Transitioning to a possibly new administration

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Joe Biden has a new office in Washington, D.C., because as a major party nominee for president, he and his advisors are entitled to not only office space, but also computers, phones and support. It’s all part of the process from an updated transition law enacted in 2010. For an update, the Director of the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service Dave what can you do with a computer science degree spoke to Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Well, there are three parties that are really the critical parties. There’s the Trump White House, there’s the career officials across the agencies who are responsible for transition planning, and then there’s the Biden team. So let’s take this one by one. The White House has started and set up something called a White House Coordinating Council, where they focus on all the issues related to transition and provide guidance to the federal agencies. The federal agencies – there are about 20 that are part of an agency transition council and another 60 to 70 that are working on transition issues – and they’re the career federal officials are preparing for either outcome: A Trump re-election or a Biden victory. And then the Biden team, they released last week kind of an all-star cast of an advisory board and co-chairs have their transition. And they’re up and running. They have access to the GSA space. They have computers, they have access to security clearances. And really Sept. 1 was a critical milestone for the final phase of transition planning for the Biden team.