative history
that specifically talks about a question to Mr. Fascell was
posed: What if we have a candidate who is three or four votes
shy in the electoral college? And Congressman Fascell
specifically replied ``no,'' if they're basically three or--if
they don't have the majority of the electoral college, there is
no basis for considering such a candidate to be the President-
elect. The clear implication being if they do have a majority,
that it would be appropriate.
Finally on these isolated bits of legislative history that
have been taken out of context, I believe, with respect to what
it means--with respect to a close election, first, I cited the
specific recognition that the 1960 election, where in fact we
had a lot of litigation and other recounts that threatened to
upset the result, was not considered to be the sort of thing
that interfered with the designation of an apparent winner.
Most importantly it's a standard technique of statutory
construction that floor statements, especially isolated floor
statements taken out of context, cannot contradict the plain
language and the reasonable construction of the statute.
I think if you look at the full legislative history in
historical context of this statute, I believe that the
Administrator's reliance on those provisions that he relies on
is simply unfounded. First is the reference, as I said, the
question was posed: What if we have a candidate who's three or
four votes shy of having majority? The response was, Mr.
Fascell's response that the--in that situation the
Administrator would have no discretion to release the funds.
The second one that is relied upon is the one on page
13348, the reference to a close election there, if you read the
question that was posed to that, it had special historical
significance; which is the question that Mr. Fascell was
responding to, was a question of Mr. Gross which says we
apparently have a situation growing up in certain States of the
Union whereby there may be independent electors. That is a
clear reference to the 1960 election and the situation in the
early 1960's.
In the 1960 election, a number of independent Democratic
electors were named who then voted for Harry Byrd rather than
John F. Kennedy for President. It is clear what he was talking
about is electors who are not pledged or certified to any
particular candidate but are running on a position that they
have independent discretion to vote their conscience; the idea
being that then the southern States could then use them to
broker a deal with either the President of either party to
throw their electors to whichever one they thought would give
them what they wanted on the obvious issues that were dividing
the country at that time.
Clearly what this is, again, is a reference to a situation
where you cannot predict that any candidate has a majority of
electors. Both of those situations are references to situations
where no candidate has a majority of pledged or certified
electors. So I think that reference to those close elections is
taken out of context. Read in full context, it supports a
reading that the Administrator is mistaken in this situation
and that the plain language and the policies of the statute
further support that conclusion.
Thank you.
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Mr. Horn. Thank you. Do any of the other members and
especially the Administrator have any thoughts about Professor
Zywicki's testimony? Does it give you some new guidance, Mr.
Administrator.
Mr. Barram. No. I mean, am I going to change at this moment
where I have been in the last few days? No. I listened to him
very carefully and disagree with him on some issues. I don't
think we want to get into that kind of a discussion right now.
He's a law professor, I'm just a business guy.
Mr. Horn. Modesty does not fit. OK. I'll give you the same
invitation I gave to Mr. Turley. If you want to get us some
language in the next 24 hours, we'll be glad to have it.
Mr. Zywicki. I think the statute is fine the way it's
written.
Mr. Barram. I will make one comment if I can, Mr. Chairman.
I don't know how important this is, but I do recall in 1960--
and I am old enough to remember that election--that Richard
Nixon was saying, well into the night, if present trends
continue, you know, John Kennedy will win. I believe he
conceded the next morning or middle of the morning.
Mr. Ink. He did.
Mr. Barram. I think that's a fairly significant event.
Mr. Horn. I think you're right on that one. I'm not aware
of all those other cases they cited. They must have been State
Republican parties because President Nixon's view, which I do
not intend to contend even though we knew Illinois, New Jersey,
and a few other States where there were major fraud. The Senate
Committee on Rules did send an investigator to Chicago, and
when they opened the ballot box carefully labeled, Kennedy 80,
Nixon 2, and there were no ballots at all in the box. So, just
the tally. And I'll never forget that one. The Rules Committee
in the Senate isn't often working on a lot of things, but this
one was fascinating.
Mr. Ink, is that your recollection?
Mr. Ink. Yes.
Mr. Zywicki. My understanding is that the litigation did
continue apace just as the Seminole County litigation in
Florida is not a Gore litigation situation, it's a State
litigation brought by voters in Seminole County but threatens
to upset the election. My understanding, that there was several
States in which litigation did proceed apace and recounts
proceeded at pace, including Hawaii changing their designated
electors, and there was an extremely close election, that those
things did not, in Congressman Fascell's judgment, upset the
ease with which one could be designated--that John F. Kennedy
could be designated the apparent successful candidate in that
election.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Gerson, do you agree with Mr. Zywicki's
testimony?
Mr. Gerson. In part; and in other parts we might disagree a
bit. I mean, Nixon did act in the way that you described, and
the two contests that might have mattered, Illinois and West
Virginia, were withdrawn as a result of what Mr. Nixon
instructed his lieutenants to do at the time. But I don't know
that detracts from the main argument. I don't agree that the
statute is sufficient at this time for the reasons that we're
all discussing.
On the other hand, Professor Zywicki and I do agree that
the Administrator shouldn't have unfettered discretion. And we
also agree that we believe he reached the wrong decision with
the discretion that he has, because ``apparent'' is a
conditional term. And one can say, I believe correctly, that
Governor Bush apparently has 271 pledged electors. I think
that's a fair appraisal of where Professor Zywicki and I might
agree and disagree. I think we probably agree more on the
material aspects of his testimony. I certainly don't agree this
is the worst statute I have seen, though.
Mr. Zywicki. Not my position.
Mr. Horn. Well, I thank you.
We now go to the penultimate witness, Norman J. Ornstein,
resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Policy
Research.
Mr. Ornstein. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I might note
at the start that I spent most of the last couple of years and
intend to spend the next several months codirecting the
Transition to Governing Project done with AEI Brookings and
also in conjunction with the Hoover Institution. We've been
geared up to facilitate a speedy transition. It's been a
frustrating process, to be sure.
I think we have three basic questions here today that we've
had to deal with. The first one, on which we've just had some
lengthy discussion, and which we've just had some lengthy
discussion of whether the Administrator appropriately exercised
his ministerial function. I want to weigh in on that one also.
Then come to two very relevant questions: What can be done
about this situation now; and what, if anything, can be done to
improve the law for the future that will extend beyond this
election to the next ones?
I come down on the side that the Administrator did
appropriately exercise his ministerial function. I've read the
history and read the language and I believe--and here I take
slight issue, which is unusual for me, with my colleague Paul
Light, too. I think that the Congress was very concerned with
the notion of a political judgment being made by a nonpolitical
figure at a delicate time. It was actually I think something
more on the minds of Republicans at the time, partly because
you had Democrats running everything in 1963. Certainly it was
H.R. Gross' concern, the idea that by making a judgment when
there was still a question, a serious question, a real question
that could provide some psychological or other advantages to a
candidate, inappropriately so.
Now, as Paul said, Dante Fascell tried to draw a line. He
said it wasn't going to happen. It doesn't happen very often.
It has happened before clearly in three elections: 1800, 1824,
and 1876. And the question we have today is partly if we're
going to consider those examples and that judgment and what
Congress was talking about, is this election closer to 1800,
1824, 1876, or is it closer to, say, 1960?
To me there's no question that it's much closer to the
former three than the latter. Partly, as we just said, in 1960
you had a concession; you did not have a candidate pursuing
challenges. And if they had, challenges had been pursued, it is
true that 1960 was a close election in popular vote terms, but
where it matters in electoral votes, it was not one State it
was several States. It would have required a parlay from
several States.
We know from our history that Richard Nixon considered
whether or not he would carry out a challenge. For a variety of
reasons, some pragmatic, some ideological, some related to his
basic sense that it would be bad for the country, he decided
not to. The patriotic reasons were a part of it as well. It
would have required a number of challenges with very iffy
outcomes.
What we have here is an election, in which at the moment we
have one candidate with 271 apparent electoral votes, the other
with 267 but with 25 of those electoral votes hanging in the
balance of between one-fiftieth and one one-hundredth of 1
percent of the votes in a State with challenges going forward.
That is not comparable I think to 1960. By all of the
commentary we have around us, it certainly has its parallels in
the past, although it's also unique. So I think the
Administrator acted in a reasonable fashion, even if he might
have acted differently or if he had discretionary authority to
act differently.
Whether it should be handled differently in the future, I
can't for the life of me see why turning this over to the
Attorney General is better than turning it over to the
Administrator of the General Services Administration, when the
whole point of this was to make a judgment not about who the
President was but about when you begin a transition process. It
seems to me it's an appropriate place in which to go.
Now, what do we do about this situation in the more
practical vein? I would urge to you take one action, and that
is this: We now have, I think, a strong desire in the country
and in Washington to move in a bipartisan direction, however we
go. I would urge Mr. Horn and Mr. Turner, when this hearing
ends, to call up Speaker Hastert, Minority Leader Gephardt,
also Majority Leader Lott and Minority Leader Daschle. With
Congress around and people here this week, it seems to me that
you can get an easy amendment to this act, or ought to be able
to within a day or so--I would guess you would have the
President willing and eager to sign it--that allocates these
funds immediately to candidates. Do it now, give them space.
Mr. Horn. That's why we've given the 24 hours bit.
Mr. Ornstein. I think we can act more swiftly than Congress
usually acts now, because it seems to me there is an
overwhelming consensus that ought to be done now and into the
future; that it is in the Nation's interest to beginning a
transition early.
Let me just very quickly address a couple of issues, and I
won't go long. I've done it before in front of the committee
and the subcommittee, and I hope we can do it again. I hope
after this is over or during the remaining weeks of this
session in preparation for next time, you will take an even
broader look at this act. You did some very commendable things
in the last Congress, and I think they are going to have a
strong positive impact.
But I believe we ought to be encouraging a climate in which
transitions begin before the election, in which we not only
encourage but almost mandate the candidates to begin a
transition process before the election is over, to begin a
formal transition process. Right now, and through this contest,
despite a lot of what we hoped to get out there in the dialog
in the country, it's still considered presumptuous to talk
about or to act or to move in different ways before the
election is over. We should start that process and make sure it
can continue.
I would also urge you to look at the possibility of
codifying an action that Attorney General Reno very commendably
took, or at least announced that she would take, just a couple
of days ago. And that is to make sure that the FBI field
investigations of prospective nominees take place, begin before
those nominations are formally made. It seems to me there is an
easy way to do this, if a President-elect, or even in a
situation like this where there may be even the slightest
question, puts forward a list of potential nominees with the
approval of those people--you don't want investigations going
on for the wrong reasons--that the FBI should know clearly in
advance that it can begin that process, so that we can minimize
the delays going forward.
I would hope what would flow from that as well is we would
do a full-scale investigation of all the impediments in place
to get Presidential appointees into those offices as early as
possible. We have a lot of suggestions out there on the table,
some of which go back a few years to the 20th Century Funds
Task Force, some of which I and my colleagues have made and you
could do no greater service to the country than to move on
those as well.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. I ask the gentleman from Texas, the
ranking member, Mr. Turner, if he has some questions of the
panelists.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ornstein, obviously from being here and hearing my
remarks, you know that I concur with your analysis regarding
the authority of the Administrator and what the statute directs
him to do or not to do. The one thing that did pique my
interest about your suggestions for the future--and I certainly
concur that we could amend the statute immediately--be able to
fund both candidates in transition under these types of
circumstances and should do so. But you have suggested that we
go further and provide some transitional funding for candidates
prior to the November election day. I'm not sure I understand
why you think that is as critical or appropriate as funding the
successful candidates, or the candidates, both of whom may be
successful after election day.
Mr. Ornstein. Well, just briefly, Mr. Turner, I think what
happens now is that for all kinds of reasons, Presidential
candidates don't want to take the time or feel it's
inappropriate to talk about or to plan, other than
surreptitiously, a transition in advance. Now we do have the
candidates pick transition directors. They tried to operate
below the radar screen. What ends up happening is a President-
elect often doesn't really start thinking about this process
until the day after the election, or sometimes later, and at
point at which he's entirely exhausted, when there is no other
strong incentive to really move rapidly.
A lot of things could be in place earlier. And not only
that, I think it's good and important for the country to
recognize that a transition is a meaningful exercise. It isn't
just something we watch idly as we see a new person begin to
ease into the Presidency, but involves serious, tangible steps
for governing.
We need to focus more on governing during the campaign.
Candidates should focus more on governing. And it's useful to
find ways structurally to build that into the process. I think,
given what we know, given that the last couple of Presidencies,
the number of months that it takes just to get the Senate-
confirmable appointees in place when you start just the day
after the election, we need to cut that back. If we can begin
to hit the ground running even before the election, it wouldn't
hurt.
Mr. Gerson. May I dissent slightly from something Mr.
Ornstein just said? I think this committee will be able to come
up with suitable language that deals with the situation post-
election that we have today, as I have. I reiterate that and
urge the committee, the subcommittee, to do so. But I think you
are running into great danger if you extend that sort of
license to a time before the election. We've had third parties
in the last two elections that have had a meaningful effect on
the outcome. And I hesitate to want to ever be involved in the
kind of litigation that one would face as to preelection
funding of such an operation, especially when some third-party
candidate might allege that his or her campaign is the linchpin
future policy.
And from a theoretical standpoint, I think it would be
unwise for the legislative process in terms of funding to
supplant what the parties properly should do in advance of the
election in defining the direction of their candidate, or the
candidate in defining the direction of the party.
And so, while I think Mr. Ornstein's suggestion is laudable
from election day on, where we have a suitably close race, that
one can say rationally that there is at least the potentiality
for alternative candidates ultimately to become President, I
wouldn't go beyond it.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Light.
Mr. Light. I would say back in 1988 we did have provisions
in the Presidential Transition Effectiveness Act for doing
exactly what Norm is suggesting. We had--the U.S. Senate passed
a bill that as part of the act would have given the major
parties, committees as defined under the Federal Election
Campaign Act, $250,000 each to do some preelection transition
planning sort of personnel kinds of things, inventories of
positions. And it happened at a table here in conference where
we just had a problem dealing with the amount of money that
would be wasted. And it was dropped because there were some
members of the conference committee who felt it was a waste of
money to give a losing candidate $250,000 for preelection
planning.
To this day, I think it was a mistake. And no disrespect
intended to the giant in the portrait above your shoulder. I
think it would have been a good investment. And the parties
would have continued that activity after the election and would
have built the capacity--a small investment that might have
yielded a big result. I guess I would say on this side that we
came close, but no cigar. No disrespect again.
Mr. Horn. Well, I want to get Dwight Ink into this. I was
just really looking at the lawyer questions to try to wind that
one up. And Mr. Ink has, I think, served seven Presidents, he's
testified before Congress over 50 years, and he has been acting
GSA Administrator. And so----
Mr. Ink. Twice.
Mr. Horn. Once.
Mr. Ink. Twice.
Mr. Horn. Or twice. I'd like to get some of his thoughts
in, particularly if they relate to the legal drafting here and
what you think--who should do it; should the Controller General
do it, or whoever?
Mr. Ink. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Having had that
experience that you talked about, I feel very strongly that a
transition has much to do with the success or failure of a new
Presidency, particularly in the first year, sometimes
throughout a whole Presidential term. We saw, of course, what
happened to the Kennedy transition in the national security
area where that vacuum directly led to the Bay of Pigs and then
later to the Cuban nuclear missile crisis.
But there are many other things that are much less dramatic
that have a considerable impact on the success or failure of a
Presidency. Without going into the details, my own view is that
the flavor of much of the hearing today considerably
understates the importance of the transition and considerably
understates the problems that we're already accumulating in
this particular transition.
Mr. Sununu talked about some of them. The new budget people
are going to have to start virtually from scratch to pull
together a new budget. You cannot do that scattered around in
law offices around the town. You cannot do that. It's almost
impossible to do it under the very best of circumstances.
Policies, new initiatives, have to be developed in such a way
that they're workable. We saw the problem with President
Clinton's health care plan there, which the workability
dimension was not addressed during the early period.
There are a whole series of things that need attention, and
we're already behind schedule. And much of the perception
today, which I agree with, nevertheless was from the
perspective of White House people and the outside media, not
from the perspective of the agencies and the departments where
the impact of these delays can be very, very serious. And I
think we're already seriously behind schedule.
I agree that, by the way, that I think the GSA staff--June
Huber I think has done very well. And I think that they have
tried very hard within the framework of the law as they have
had it interpreted for them.
With respect to the law, I think one can make, as has been
done here, a legal argument that funds could have been released
or could now be released by the General Services
Administration. I think there's a very strong counterargument
to that. But what I think we need to keep in mind is the public
policy dimension. To what extent would the general public
accept the notion that an agency head, head of GSA, has
determined their next President? My own view is that is wishful
thinking. I do not think in a political public policy sense, it
would be accepted. I think we have to have some legislative
action.
I think we need to amend the Presidential Transition Act.
With the litigation that's been spawned in this election, that
is likely going to create I think much more litigation in the
future than we've had in the past.
I have one possible suggestion. Probably there are better
ones. But in my testimony I suggest, as one example, that if 5
or 10 days, whichever you want, after the election, no
candidate has clearly won, GSA should then make available the
assistance now authorized under the law on an equal basis to
each candidate until a clear winner is determined by such means
as a concession or the legal processes have run their course.
Admittedly, the amount received by the eventual winner would be
reduced. Or, and what I would prefer, is that supplemental
funds would be made available but held in reserve for such an
eventuality. So that is one suggestion I would suggest that the
committee take under consideration in the next 48 hours. I
think without waiting to see how that happens, I believe that
this committee should move forward, as Mr. Ornstein has
suggested, I think to look at much broader than just this
provision I've talked about, which is something I would suggest
be done immediately and see what else can be done. And I do
support the thoughts of Paul Light and Norm Ornstein on
developing some way to have some advance funding in advance of
the election.
Mr. Chairman, beyond the transition legislation, however, I
think we also need to look at the need for reform of election
laws and regulations. This current situation is weakening the
confidence of the public in our election process and it is
exposing the United States to ridicule around the world. I
suggest a bipartisan commission to look at opportunities for
removing the types of election problems we're now experiencing,
perhaps a commission co-chaired by former Presidents Ford and
Carter, with a composition drawn heavily from former State and
local officials. I'm not suggesting that this commission review
the electoral college concept, because I think that gets us too
quickly into partisan issues that would overshadow everything
else. I do not suggest that a commission should attempt to set
standards for States. I think it could bring State and local
groups together to examine the election problems, compare
approaches that they found useful, and consider reforms that
States might find useful, and it might even spawn some State
commissions, such as the Hoover Commission did, in spawning
little Hoover commissions in the 1950's.
So, Mr. Chairman, to summarize, I think the transition
problem is not a national crisis, but I think it's much more
serious than much of what has been described here today. And I
do recommend specific legislation, specific amendments for the
Presidential Transition Act, and I recommend a bipartisan
commission in looking at our election laws.
Mr. Barram. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you for that. Yes.
Mr. Barram. For what it's worth, and not having cleared
this with the White House--but I endorse to any notion of
within 10 days, and I would think there ought to be a
supplemental budget available. I think that would be fine. We
would have to figure out how to find additional space rather
than split it in half, but that's a small price to pay for the
kind of transition that we ought to have.
Mr. Horn. Yes. Mr. Zywicki.
Mr. Zywicki. If I may just have one brief comment. Which
is, it strikes me--again my view is that the Administrator's
discretion is virtually nil under this statute that's triggered
by the electoral college count. But if you disagree with it, it
seems like there's really two directions you have to go.
One is either to provide for some sort of--after that, a
judicial review or some sort of administrative review of the
standards that the Administrator is using, if we are going to
interpret this such that it gives them discretion, you have got
to have some mechanism for reviewing that. Alternatively, you
can clarify the language to make it clearer to remove the
discretion and create more of a bright line rule, which is what
I'm proposing it does already. The statute creates a bright
line rule that relieves the Administrator of most of his
discretion, but it seems like the current situation of
unreviewable discretion on no articulated basis seems to me to
be the worst of all worlds.
Mr. Horn. Well, unlike you in the discussion here, what
individual or holder of a position in the executive branch
should be asked to do that? Any thoughts, other than the GSA
Administrator?
Mr. Zywicki. I don't necessarily have any problems with the
GSA Administrator doing it in a way such that it triggers, say,
the APA protections and is subject to judicial review. So you
could have a situation where you clarify he has discretion to
make this call, but then say that it is a factual
interpretation that is subject to judicial review under the
standards or the mechanisms that we review discretionary
judgments by administrative agents, and that seems like it
could be done in a relatively expedited basis in Federal
courts.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Gerson.
Mr. Gerson. I would respectfully disagree with that. I
think your questioning, Mr. Horn, implies a much better way to
deal with this. There is no problem in the abstract with the
Administrator of GSA exercising some level of supervision, but
the idea--and even though I talk about APA compliance as one
way to look at reviewability, if we are in exactly the same
situation we are in now, which is one thing, we want to
diminish the number of cases like this that go to court. We do
not want the judiciary serving as the archons for decisions
that belong in the body politic or in the legislature. So I
think that is not a good idea.
The much better idea, the one that you describe, is either
to tone up the definition of ``apparence'' in the statute or,
better than that, deal on a prospective basis in the way that
you are just describing, that I think everybody would like to
see you act, that when you have a race of sufficient closeness,
which ought to be defined to eliminate fringe candidates from
this discussion altogether, that if somebody is within 10
percent of the number of electoral votes that you need, or
whatever it might be, that the Administrator is authorized to
fund those candidates subject to the sorts of considerations
that you are describing now.
That's a way that the problem can be worked out in an
intelligent political sense without burdening the courts or
imposing an imperial judiciary on a process where it doesn't
belong at all. This idea that we keep hearing that these
challenges to the election are all within the rights of the
candidates, true enough, and so this is a great thing. It is
not a great thing.
Mr. Horn. Let me ask you all about the 271 electoral votes.
Were they real? I am told the opposition to the Governor have
been making phone calls all over America trying to get
electoral votes to change. How would you define it if those
electors, 1 or 2 weeks earlier, note a majority, and at that
point, could the GSA Administrator make a decision or not? Is
it on this topic or have you got a substitute?
Mr. Ornstein. No, it is on that topic. It seems to me that
you can't set a specific set of criteria that will govern all
the time. If you look at 1800, 1824, 1876, the classic
examples, this one is different. The next one is going to be
different than these. What could you do is lay out some of the
criteria you would want to use, and it would seem to me the
absence of a concession, an election where one State, or
perhaps two, are within a small margin of error, where the
electoral votes themselves would change the outcome, and there
are legal processes in place being pursued by the candidate who
is behind, are certainly reasonable criteria.
But one should note, Mr. Chairman, that just imagine if the
circumstances between the two candidates today were reversed,
if Vice President Gore had 271 electoral votes to 267 at the
moment for Governor Bush. Imagine that it came down to Florida
with a margin of one one-hundredth of 1 percent and legal
processes were going on, and a GSA Administrator of the same
party as the Vice President preempted the process early and
said, I'm going to declare that the Vice President is a
President-elect, we would have had a firestorm of controversy.
That, it seems to me, is just what H.R. Gross, among others,
wanted to avoid, and, you know, if you consider that context,
you can find a way to inject yourself into the political
process. We didn't consider it this time, because you have the
opposite political parties, but boy, as we have seen in other
places in the country, you can have people in the same party
and it creates a cloud.
Mr. Light. I think the issue about what H.R. Gross intended
in his debate has to be measured by what Dante Fascell and the
authors of the statute in Congress did eventually conclude in
the statute, which was, it did not wish to wait for absolute
certainty here. They wanted to start the transition. I'm very
comfortable with the Administrator of the GSA retaining the
discretion to make the apparency decision. If he can't make it
within a date certain, then let him begin parallel transitions,
then the big debate, and one that I'm sure that this
Administrator doesn't want to engage in is whether you are
going to put one at 1800 G Street, and the other down at the
Navy Yard and what that battle is going to be for the best
space.
But the Administrator does have the ability to make these
decisions. You shouldn't put the criteria into the statute. Put
the criteria as such into your legislative report and just
create a trigger so that the Administrator can continue to use
his discretion.
Mr. Horn. May I say on that last point, we faced the
problem in the Federal courts of they don't care anything about
reports, about colloquies on the floor or anything. It has to
either be in the law or don't expect it to be administered.
Mr. Light. But if you get too detailed, you lock yourself
into a set of criteria. There was some discussion here today
about who is the GSA Administrator after all. Well, we can see
him and it is a unit of government that has a strong record and
has been an agency that has had good strong leadership, and we
can allow that Administrator to have the discretion within
appropriate bounds, I think.
Mr. Horn. Let me ask Mr. Zywicki.
Mr. Zywicki. On that point, I think it is crystal clear
from at least the legislative history, if not the statute, but
that they clearly understood that a majority of electoral votes
was going to be the trigger here, because that is all they talk
about is the scenario where if somebody is three or four votes
shy in the electoral college, they cannot be the President-
elect. They clearly contemplate that some of the electoral
votes might have the possibility to change after an apparent
winner was named, and that simply did not deter them in that
situation. That seems to me to be, at least as originally
constructed, a majority of the electoral votes is the trigger.
And I want to second something that Mr. Gerson said which
is, I'm not calling for judicial review. I think that the best
situation is to create some sort of bright line rule with
respect to this because, although I'm sure Mr. Barram's doing
his best in a difficult situation, I simply don't think there's
any reason to believe that when they wrote this legislation,
that they expected that the Administrator was going to wield
this kind of discretion. It is clear that they thought it was
going to be a bright line rule, an easy determined outcome
based on electoral votes and that you're not going to have this
sort of open-ended kind of inquiry or they would have provided
for some sort of review of discretion if they'd intended to
create that sort of open-ended inquiry.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Barram.
Mr. Barram. Mr. Chairman, I don't have any doubt in my mind
that in the year 2004, we will know how to count votes
electronically with technology so we don't have this stuff
going on that is going on today. And if I may suggest to this
committee, I think the most valuable thing for you to do is
figure out how to get a supplemental appropriation, or some way
where both campaigns can begin to spend government money on the
transition activities. I believe that you can walk into--you
could have a poll--every precinct in America could have a piece
of technology where you made your choices, and a screen flashed
up and said is this what you meant, you could push a button and
now it is recorded.
The most significant problem we would have is making sure
that none of that got out until 11 p.m. in the East. But with
the machine count it would be very hard to ever say, well, I
didn't mean it when I pushed the button ``yes.'' The younger
generation, who have grown up using video games, would find
this particularly sensible. If we did it at every precinct, it
would be easy for me to imagine people cleverly figuring out
how you could do that over the Internet with the right kind of
encryption, including absentee ballots. You could even walk
into the polling booth with that little card that we've all
seen a million times on television, punched, stick it into the
device, and up would pop here's what you voted for, is that
what you meant, Mr. So-and-so? You push a button ``yes'' and
you are done.
So I think the solution to this is going to be much more
technological and a better voting mechanism than it is, to not
be disrespectful about it, but how many angels can dance on the
head of a pin conversation that we can easily get into?
Mr. Horn. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Turner, on
questioning.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask, maybe,
if we could get your thoughts on one proposal here to that see
if we could reach consensus. Obviously, if we are going to
remedy this legislatively, in the near term, we have got to
have something pretty simple, pretty straightforward, everybody
understands, everybody agrees and signs off on, and I think Mr.
Light, and I know Mr. Ornstein shared that view, that we don't
want to put the Administrator of the GSA in the position of
either actually picking or appearing to pick the President. And
this suggestion, Mr. Zywicki, that this current law is a bright
line, I don't view it as a bright line other than to say, as I
think the legislative history would support Mr. Sell, if you
don't know, an intelligent being can't really tell, you do
nothing almost as if to say this is not any entitlement, this
is Federal dollars we're talking about here, and if you can't
figure it out, well, you just don't do anything, which is
exactly what happened in the instance case.
So maybe, and let me ask each of you to respond to this,
maybe we could leave the language alone regarding the apparent
winner, because as I read from the dictionary you handed us,
one definition of ``apparent'' as a synonym is ``evident,
obvious or patent; capable of easily being received or
understood; plain, clear or obvious.'' And perhaps we could
leave the statutory language regarding ``apparent'' alone for
the moment, and simply say that if it is not determined within
10 days, then the two candidates at the top will divide the
money. That means we don't disturb the discretion that is there
for the GSA Administrator to decide, but if he doesn't, for
whatever reason, then he's not in the position of actively
choosing one over the other, or even choosing that there's not
a winner. It would simply say this failure to act within 10
days will act in division of funds to the top two candidates.
Now, I'd like each of you to respond to that.
Mr. Ink.
Mr. Ink. Well, of course in principle, I think that's a
great idea. I'm glad you suggested it. Because I think it gets
the Administrator out of the role insofar as the public is
concerned, the apparent role of having to choose a U.S.
President, which is absolutely the wrong role for the
Administrator of GSA. Whether you use the word ``apparent'' or
``clear,'' I used the word ``clear,'' I don't have a strong
view on that, but the concept I strongly support. I think
relying upon judicial remedies is the wrong road to go. You
have got to minimize the uncertainty as much as you can. You
have to minimize as much as possible the role of the courts in
trying to determine when funds are going to be available for
the transition.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Ornstein.
Mr. Ornstein. I'd only have one concern, Mr. Turner. I
think congenitally I look at unintended consequences when I
think about any of these changes, and you just need to think a
little bit about that in terms of making sure you don't provide
any incentive for a candidate who's not in a position to win to
avoid a concession to get a bundle of money to keep going for a
period of time. So you still need to have a process here where
you move toward declaring a winner, except under extraordinary
circumstances.
I don't think you can specify all of those circumstances. I
think that Mr. Barram is right, we are going to move to a very
different voting system and the electronic aspect of it; the
touch screen aspect of it will take away some of these
problems, but I will also tell you we are moving very rapidly
toward vote by mail, vote by Internet, people not voting in the
voting places, and that is going to bring us back to a kind of
corruption that we had before we had the Australian ballot and
the secret ballot in the voting booth after 1884 where we will
have other kinds of problems that will emerge. We can't tell
them all. We can probably establish some guidelines. But I
think you need to have some discretion here for an individual
to make some of those determinations.
Mr. Horn. I take it that on this suggestion, which I am not
opposed to if that was a President already in office he or she
would not get any of that money, because I think H.R. Gross
would say in that colloquy, ``boy, that will really be some
pizza party.'' So that's how he used to deal with this.
Mr. Zywicki. I think it raises a good idea, one that
probably needs more study, more than we have the leisure now.
One easy fix of the current situation would be to amend section
4(C) that was enacted in 1988 that gives us 30-day reach-back
period for the Vice President and simply amend that, I presume
do it retroactively, to say that trigger for the outgoing
administration begins the day of the election, so that you
could open that window and just release the money that Vice
President Gore would be entitled to 30 days before the end of
the term and just open it up. I don't see any reason why 30
days is a better rule than Election Day anyway. So that might
be one easy way of--just very small tweak could resolve the
issue that is currently going on.
Mr. Light. I think you'd want to make sure you prorate the
expenditures where you don't end up in a situation where you
have spent all the money by December 18th. So you have to amend
the statute to give the Administrator discretion to make sure
the expenditures are reasonable and you are not outspending the
moneys available. I think you could do that very easily in the
statute. You will have near certainty with December 18th or--I
mean, you have absolute certainty on January 20th. So you just
have to roll back and make sure the money isn't gone.
Mr. Horn. Any other comments on this, Mr. Ink?
Mr. Ink. My preference if we were to go this route, though,
would be to do it in such a way that the winner was not
handicapped, not having the amount of funds reduced. I think by
having a supplemental amount that would be held in reserve for
such an eventuality would be a very small price to pay for
opening up the ability to move forward with a full-fledged
transition.
Mr. Light. Let me also suggest that in your drafting
process that you make as a condition of accepting these funds
in this sort of dual transition period full disclosure of any
private funds being raised. I mean, I would just basically pull
forward the requirements under the current 1988 amendments.
Mr. Turner. That is current law, is it not?
Mr. Light. Yeah, but, I mean, right now the Bush and Cheney
transition have voluntarily agreed to abide by the disclosure
requirements.
Mr. Gerson. The law would take care of it. The reason why
the Bush-Cheney group is where it is is because it is not
getting the funds in the transition. If it were, the disclosure
provision would be triggered. So that I think that if you make
those funds available and you continue what you have in 1988,
it's--that's a nonproblem.
Mr. Ornstein. Mr. Chairman, I would urge you to do this now
in the simplest and most neutral way possible for now. Then you
can go back when you have more leisure and think about whether
the language that you've used would be more appropriate without
unintended consequences for future elections.
Mr. Turner. I agree with that. Did I understand all of you
to agree with the basic concept of having the Administrator
exercise his discretion within the first 10 days? If he fails
to so exercise, and the funds shall be divided equally between
the two top candidates, and subject to the refinements you
mentioned such as ensuring that they are accountable for the
funds. They don't spend it all at one time, and I assume such
time as the apparent winner is determinable, then the funds
would cease to the losing candidate, would that be an
appropriate refinement as well?
Mr. Gerson. I think Mr. Ornstein made a very important
point, though, and I want to subscribe to that particularly,
which is, don't legislate for all times today and tomorrow.
That's a bad way to put the meal down. Solve this problem. You
have great consensus and very easy resolution. If you get into
legislating for all time, you're not going to be able to push
this thing through the short window that you have. I think Mr.
Ornstein and I, as this discussion has progressed, are fairly
close together on what you ought to do ultimately. There needs
to be--to the extent the discretion resides in the
Administrator or somebody else, there still needs to be some
defining circumstances as to how he or she might exercise it. I
think it ought to be pegged to the electoral vote or probable
electoral vote more than anything else, given the Nation's
history and the way the Constitution works, but that aside, I
think you ought to solve the immediate problem now and then, in
a more considerate way, deal with the ultimate solution to how
that discretion might be exercised.
Mr. Barram. While you're solving the immediate problem, I
would really urge you to seriously consider doubling the money
or making more money available, especially now if you come up
with a solution where we end up with having both campaigns with
money, it is going to cost a little more than if we had 4
months to prepare for it. I just want you to know that so that
we don't shortchange either group. You could just take a
submarine out of one of the----
Mr. Horn. Let me thank the staff that put this rapidly
together. J. Russell George; on my left, your right, is staff
director and chief counsel of the subcommittee; Randy Kaplan,
counsel; Bonnie Heald, director of communications; Earl Pierce,
professional staff in back there; Elizabeth Seong, clerk;
Rachael Reddick, intern; minority staff, Trey Henderson is
counsel, and Jean Gosa is the minority clerk. The overworked
court reporters are Colleen Lynch and Melinda Walker, and we
thank you both.
And I believe, Mr. Barram, in the decision of the Supreme
Court of the United States, I would urge you to look at the
request from Congressman Kolbe, the appropriator, and myself as
chairman of the authorizers last week and I hope that there
would be some ascertainment as quickly as possible as to who
the apparent winner of this Presidential race is, and I would
hope in the next few days that we would have some language that
might solve the problem, but you can also stop the language if
you take a look at what the Supreme Court's decision is today.
I think you'd find nothing is going to happen until that
decision is taken a look at, and I would hope you and your
staff would go there and see if you can't change your mind on a
lot of this because time, as one said, is going along and money
isn't. Thank you. And we are now in adjournment.
[Whereupon, at 2:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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