[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 3137, A BILL TO AMEND THE PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION ACT OF 1963
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H.R. 3137
TO AMEND THE PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION ACT OF 1963 TO PROVIDE FOR
TRAINING OF INDIVIDUALS A PRESIDENT-ELECT INTENDS TO NOMINATE AS
DEPARTMENT HEADS OR APPOINT TO KEY POSITIONS IN THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF
THE PRESIDENT
__________
OCTOBER 13, 1999
__________
Serial No. 106-119
__________
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
64-650 WASHINGTON : 2000
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, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Carla J. Martin, 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
Bonnie Heald, Director of Communications/Professional Staff Member
Chip Ahlswede, Clerk
Trey Henderson, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on October 30, 1999................................. 1
Text of H.R. 3137............................................ 7
Statement of:
Ink, Dwight, former Assistant Director, Office of Management
and Budget; Paul Light, director, Center for Public
Service, Brookings Institution; and Norman J. Ornstein,
resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Policy
Research................................................... 26
Richardson, Elliot, attorney general to President Nixon; and
Lee White, former assistant counsel to President Kennedy
and counsel to President Johnson........................... 11
Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California:
Letter dated October 7, 1999............................. 61
Prepared statement of.................................... 9
Presidential Transition Act of 1963...................... 2
Task Force Reports to the National Commision on the
Public Service......................................... 16
Ink, Dwight, former Assistant Director, Office of Management
and Budget, prepared statement of.......................... 28
Light, Paul, director, Center for Public Service, Brookings
Institution, prepared statement of......................... 43
Ornstein, Norman J., resident scholar, American Enterprise
Institute for Policy Research, prepared statement of....... 54
Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Texas, prepared statement of............................ 67
H.R. 3137, A BILL TO AMEND THE PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION ACT OF 1963
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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1999
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, Ose, and Turner.
Staff present: Russell George, staff director/ chief
counsel; Matthew Ebert, policy advisor; Bonnie Heald, director
of communications/professional staff member; Chip Ahlswede,
clerk; P.J. Caceres and Deborah Oppenheim, interns; Trey
Henderson, minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority staff
assistant.
Mr. Horn. A quorum being present, this hearing of the
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and
Technology will come to order.
Until 1963, the primary source of funding for Presidential
transitions was the incoming President's political party and
the contributions of volunteer staff. The Presidential
Transition Act of 1963 was enacted to authorize Federal funding
and assistance for incoming Presidents. It also provided the
authority for the outgoing President and Vice President to use
the funds for their transition into private life for up to 6
months. The act authorized the appropriation of $900,000 to be
divided equally between the incoming and outgoing
administrations.
In 1976, Congress amended the Presidential Transition Act
of 1963 to increase the funding provided in the 1963 act.
In 1988, Congress passed the Presidential Transition
Effectiveness Act, which again raised the funding for
Presidential transitions, and included a provision that calls
for annual adjustments for inflation. In addition, the 1988 act
required that all preelection transition funds must be acquired
privately, and the names of all transition personnel and
private contributors are publicly disclosed.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Over the years, there have been many examples of
missteps and outright errors made by newly appointed officials
in the White House. However capable and well-intentioned, new
and unseasoned appointees are especially susceptible to
misjudgments that, at a minimum, can be politically
embarrassing, but can also have serious consequences on the
administration's credibility.
As we have seen, sometimes the errors tumble out in
misstatements or ill-advised recommendations; other times, they
have resulted in ethical lapses by an appointee who was unaware
of the ethical standards required by Federal law. These errors
could have been avoided if these appointees had properly
understood the scope of their responsibilities, or, I might
add, if they thought what this action would look like on the
front page of the Washington Post or any major paper before you
do it.
Accordingly, I am introducing a bill that would amend the
Presidential Transition Act of 1963 to authorize the use of
Presidential transition funds for a formal orientation process
for incoming appointees to top White House positions, including
Cabinet members. This bill would encourage the orientations to
take place between the general election and 30 days after the
inauguration. By establishing this timeframe for top appointee
orientations, this bill would increase the likelihood that a
greater number of lower-level appointees might also receive
White House orientations earlier in the new administration.
[The text of H.R. 3137 follows:]
106th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3137
To amend the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 to provide for
training of individuals a President-elect intends to nominate as
department heads or appoint to key positions in the Executive Office of
the President.
______
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 25, 1999
Mr. Horn (for himself, Mr. Turner, Mrs. Biggert, Mr. Kanjorski, and
Mrs. Maloney of New York) introduced the following bill; which was
referred to the Committee on Government Reform
______
A BILL
To amend the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 to provide for
training of individuals a President-elect intends to nominate as
department heads or appoint to key positions in the Executive Office of
the President.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. AMENDMENTS TO PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION ACT OF 1963.
Section 3(a) of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 (3 U.S.C.
102 note) is amended--
(1) in the matter preceding paragraph (1) by striking
``including--'' and inserting ``including the following:'';
(2) in each of paragraphs (1) through (6) by striking the
semicolon at the end and inserting a period; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:
``(8)(A) Payment of expenses during the transition for
briefings, workshops, or other activities to acquaint key
prospective Presidential appointees with the types of problems
and challenges that most typically confront new political
appointees when they make the transition from campaign and
other prior activities to assuming the responsibility for
governance after inauguration, including interchange with
individuals who held similar leadership roles in prior
administrations, agency or department experts from the Office
of Management and Budget or an Office of Inspector General of
an agency or department, and relevant staff from the General
Accounting Office.''.
``(B) Activities funded under this paragraph shall be
conducted primarily for individuals the President-elect intends
to nominate as department heads or appoint to key positions in
the Executive Office of the President.''.
-
Mr. Horn. This bill is an important step toward restoring
confidence in the ability of the Executive Office of the
President to run its affairs in a responsible manner.
At today's hearing, we will hear from a group of
distinguished witnesses. On our first panel, we have two
gentlemen who hold a unique perspective on the Presidency. We
welcome Mr. Lee White, who was assistant counsel to President
John F. Kennedy and counsel to President Lyndon B. Johnson; and
Mr. Elliot Richardson, former Attorney General for President
Richard Nixon and a holder of at least four other Cabinet
positions, including Defense.
On panel two, we have Mr. Dwight Ink, former Assistant
Director of the Office of Management and Budget; Mr. Paul
Light, Director of the Center for Public Service at the
Brookings Institute; and Mr. Norman J. Ornstein, a resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Policy
Research.
We welcome each of you and look forward to your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
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Mr. Horn. I now yield to the subcommittee's ranking member,
Mr. James Turner of Texas, for a statement.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I commend you on the
legislation you have brought forward. It seems to me a very
good idea, and you have brought together a very distinguished
panel to discuss it. Obviously anything that we can do to
assist the transition of a newly elected President and his
appointees and Cabinet members to make the transition smoother,
we ought to do it. There have been plenty of examples, as the
chairman mentioned, of cases where new appointees showed some
indication that they were not quite ready for the new job that
they had assumed. I think your idea here of providing an
opportunity for briefings and workshops and other activities
for key prospective appointees is a very good one.
I would like to thank the two panels who have come to
discuss the issues with us today.
Mr. Horn. I thank the gentleman.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. We will now proceed with panel one and begin with
a very distinguished public servant who a lot of us have known
for 20 and 30 years. The Honorable Elliot Richardson was
Attorney General to President Nixon. He was Under Secretary of
State, Secretary of HEW, and then Secretary of Commerce and
Secretary of Defense.
Mr. Richardson, it is all yours.
STATEMENTS OF ELLIOT RICHARDSON, ATTORNEY GENERAL TO PRESIDENT
NIXON; AND LEE WHITE, FORMER ASSISTANT COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT
KENNEDY AND COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT JOHNSON
Mr. Richardson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
members of the subcommittee. I feel not only privileged to have
the opportunity to lead off the testimony in this hearing, but
I also believe that it probably is one of the more important
hearings that will be held in the Congress this year. It is
fair to say that one would be aware of its importance only with
the kind of experience one acquires through seeing the process
whereby people are coming from their roles in the private
sector, going to their new assignments in government, and the
need for supplementation of their knowledge by as rapid as
possible an exposure to the very integral kind of environment
they are coming into. It is different, of course, in a whole
lot of ways that I don't need to enumerate, but one is in the
controversiality of many of the issues that they will address,
the degree of public attention focused on them, and not the
least the necessity of dealing with the legislative branch of
the government, which at the end of the day has power and
responsibility to dispose of the issues that are addressed by
the executive branch.
There is also the relationship between the new Presidential
appointees and the career services and their members who were
there before the Presidential appointees arrived and will be
there after they are gone.
I think these are among the reasons for the legislation
that you have before you.
I was pleased to have the opportunity to read the testimony
of Dwight Ink, at least the statement that he prepared, and I
think that is a very comprehensive and persuasive presentation
of the kinds of considerations that I have briefly touched on,
and a range of other considerations which are also relevant to
this legislation. I strongly support everything he has said.
I would also suggest, however, that beyond the problem
which, I take it, has to be addressed through legislation for
appointees of an incoming President before he takes office in
order to meet the expenditures thereby entailed, that we should
not lose sight of the need for the orientation and briefing of
new Presidential appointees who come into office after the
administration has taken over. The same considerations that
apply to them due to the appointees before the administration
takes office apply to the new Presidential appointees who are
recruited who come in after the administration is already in
place. That may not need legislation, but the considerations
that do require legislation should be recognized as having
continued importance, and perhaps the committee in its own
report, I hope, recommending legislation for adoption with
whatever modifications it may see fit to make will call
attention to this second point.
The testimony of Dwight Ink, which is the only statement
that I have seen, touched on a great many of the considerations
which bear on the needs for this legislation. I want to stress
one of them; and to that end, Mr. Chairman, I have brought with
me, which I have submitted to the committee staff, a copy of a
recommendation of a task force of the so-called Volcker
Commission, more formally known as the National Commission on
the Public Service, on which I sat in 1998. My task force
addresses the relations between political appointees and career
executives.
It is fair to say that not only is considerable time lost
in development of a clear understanding by new appointees of
the importance of this relationship, but also there is a good
deal of unnecessary strain that arises out of the
misunderstandings and misperceptions brought to their new posts
by Presidential, which is to say political, appointees to the
government insofar as their relationships with public servants
of the executive branch agencies are concerned.
The word, ``bureaucrat,'' as we all know, carries many
negative connotations. It need not have negative connotations.
I would advise to pretend that it doesn't deserve any negative
connotations. I will emphasize, however, that a bureaucracy is
any large organization requiring staff and addressing several
important purposes. AT&T is a bureaucracy. IBM is a
bureaucracy, and so on.
I personally regard myself as, first of all, a politician,
although I seldom, I think, have been recognized as such, but I
have long believed that John B. Fisher, then editor of Harvard
Magazine was right when I heard him tell a Harvard audience
that politics is the most difficult of the arts and the noblest
of the professions. I wish not only that more members of the
general public understood and believed that, but also wished
that more politicians understood and believed it.
I presently do believe it, even though I think I am
seldom--let me restate that. I am not often enough thought of
as a politician.
Second, I regard myself as a bureaucrat with equal pride.
To be a good bureaucrat, particularly as a Presidential
appointee, requires that you undertake a very complex and
demanding administrative job fraught also with the necessity
for addressing difficult and controversial public issues. You
are the head of an organization which is responsible to the
policy leadership of the President under whom you serve, but
also accountable to the general public through, in the first
instance, contact and accountability to the Congress of the
United States, but also to the general public via media, via
all kinds of organizations around national and regional and
local through whom the policy and purposes that you serve are
communicated to the American people.
You need--in order to be able to achieve any of the public
purposes of the public organizations in which you serve, and
especially for those who head the organizations, you need to
understand that everything you do depends at the end of the day
on the people who are permanent members of the organizations of
which you are a part. And you need to know that the great
majority of them are people who would not be there if they were
not genuinely dedicated to serving the public interest in the
post that they hold. You need to presume that and proceed on
that assumption, and only qualify it to the extent that in your
relationships with a given individual over time, you find that
assumption may not be entirely warranted.
I want to emphasize, Mr. Chairman, my first Presidential
appointment was by President Eisenhower. I was Assistant
Secretary for Legislation. I dealt with every committee and
subcommittee of the Congress of the United States that dealt
with any legislation involving health or education or welfare.
There were only about five Presidential appointees in HEW in
those days, maybe seven. I was No. 3 in rank order, you might
say, and I served for substantial periods as Acting Under
Secretary and Acting Secretary of HEW under President
Eisenhower. As you pointed out, I headed four Cabinet
departments and served as No. 2 in State.
I think I speak with not only firsthand knowledge, but
complete realism toward the necessity for constructive
relationships between Presidential appointees and media, the
very real potential for those relationships. This is undercut
if the Presidential appointee is a smart aleck and a cynic and
stupid enough to suppose that you have to be a businessman or a
Republican or a Democrat of your own basic orientation in order
to be devoted to the best interests of the United States.
Presidential appointees, I am sorry to have to say, in most
cases need to be made aware of that. They are becoming, you
might say, officers in an institution in which there are people
ready to be led who know that they need leadership in the
resolution of political issues that it is not their job, they
know it is not their job, to have to resolve, but who are quite
ready to follow that leadership, especially if it is
intelligent and articulate, and especially if the political
appointees take the trouble to engage them in a process which
communicates understanding of those policy decisions.
I would like to give one example going back to the
Eisenhower administration which I think is very telling in this
respect. There was a bill which had been introduced at that
time by a senior Member of Congress from Rhode Island whose
name eludes me at the moment, but it was the first piece of
legislation proposing the establishment of what we now call
Medicare.
I believed that the Eisenhower administration needed to
have its own initiative in addressing health care needs and the
financing of those needs for the elderly, so I put together a
small group. There were hardly any political people in the
Department at that time. We relied on career people to develop
the Eisenhower administration's counterpart with a Republican
slant and perspective on how to vote. This group came forward
with what I thought was a not very coherent or convincing
approach, and I met with them and we talked about it, and they
came back with a new version which wasn't much better. And then
it struck me their problem was not that they were trying to
impose something that reflected their own political biases, the
problem was that I had not made clear enough what were the
fundamental political decisions and policies that we, the
Eisenhower administration, saw as necessary to approaching that
problem.
I had to do the work of singling out what these were, and
the approach that I came up with was one which essentially gave
in a different context we now call vouchers with which the
Social Security beneficiary could buy health insurance
coverage. That is enough for present purposes.
The point is that when I gave them a clear idea of what the
political objectives were, then they could begin to apply it
intelligently.
I came into the Nixon administration as what we now call
Deputy Secretary of State. I had never had a foreign policy job
before. I never worked with the Foreign Service. But one thing
I learned very early on, when I saw somebody smile or look at
another member of the Foreign Service around the table when we
were discussing some issue with a wink, or sort of a smirk, I
knew that I should ask that person a question, and if I asked a
question about what they thought about what I had been saying
up to that point and the direction of policy, they gave me a
straight answer drawing on their knowledge and experience of
the issue. They had been kicked around by enough political
appointees so they didn't necessarily volunteer the answer, but
if I got any clue to whatever didn't seem to be going across
and asked, I got one.
The relationship between political appointees in the
Department of State is very much like the relationship between
political appointees and the military services. I think there
is something about the uniform and the stature of the military
from day one ready to speak up, but I found in those early
weeks that these people were dedicated, competent professionals
and very ready to take political leadership.
Now, I emphasize these things, Mr. Chairman, because the
United States and the public are damaged by the wrong
assumptions brought by political appointees to their positions.
This is by no means the only reason why there needs to be an
orientation at a transition stage, not only before an
administration comes in, but for new appointees after the
administration comes in.
Other reasons are spelled out in Mr. Ink's testimony, which
is the only statement that I have seen. But, Mr. Chairman, I
want to emphasize the point that I have emphasized because in
the first place I think I have almost a unique background for
having acquired the point of view I have expressed, but also
because I think it is a consideration that is far too little
recognized, and it is important to the success of political
issues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. I am going to put in the record without objection
the task force reports to the National Commission on the Public
Service which was chaired by Mr. Volcker and the Task Force on
the Relations Between Political Appointees and Career
Executives which was chaired by our witness Mr. Richardson. It
is a very worthwhile document, and I will put it at this point
into the record.
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Mr. Horn. We deeply appreciate your sharing those
experiences with us. You might be interested to know that when
one of your successors, the current incumbent, as Attorney
General was testifying before us in this room, I asked if she
recalled Attorney General Richardson's courageous retirement
when he didn't believe it was possible for him to be persuaded
by the White House and interfered with by the White House and
what he did. I suggested that she might want to think about
that experience when the White House was pressuring her, which
they have.
You have been a courageous, honest, and dedicated public
servant, and our Nation is very much in your debt in this.
You've been a role model for many of us, and we thank you for
sharing those ideas. If you like, we are going to have Mr.
White, and then we might ask a few questions. I know that you
probably have a schedule of your own.
We will ask Mr. White, who has had a long experience on
Capitol Hill, and who is quite knowledgeable about White House
work of quite different types.
Mr. White. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Turner. Frankly
this is a pretty easy assignment. I would have expected that
this is already part of the law, and if it isn't, it ought to
be. I certainly believe that I could work for 3 or 4 days and
not find anybody who would not think that it is a good idea. It
should be done, and I certainly support the concept and the
legislative proposal that I have seen.
One thought that may be worth mentioning is in the language
of other activities in ``briefings, workshops and other
activities,'' either in the committee report language or--I am
not much on micromanaging in the bill. I should think that we
should authorize development of a handbook or pamphlet or memo
or whatever. One of general character for those people across
the board, especially those who are going to face confirmation,
but perhaps a specialized one for those people who are going
into the departments and the agencies and who should know
something about the problems that are there.
I was very fortunate to be part of the transition team from
President Eisenhower to President Kennedy, and as you said, the
statute that you are attempting to amend was adopted in 1963.
In the fall of 1960, there were--I am not kidding you, there
were six people working with the Eisenhower administration from
the Kennedy group. There were others involved in recruiting
important players, but the actual substantive involvement was a
group of only six. Happily, President Eisenhower had made it
clear to everybody in his administration that cooperation was
required, and we got it, especially from what was then the
Bureau of the Budget. Since those days things have grown as
things do grow in government and elsewhere, and I can tell you
that the notion of trying to have an opportunity to explore
with and explain to Presidential appointees some of the
pitfalls, some of the requirements and some of the ideas that
they should bear in mind as they go into these new jobs is
absolutely essential.
In the Kennedy White House, although the President didn't
ever put it this way, we tried to make sure if anybody was
ignorant, he also wasn't arrogant, because that is a terrible
combination. In the White House, I will tell you, even if you
are not at the top tier, just in the middle, the kids who knew
you in grade school are going to call you. I remember going
home and telling my wife I must have gotten terribly, terribly
bright overnight because before nobody gave a damn what I said,
and now everybody wants to know what my views are. I said I
wonder if it works in reverse when you leave, and the answer is
yes, it does work in reverse. But it is heady stuff, and I
think not only the Cabinet officers, but the White House staff
has to have instruction.
It would be a good idea, if the President were so minded,
to make sure that his designated Chief of Staff was the one who
made this happen and that he himself could partake of it.
The pitfalls are many: ethical questions, financial
disclosure. You know, that is a very important thing, but I
would also urge that we go back a step and that the recruiters
know some of these issues so they are not blindsiding the
person who is flattered to be considered for a high position.
President Kennedy had intended to appoint a fellow to the
D.C. Board of Commissioners. It was going to be a very
significant one. He was going to be the first black
Commissioner in the District of Columbia, Frank Reeves.
Unfortunately, it came out later that Frank had forgotten to
pay his income tax. Nobody had asked him if he had paid his
income tax.
Now there is a checklist, I am sure, and those are the
types of issues, but also you have to try to inculcate in them,
especially the White House staff, what their relations are to
the Cabinet. Cabinet officers get very, very testy, I can
promise you, when some White House staff guy calls him up and
says, the President says--he is thinking, why didn't the
President call me?
That is another part of the necessary skills and judgment,
and hopefully you don't make too many mistakes. We can't kid
ourselves, you cannot legislate or mandate common sense and
good judgment in people. What you can do is tell them some of
the basic rules that you want as President, that you want
followed, and hope that it will take.
One of the benefits of mankind is to profit by other
people's mistakes, and so anybody who is part of this teaching
team is going to be able to find a whole host of mistakes which
have been made by others in the past to illustrate the point of
how difficult it can be. Everybody is busy. Everybody is
flattered. There are receptions around town, and you can hardly
believe your good fortune to be part of a brand new
administration. But people have to understand that if the
President wants it, don't forget, we are here recommending that
the President in his transition, the President-elect in his
transition do certain things, and hopefully he will, and if it
is institutionalized, there is a better chance of it happening
that way.
And without wanting to beat a dead horse to death, I want
to say that I do support the idea, the concept and the
legislative proposal. And as I said at the outset, please let
me know if anybody is opposed to it. I would like to talk to
them.
Mr. Horn. You remind me of a few experiences in that point
in time. I was administrative assistant to Secretary of Labor
Mitchell under President Eisenhower the last year and a half,
and we were involved in some of what the President wanted done
in the transition, such as preservation of papers, where do
they go, and so forth and so on.
I think one of the problems that I have observed in both
Republican and Democratic White Houses is the younger members
of the staff who go in like they are still running a campaign
in both parties. I have seen it, and I think it is pathetic,
shall we say. I remember one young Kennedy aide who got a
lesson in executive legislative relations when he left a note
on the door of a southern Congressman. He said, the President
wants you to vote this way. Needless to say, Larry O'Brien
heard about that and educated the young man, since Larry was
one of the greatest Ambassadors from the White House to
Congress in probably this century.
Mr. White. He did not require a checklist of things to do.
The gentleman was innately a gentleman, and crafty and smart
and very obliging. I remember he called a Congressman from
Nebraska and with tears in his eyes told him that they were
going to close the Veterans' Administration Hospital in
Lincoln, and the guy was so pleased that Larry had called him
ahead of time that he almost was grateful. Can you believe
that?
Mr. Horn. That is true. Courtesies are important, but I
don't think that we can just worry about the high-level
Presidential appointees, we need to get down into the grass
roots of some of the red-hots on the campaign trail who feel
that they have personally elected the President alone, and I
have run into that type in both Democratic and Republican
administrations.
Mr. White. That may be why a little booklet would be
helpful.
Mr. Horn. Plus a good talking to by people who have had
positions in other administrations. I think that helps.
I want to yield time to the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Turner, the ranking member, to open with questions. It is all
yours.
Mr. Turner. I think Mr. White said it all. If this is not
in the law, it should be. I found it fascinating to hear
Secretary Richardson recount some of his experiences. Both of
you have a wealth of knowledge in government, and I appreciate
very much Secretary Richardson's reference to the fact that we
need to be careful how we use the word ``bureaucrat'' because
it is the people who have committed their entire lives to
government service that really hold this place together. If we
understand that partnership between the political appointees
and the career public servant, I think this place can function
to the benefit of the American people.
Mr. White, listening to your comments, it made me wonder if
there are not some other things that we should be thinking
about putting in this legislation. The period of time between a
November election and the inauguration is really very short,
and some of the stories that I have heard in my period of
public service oftentimes shock me. I heard one story related
to me by an appointee who was recounting how he was shocked to
learn that he was actually the appointee to a major head of an
agency of our government. The announcement came at a press
conference, and he had only a brief conversation with the
President about the possibility of serving. Those kinds of
stories do remind us that a President-elect and transition is a
very hectic time and difficult time.
As the chairman said, oftentimes those who run the campaign
are not those who you would select to run the Presidency. Yet
it is those people who were involved in the campaign that
oftentimes are making many of the decisions.
So perhaps there are some other ideas that we should
consider in this legislation, and if there are, we have a
distinguished panel here, and we would certainly welcome your
suggestions. I know that the chairman would.
But I really have no questions, Mr. Chairman. I have just
enjoyed the depth of experience that has been shared with us.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.
I now yield to Mr. Ose, the gentleman from California.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find myself somewhat in
awe. There is not a person alive of my generation who does not
know of Secretary Richardson, and I am pleased to have the
opportunity to visit with Mr. White.
I think the thing that troubles me on this whole issue of
transition is when I got here in January as a new Member,
having come straight from business, I kind of felt like I was
on the wrong end of a fire hose, and in that regard I find
great merit in this transitional training idea between the
November election and the January swearing in. And I am curious
as to the specific criteria at the level that you both served
that you find most critical to impart to the new appointees.
Mr. Richardson. The most----
Mr. Ose. The most critical--when someone comes into one of
these agencies, there is a whole bunch of stuff that they have
to learn, and they only have 60 days roughly to learn it. What
are the most critical things that those new appointees need to
learn?
Mr. Richardson. I think that is a good question, and I
think I have an almost unique background for answering it,
having had to deal with many new jobs. I ended up with 10
Presidential appointments. Some of them I held very briefly,
but invariably in a new job the first thing that I came to
understand is that you need to come to know as fast as you can
the people you are going to be working with, including the
other Presidential appointees in your department.
At the outset you may not have had a whole lot to say about
it. In time you do have. But also the key thing is the career
positions.
The second thing you need to know is what are the
significant issues or problems that have to be addressed and
what are the relative priorities in time. What do you have to
resolve first, and what do you have to know in order to be able
to reach either a decision or to give a recommendation to the
President. And then as time permits, what are the new
undertakings or recommendations or changes of direction that
you may want to initiate as time goes on. That, I think, is the
sequence that is relevant to any new Presidential appointment.
Once you get outside the walls of the organization to which
the new appointee--in which the new appointee will be serving,
you then need to look at the relationships, starting with the
Congress and the committees that have most to do with the
initiatives, the budget and so on, of that governmental entity.
You try to make the most of the first round of contacts with
the most senior people, and liaison as you can. Beyond them are
the national organizations which have the greatest interest and
influence on the issues you address, and whose support or
opposition may be important.
And then you have to be thinking in terms of the media, the
press, television and radio, both the general ones and the more
specialized people who address parts of what you do.
I would like to add, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, that I am reminded by Mr. White when he talked
about the relationship between new appointees and the Congress,
with respect to all of these relationships, I learned one thing
which I would want to emphasize to anyone coming into
government. That is that you've got to understand that the
person you are dealing with in a position where there is a
strained relationship, even hostility perhaps, further down the
road is by and large somebody like yourself but with a
different job than you.
I think one of the best, most important lessons that I
learned when I became the legislative assistance to the then
senior Senator from Massachusetts, who was also Majority whip
and chairman of Armed Services, it is amazing to think that--
this was in 1953--he had only one legislative assistant. He had
a chief of the office staff and one other political person on
his staff, but I was the one, it turned out, who dealt with the
press. One of the people that I dealt with is still around
town, Rollie Evans, who later came to Congress. He was the AP
reporter who covered us, and there were a number of others.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Attorney General, if I may, I wrote down those
five things, the people who were also similarly appointed to
yourself, for instance, in this transition; what are the
significant issues or problems; what are the congressional
committees with jurisdiction; what are the nongovernmental
groups who have interest; and who in the media cover this
issue.
Mr. White, do you share that analysis?
Mr. Richardson. One quick point. Bearing in mind what I
said about the press is, I assumed and found out that these
guys had their own job to do, and if I simply understood that,
as it turned out, there would be no problem. That is a very
simple point that applies to all of these relationships. If you
understand well enough, use your imagination well enough to
recognize these other functions and their demands, it becomes a
hell of a lot simpler.
Mr. Ose. Thank you. Mr. White.
Mr. White. I would only add a couple of things. Of course I
would agree with everything. I should point out that when I
first met Elliot Richardson, he was administrative assistant to
the senior Senator from Massachusetts. I was a legislative
assistant to the junior Senator from Massachusetts, John F.
Kennedy, so that is how far we go back. Elliot was always
erudite then and, as you said, an icon of the way a public
servant should conduct himself, and he has always been that
way.
What I would add to his list, I think you have to get a
good hold on who are the interest groups that you are going to
meet because you are sure going to meet them. They will be
there, you can bet on that.
Next, I think you ought to get to the--what is now the OMB,
the old Bureau of the Budget. Those folks, I don't know if it
is politicized these days, but it didn't used to be. You could
really get the low-down on what is going on in any particular
department and agency. So I think you ought to make that stop.
And then if you are skillful, I would think that you would
find that particular character in the White House staff who you
want to be your entree and establish as good a relationship as
you can.
Obviously not everybody, every Cabinet or agency head is
going to be able to get to the President on every issue. They
have to call their shots, unless, of course--I would exclude
some of the more important ones, in my view, State, Defense,
the Attorney General, probably Treasury, but the Secretary of
HUD doesn't normally go right smack into the President, so he
ought to be able to identify who in that staff is his person.
Above all, I think you have to shake yourself a little bit.
As Elliot said, this is a temporary assignment. Political
appointees come and go, but the people in the agencies for the
most part will be there when you get there, and they will be
there when you leave, and it is very important that you know
who the key people are. One of the ways to get a fix on that is
to talk to your predecessor who held that job, so I would add
that.
Mr. Richardson. I think those are important additions. I
left them out, but I totally endorse what Mr. White said.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. If I might add a few things to what Mr. White has
said as a fellow legislative assistant just a few years after
you two gentlemen, besides going to the budget examiner, which
I think is what Mr. White is referring to, I regret to say that
function has been politicized. In other words, Roosevelt,
Truman and Eisenhower had career people, and you kept them
between administrations, and they gave you a lot of good
advice. I think we ought to get back to a lot of that, but that
is another story. But the budget examiner is certainly one.
The people that come to see me that are Presidential
appointees, I say, look, go over to GAO. There is an expert
over there in that department. Take a look and they will give
you a lot of studies and so forth, and then go to the Inspector
General, you are going to have to deal with that person, and
find out what are the key problems that everybody has shoved
under the rug, and you will find that.
So I would think those are a few of the things that you
might want to tack onto the list here.
Are there any questions that the gentleman has?
I thank you both for coming. We appreciate it very much,
and any thoughts you have on what we can add to this bill. It
is simply a draft bill. It hasn't been put in yet. I hope our
Democrat colleagues and Republican colleagues will go on it. It
might sound a little small, but that is OK, we make progress
step by step.
I thank both of you for coming. It is a great experience to
see both of you again, and we will go to panel two now.
We have Mr. Ink, Mr. Light, and Mr. Ornstein.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. We will start with Mr. Ink, former Assistant
Director, Office of Management and Budget in charge of General
Services Administration and all sorts of things in a very
valuable career in government.
We hope to get you all out of here by noon, so I think we
are in pretty good shape. You have sent us very fine papers
here. If you could just summarize it and don't read it.
Mr. Ink.
STATEMENTS OF DWIGHT INK, FORMER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET; PAUL LIGHT, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR PUBLIC
SERVICE, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION; AND NORMAN J. ORNSTEIN,
RESIDENT SCHOLAR, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR POLICY
RESEARCH
Mr. Ink. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. It is always a pleasure to have the opportunity to
testify before this committee and particularly today on behalf
of this Presidential Transition Act bill which you plan to
introduce.
I believe it can improve government in two important ways.
First, it can reduce costly missteps by well intentioned
incoming political appointees. Second, it can improve the
performance of appointees on whom a new President will have to
rely in launching his or her administration. I have worked with
scores of Presidential assistants over the years, and their
performance certainly varies from outstanding to just plain
awful.
An incoming administration brings in a number of new
political appointees, as you have said, who are very able
people with impressive backgrounds, but except for those who
have had prior experience, almost none of them realize what
awaits them in Washington. The pressures from all sides, the
intrusive scrutiny that characterizes Washington, are a shock
for which they are not prepared, and they find they are
expected to develop new programs and legislative proposals that
have to be advanced through a maze of processes and procedures
with which they are not familiar. Yet time is of the essence in
the first days of an administration when the opportunities are
greatest.
The steep learning curve needed for these officials to get
on top of their job is made more difficult because so many of
them have been immersed in campaigns that are very negative
toward Washington. They arrive, therefore, loathe to take
advice from anyone in Washington, neither the Washington
bureaucrats nor outgoing political leaders whom they feel have
been captured by inside-the-Beltway creatures who have lost
touch with the real America.
As a result, these new political figures, no matter how
capable, are in real danger of stumbling during these first
crucial weeks, not so much from what they are striving to do as
from how they are functioning and their lack of familiarity
with the techniques that are most likely to get things done in
this complex Washington environment. These mistakes produce
headlines and grist for the TV programs, and they reinforce the
negative view that the public has of government.
Further, ignorance of the techniques and approaches that
can best transform policy objectives into actions weakens the
ability of an administration to advance the agenda on which the
voters have placed it in office.
This bill would help meet the critical need for more
transition attention to how incoming political leaders can
manage the challenging processes of governing.
What type of subject matter to include? The bill, I think,
properly leaves flexibility to a President-elect, but my
written testimony does list several critical areas in which I
think orientations could be especially helpful. Approaches to
working effectively with Congress, for example, should be an
important subject. Some incoming appointees have never read the
Constitution and look down upon the Congress as simply a
problem institution to deal with as little as possible, rather
than as a partner in government.
Confusion over the roles of White House staff and their
relationship to departments, mentioned in the prior panel, is
another area in which new administrations tend to flounder at
first and another subject to be included.
An area that is perhaps least understood by new political
appointees is one which Elliot Richardson talked about at some
length. That is the value of the career service and how to
provide it with positive leadership, a gap in knowledge that
can be very costly. The career leadership is a tremendous and
indispensable resource of incoming political appointees, but it
needs to have positive leadership.
Although orientations are not going to reduce the
conflicting pressures, the number of pressure groups, or the
incessant scrutiny that characterizes Washington, they can be
of great help in preparing new appointees to cope with these
circumstances.
Finally, as to style, I would certainly hope that the
orientations authorized by this bill would be organized much
more as informal discussions and workshops with particular
emphasis on involving those who have served in these kinds of
positions in prior administrations, and not as lectures or
briefings.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I think there are many things
that can be done to help improve the Presidency. I think the
work that Norm Ornstein and his organization are doing and that
of Paul Light and the Center for the Study of the Presidency
may provide grist for this committee to consider other
legislative suggestions.
I think this bill deserves strong bipartisan support as one
of those steps that can make the American Presidency more
effective in the 21st century. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. That is a very thorough
document that you have presented, and we appreciate it.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ink follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Next is one of my favorite authors, Dr. Paul
Light, and I urge anyone who thinks that we don't have problems
to read Thickening Government. Those in the Eisenhower
administration, as a number of us were in this room, it is just
unbelievable the royal titles that have been added on,
Councilor to the Secretary, it is like Bismarck had been
reincarnated in America. I must say, the legislative assistant
is bad enough. It is now called the legislative director, and
there are numerous legislative assistants, and I think we got
just as much done in those days as they are getting done now
with five more people.
Mr. Light. It is a pleasure to testify before one of my
favorite readers; one of my few readers, I might add.
The last time I was here, we were talking about raising the
President's salary, and a particularly nasty conversation with
a colleague from another perspective, but you got that done,
and congratulations to this subcommittee for being the engine
of a rather significant amount of reform in these past years.
It is rather quite remarkable what the chairman and the members
of this committee have been able to accomplish. I look now on
this subcommittee as a real treasure for actually producing
meaningful reform in relatively small bites, but you show the
value of making those small steps, and they add up.
Mr. Horn. We had good bipartisan support.
Mr. Light. I wish I could have given your e-mail address
rather than mine in the wake of raising the President's salary
because I got a ton of e-mail from people who thought that was
not necessarily the best idea of all time. It was a good idea,
and I am glad that you were able to do it. I mean, I am
obligated whenever I testify with Dwight Ink to endorse
whatever Dwight Ink says. It is part of the obligation that I
have, and this is an easy one to do. The National Academy of
Public Administration has long supported this idea. The Volcker
Commission has supported it. Al Gore and National Performance
Review had buried in one of their appendices in their first
report in 1993 an endorsement of this idea. They didn't do
anything about it even though the vice president could have, I
suspect, persuaded the President to institute an orientation
program. It was not done. The Council for Excellence in
Government does do orientations now. They have some private
funding to do so, and the Pew Charitable Trust, which has
funded Norm Ornstein's project and mine, did include in our
grant some funds to do orientation. We would be delighted to
have the orientation adopted as an ongoing responsibility of
government.
As you know, in the statement I can't resist an opportunity
to expand an idea, no matter how good. My concern about this
bill is simply that if you are going to open up the
Presidential Transition Act of 1963, perhaps we can add one or
two ideas to that legislation that would address other issues
that I think we have broad general agreement need to be fixed.
My general point in the statement is that the Presidential
appointments process as it is currently operating today is
teetering on the edge, if not completely broken. We are not
generating appointments in a timely fashion. We have more
vacancies now in this administration than I daresay existed in
Disney World during Hurricane Floyd. We are in a situation now
where we do not make timely appointments. The Senate is unable
to discharge its responsibilities in a timely fashion, and I
think it is fair to argue that no matter how good the
orientation program might be that this subcommittee would
design and produce, and no matter how good it would be actually
implemented, we are now in a situation where there are serious
problems with the appointments process. No appointees equals no
value from an orientation program.
I summarize the role of citizen service by invoking Thomas
Jefferson's tremendous commitment to the notion that all
citizens are obligated to serve, but in reality we are seeing
increases in vacancy rates, increases in delays, increases in
refusals to accept appointment, and an increase in departures.
There is no question that the thickening of government has
something to do with it, a small piece to do with it. Pay has
something to do with it. The general climate in this country
toward service has something to do with it.
We are working now as part of the Presidential Service
Initiative at Brookings in collaboration with other
organizations and in partnership with others who are working on
this issue to generate meaningful pragmatic bipartisan ideas
for reform, and we will be bringing those forward in the
future.
However, I cannot resist remembering being in this room in
1988 when the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and the
House Government Operations Committee were debating the 1988
Presidential Transitions Effectiveness Act. As you know, most
of these kinds of conferences are staff-driven, but a gentleman
who is remembered through this painting to my left and your
right entered this room through that door to argue against, and
reasonably argue against, the notion of providing a little bit
of preelection transition planning support for the two major
party committees, and we dropped that provision.
It had bipartisan unanimous support from the Senate. We
could not make the case here in this Chamber. Certainly it was
a thin reed on which to make the case that giving the parties
$250,000 each to do a little bit of advance planning in the
preelection period might improve the odds that they could get
their appointees in place in time so they could take advantage
of this wonderful idea for an orientation program that this
subcommittee is now considering.
I strongly urge the subcommittee to take another look at
that provision. It is a tiny amount of money, a mere pile of
balloons that we could easily take out of the funding that we
are giving the two national party committees to host their
conventions next summer. It is a nice little idea. I haven't
asked Dwight how he feels about it.
Mr. Ink. I support the idea. I think there are a number of
things that can be done in addition to this. I just--this is
one that I thought would have bipartisan support that we could
probably get passed rather easily.
Mr. Light. These are good little ideas for improving the
odds that the next administration, be it Democrat or
Republican, will hit the ground running, and we have examples
from past history of administrations that have hit the ground
going backward and that have hit the ground going forwards. And
I think the model transition is the 1980 Reagan administration,
which is clearly a product of thoughtful preelection transition
planning and the courage of a Presidential candidate that said,
I am going to be governing if I am elected, and I need to start
planning today. Whether this subcommittee needs to get in the
business of telling candidates to do that is a judgment call,
but I would be remiss if I didn't take advantage of this
opportunity to thicken the legislative agenda.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Light follows:]
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Mr. Horn. I might add that the gentleman up there that you
pointed to, when I went from the Hill down to the Brookings
Institution as a senior fellow, I had a big dinner for a lot of
leaders from the Hill and key staff people on bringing
computers to Congress, which I had started in the Senate.
At the end of the dinner the individual to whom you
referred said, ``You're going to get that done over my dead
body.'' So, when I came here, I introduced myself again to the
chairman. He wasn't chairman of Government Operations at that
time. And I said, Mr. Chairman, I am just curious. A mutual
friend of yours and mine in Texas told me the story that when
you first ran for office, you didn't like what your opponent
was saying about you, it was a Democratic primary fight, and
you put a .45 on the podium and said, if my opponent says in
this debate what he said the last time, I am going to blow his
brains out. And he paused on that and chomped on his cigar and
said, ``My opponent didn't have any brains,'' a colorful Member
of the House.
Mr. Ornstein.
Mr. Light. He was a great chairman.
Mr. Ornstein. Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to be
testifying with this group of four individuals. I had the
wonderful honor of serving on the National Commission of Public
Service with Elliot Richardson and working closely with him, as
I did with Paul.
I did not have the privilege, I am thankful to say, of
testifying in favor of the Presidential pay raise. I say it
thankfully because I was out front the last time in 1988 and
1989, and I remember especially the only time I did Crossfire,
I don't like to do a screaming shows, but I felt a public
service commitment, and I got ganged up on by Pat Buchanan and
Ralph Nader, which I continue to view today as a badge of great
honor.
Mr. Horn. Saint Peter will pass you through.
Mr. Ose. Were you able to tell which one was which?
Mr. Ornstein. I couldn't then, and I can't now, as a matter
of fact. They merge into Ross Perot, I'm afraid.
I, of course, am very supportive of this piece of
legislation, and I thank Dwight Ink for not only his decades of
public service, but for continuing to champion some of these
goals. Like Paul, I believe this is a small, essential step. We
need to clarify the law in this regard, even though it could be
done as the law is today. I also believe that the subcommittee
should use this opportunity to broaden its focus into a number
of other areas.
I very strongly endorse the notion of committing some money
for preelection transition planning as a part of a broader
effort, it seems to me, to move away from the notion that
candidates have that it is presumptuous of them to even think
of the notion of governing before the election. What happens is
that after the election, they are exhausted. The winner is
triumphant and needs some time to catch his breath. Everything
that a new President-elect does is viewed by the press as
wonderful, building them up before they tear them down, and
there is no focus of preparing oneself or one's team generally.
We drift through until the inauguration and then stumble along.
Steps that we can take now suggest that it is appropriate
and necessary to think ahead so you can actually be prepared to
govern, and that governing itself is something to be considered
during the campaign by everybody.
At the same time it seems to me we have an ideal
opportunity with an open Presidential contest, neither side
seeing the strong need to tear down the other to keep things
from working well afterwards, to really rethink or think
through the whole gamut of issues surrounding the transition
and the governing process. And I would like you look at the
layering of political appointees, something that we dealt with
very directly, that Elliot and I did in the Volcker Commission.
The appropriate level of financial disclosure of political
appointees. The desirability of reducing and standardizing the
clearly confusing and overlapping forms that appointees must
fill out, and rethinking the number and nature of nominees who
require full FBI background checks.
The amount of time at every layer of this process and every
level when you begin to think about making appointments is
expanding. It is discouraging people from getting in, and it is
keeping them from moving in when they take the jobs.
I would also like to see this as an opportunity to step
back and see if we can take some small steps for a larger goal.
I think of the broken window thesis of James Wilson that would
send a signal that we want to change a culture that says if you
come into public service, you are guilty until proven innocent,
and begin to reestablish the notion that it is not such a bad
thing to serve a period of time for your country.
As for the orientations themselves, for the last couple of
decades I have been very active in a variety of the orientation
programs that AEI and Brookings have done for new Members of
Congress and that the Kennedy School does up at Harvard. Every
Member who has been through those orientations knows when you
come to Congress, it is a very different experience, whether
you come from the business world or a legislative body. That is
at least as true if not more so of top political appointees or
lower-level political appointees, and it clearly is something
that ought to be done and we ought to do now.
Let me just note, finally, Mr. Chairman, that I am heading
up, along with Tom Mann at Brookings, and we are working very
closely with Paul Light on a project that we call the
Transition to Governing Project, and we are doing a variety of
things to try to assist along this way. All of us want to work
carefully with you.
One of the things that we are doing in conjunction with
Martha Kumar, who is here today, is we are trying to prepare a
piece of software that we hope will be the functional
equivalent of turbo tax maybe crossed with the college
applications software for appointees to make it easier to fill
out those forms which now are a daunting task and probably
discourage a number of people from serving at all. We really
ought to rethink what goes into them in the first place.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ornstein follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We thank you all. Given the situation on the
floor and the voting schedule, I want to thank all of you as
witnesses. If you don't mind, we would like to send you some
questions that we might insert at this point in the record.
I should add to this that we have testimony not only from
our witnesses today, but General Andrew J. Goodpaster, who I
knew as Staff Secretary to President Eisenhower, the first time
the White House had such a position, when he was a young major,
and he will give us some documents, and then so will Pendleton
James, Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel
during the Reagan administration, and he has submitted an item
for the record. These are two very distinguished gentlemen who
have a unique perspective on the Presidency and the transition
process, and we welcome their process.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Horn. The hearing record will remain open for 2 weeks
for additional insertions.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:]
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Mr. Horn. I want to thank the staff that prepared this
hearing on both sides, Mr. George, the staff director and chief
counsel for the subcommittee; Mr. Ebert on my left, policy
advisor; Bonnie Heald, director of communications. She is in
the back, seated back there; and Chip Ahlswede, our clerk; and
P.J. Caceres, intern; and Deborah Oppenheim, intern.
And for minority we have Trey Henderson, counsel, and Jean
Gosa, minority staff assistant; and we have our faithful court
reporter Doreen Dotzler. Thank you very much.
With that, we will adjourn this session and go and vote.
[Whereupon, at 11:34 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]