Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20160816

Was talking about. So that made the conundrum period youre talking about much easier for our crowd because, we had the agenda in a 300 page book that people had internalized. People those who had worked for the campaign. We had the game plan set out for us and the reason i say that is a blessing, that we were blessed and having to run the campaign is that it made the george w. Bush administration unusually well prepared to govern and the said development and a lot of and are campaigning now is that policy does nothing to be that important and i think what we need to find is a way back, i dont think a particularly helps of the country thinks it is candidate is not bright. We need to find a way back to a mode of campaigning and politics where the candidates with the agendas and the agendas that suggested people, and what the people do in the first hundred days is what the country wants done. I think that is good be critical for our politics Going Forward. You could say that the most important thing Going Forward for the transition is having an articulated policy agenda as you come into office and really developing it at this point said that you know what you are going to do and organizationally that you can put together. Both. As a much better way of saying what i intended to say. [laughter] you set the table very nicely for the professor. [laughter] there are differences in types of transitions that you have. We going from democrats did democrats or republicans to republicans. The change of party transition. Both of you all were involved in change of party but how did you, you are in the george h. W. Bush administration and that was one from reagan to george h. W. Bush, whether the differences between the two and how should the two candidates, Hillary Clinton and donald trump think at this point about the differences in the types of transitions theyre going have and what differences they should make to how they prepare . I will take a first stab at it. I think first of all, the fun of the point i would make, the one that we have suggested a couple thousand is discussions of art is that both the Clinton Campaign and the trunk Campaign Already have established transition efforts in place and i think that reflects the environment that we talked about this morning. Obviously as some know, with john podesta as secretary Clinton Campaign, chairs he is very knowledgeable. The trump people have established, a credible transition effort. We have talked earlier. That is number one. Having gone through the change of parties, that is a very different dynamic than when you have a not a change of parties. It will be interesting and kris can speak to it, if secretary clinton is elected, how the transition will take place with the Obama Administration because that will be the same party. In our case, you were clearly got to have a significant change not only in terms of policy and direction and style, but in terms of personnel. I was understood and agreed upon. I would really harken back to the Central Point you already made, this is one of the few areas that truly bipartisan cooperation, sincere bipartisan cooperation takes place. As the governor like to say, it is fun to combat put on their stories and cooperate for the good of the country. I think that happens regardless of whether it is party to party or a different party. It is a very different dynamic. I think the changes more dramatic as you would think when you have republicans and republicans democrats and vice versa. I think it is a little more complicated and tedious when you have one party transferring to the same party. We will feel that takes place with the selection. See if that takes place this election. Lets the if you can take a swing at that. I was a junior appointee in the incoming bush 41 administration and there were a lot of rough spots in part because when there is a transition in the same party, the political appointees have a tendency to think they are welcome to stay so theres an important element of expectations management that needs to be done largely by the outgoing president. To let everybody know that you dont automatically get to stay. It will be at the sufferance of the new president. This is in a third reagan term. Status secretary clinton wins, not a third obama term. It will be the first Hillary Clinton term. It is important for the outgoing president to set expectations properly and probably to direct that everybody send to the president the resignation now and let the president decide, let the incoming president decide whether to accept them. There is a benefit to a same party transition and that is, although the incoming president of the same party will almost certainly want to change over all or a most all of the cabinet, there are number of subcabinet positions that are pretty technical in nature for which it will take time to get your own good people in place and you can keep the gears are government running much more smoothly and aggressively if you can keep a number of those people in place. It requires both expectation management and a fair amount of planning on the part of the incoming president of the same party, which i assume given the very experience people involved in the Clinton Campaign is well on their minds. You are helpful when you sent the were very healthily for the letter to the particle appointed time and that their term was up. Even provided a sample letter. [laughter] it wasnt really a suggestion. [laughter] there is principle that we have of one president at a time and in the 2008 transition, seem to be not quite so clear. There were certain things that happened and particularly with the financial meltdown that you all at the obama people had to do and work together. Can tells up and about that . You tell us something about that . We did all this planning. We were having a financial crisis at the time. The same kind of training applied. The same sort of close interaction between the outgoing and the incoming applied and for the most part, it went smoothly. Not entirely smoothly. There was an episode involving the bailout of the Auto Industry in which the Bush Administration had concluded against the political wisdom of most of the republicans in the congress that the federal government did need to do something to step in to support the Auto Industry. Left there would be major bankruptcy that i would have a cascading effect on the economy. We had hoped with the support of the incoming clinton team to appoint an auto czar. Sorry, freudian slip. [laughter] the incoming obama team that we would hope in cooperation with them that we would name and auto czar those accountable to the Bush Administration but was really the Obama Administrations auto czar so we could set in motion the process of rescuing the Auto Industry but that the Auto Industry would understand that they cannot game the system. Could not game the system. [indiscernible] was that president bush . [laughter] the Auto Industry that we had wanted to have a consistent policy so that the Auto Industry would know what to expect and know they could not game the system and that from our side we would ensure that they survive well into the beginning of the Obama Administration but also wanted to be sure that we put in place some very tough strictures on federal risk for support that would require the industry to take difficult step to make up the competitive going into the future so it was that money down the drain. Ultimately, that is basically what happened but the Obama Administration was reluctant to be seen to be cooperating with the Bush Administrations son never took us up on this offer of a straddling auto czar and we basically had to put in place ourselves. It worked out ok in the end. That is an example of where the notion of the incoming cooperating with the outgoing and the incoming had basically just run against and defeated was a bridge too far. It was not a eisenhower and truman moment of the kind that you referenced in your opening remarks but it was a clear indicator that there were limits to the number of and depth of whom by all humans and by all moments cum buy ya moments. In the midst of the financial crisis was absolutely critical to the Financial Wellbeing of the entire planet and steps that president bush took at the end of his administration to staunch the crisis were largely picked up by the Obama Administration and extended. There was not an abrupt shift in policy. It is interesting that the person whom president obama picked to be his first treasury secretary and therefore really the navigator of the course in responding to the financial crisis was tim geithner. Who had been a democratic treasury appointee earlier in his career but at the time of the financial crisis during the which administration was the president of the new york fed. Geithner was part of the triumvirate. That triumvirate is the one that really charted out a course for responding to the crisis on him president bush relied in making his decisions. There was an unusual element of continuity between the bush and Obama Administrations and the stewardship in response to the crisis. It has to be regarded as one of the most affected government responses in the history of economic policymaking. To really underscore that, josh and his typically modest way has not stated as darkly as i think it was. I think you make such a key point about one president at a time. That is the fundamental tenet of any transition. In this case with the economic crisis, not a security crisis, i figure country truly looked into the abyss of what likely would have been a depression had that transition not been handled in the way that it was just outlined in terms of the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration coming in. It was seamless, appropriate, may not had fully integrated on every issue but it was absolutely crucial at the time to avoid what likely would have been a depression to restore stability and order and i think our entire country and for that matter the World Economy benefited from that i commend you. I think theres a row respect real respect between anyone who has had that sacred responsibility as president of the one president at a time. I think we certainly experienced that with president bush 41 in the Clinton Administration. That served our country and our democracy world well. Thank you very much. We will never to questions. Now go to questions. Raise a hand and a microphone will go to you. Can you give us a quick discussion of what happened on 2004 and 2012 on president ial planning . Start transition planning while the running for reelection . And theres a vulnerable period if the other person were to win. That is a great question. The answer is, very little. It is just against the nature of any incumbent administration running for reelection even to contemplate the possibility that they might have to transition out so as great as president bushs leadership was in directing the 2008 transition, i would have to say that there is very little done in 2004. You should post the same question to chris lu he was the cabinet secretary 2012. My guess is you will come up with a very similar answer. It is a significant problem but that may just fall into the bridge too far category of actually doing, the incumbent doing preparation tumor met to permit the person to just eat him and cut him smoothly. Here is where i think organizations like the white house transition project can play crucial role because they are institutionalizing the mechanics and the wisdom of president ial transitioning and so when you cant rely on the white house to be as forthcoming as you would like them to be, there are these outside entities who can do precisely that. In addition, there is legislation that covers this. The 2010 legislation on transition provided that a president may create a Transition Coordinating Council and may create a Agency Transition directors counsel but nothing having happened in 2012 and have in london that experience that 2016 legislation says the President Shall take action. Shall create six month before hand the transition correlating counsel coordinating council. That mark was may 8 and may 6. The president issued the executive order entered into effect that legislation. The legislation called for the transition directors counsel, that one has to meet at least once a year. That is a continuing body a proper action preparation. You make a good point. The optics of running for reelection in preparing for your successor, people are going to think they know they are going to lose. That is a good point. Worse than measuring the drapes is taking them down. [laughter] other questions . [indiscernible] getting elected, did it change what they did in the 77 days which turned out to be not that many days . We did not have 77 days. We had clay was the transition director. He remembers it, every minute of it. 38 days. I hope you will have a chance to address this when you come up but the first 39 days of the transition, it was uncertain he was going to be the president. Clay had gone to work on preparing stuff but the focus of everybody was down in florida, not everybody, but almost everybody who was involved in the bush operation. Most people were down in florida try to make sure trying to make sure that your president was recognized and the thing was happening on the gore side. It was a difficult thing. I think clay, you would agree, it worked out ok. 77 days as a short time, 38 days is not a whole lot shorter than 77 in this context. If you are well organized enough, it can be done. It has more to do with who is involved, what is the direction, what is the plan, is there a program, it has more to do with that been exactly how many days you have. Then exactly how many days you have. I worked more bushs office and the transition process was amazing and just how the and administration really wanted to care for the next Prime Minister should come in and come all the way down to the individual offices. I had to put together a packet of what it was like a plan an event for laura bush and when a first lady comes from another country and what the processes and the team coming in and having to meet with mrs. Obamas team. I was impressed. You hear stories of coming in saying it was just not like that for us. He the figured out and calls figured out. We set the administration up very well and i believe president bush really left the place but it than he found it and prepare the next administration. That was awesome. Thank you for the leadership. What you are underscoring if the tone gets set from the top and if the president and mrs. Bush said disability letter, that is the way will be. Ive a lot of confidence that the president and mrs. Obama had not only said the right things but will communicate the right things to their folks and, however the election turns out, there will be a good experience for the incoming and administration. Not taking the drapes down, the 92 campaign was a difficult time for president bush 41, while we made not had as well organized transition effort as he may have liked, i will underscore that the cooperation we received from jim baker, directly at the request of president bush 41 could not have been better. It allowed us to play catchup so much more effectively than otherwise would have been the case. That is the case where it was a difficult time. Yet you had an effective, smooth, positive transition of power which is a hallmark of our democracy and what we are seeing is that you are refining the process now and moving it forward in a much more serious the beltway for the funding, technology, all of these things where the transition planning and i give credit to people in the room, it is now becoming just an excepted and increasingly understood part of a critical period of our democracy. Thank you very much. Lets take our plan is to thank our panelists. [applause] we will bring you another in 1998,e started this which was a long time ago, it ones like just yesterday, of the things people talked drapesas measuring the was the equivalent of changing your socks in the middle of a winning streak in baseball. We had to deal with the fact that politicians were like professional baseball players. They would grow a beard if they thought it would win the election, and not change their socks if it would win the election. The transitions ran against that. It is now commonplace for people to think it is a responsible , tog to measure the drapes think what are they going to do if they actually manage to prevail. President isf the to convince people that measuring the drapes, preparing to leave to take down the drapes is the new equivalent of not changing your socks. That is an easy transition. Panel was essentially about what it is like to transition to the white house. This group of people have walked. Nto the white house on day one another interesting aspect is they have all walked out of the white house before the president walked out of the white house and moved into the executive branch where the mission of the administration also goes on. This panel will be a bit about walking into the building and what that experience is like because they have had that experience and how do you take on the responsibilities of running what the president is only and the top part of the full executive branch which is one of the Large Organizations of the world, or the worlds most powerful organizations, and one of the most complex organizations. Especially if youre interested in actually making a fit your ambitions. If i am allowed to, i will give you a brief synopsis if you missed the first panel. Leadership is a team sport. It starts at the top. Leadership is a team sport and practice matters. Regardless of whether or not you face the same game you think youre going to play, practicing together helps everyone. Those are topics that these three people have had. One thing i learned last night is that not only did lisa brown walked into the white house with president obama, she also walked with vice white house president gore and clinton. She has been on both and the conundrum of the transition. Clay johnson started planning to walk into the white house even before governor bush announced he was going to run for the white house. That is part of a reflection of then governor bush and george w. Bushs commitment, longstanding personal commitment to making sure things are done sure things , properly. He not only walked into the building with george w. Bush, he walked out of the building with a different part of the presidency. He was Deputy Director of management. The same job that lisa brown was assigned to by president obama and put a twist on it to make her Key Performance officer. I will let her talk about what that means. Chris lu, like clay johnson was the executive director of the obama Transition Planning Group which means he was the guy who started way back before obama was a presumptive candidate. He was the guy whose job it was to make sure they knew what they on. E doing if they w is the deputy secretary of labor. If you know anything about the agency, they are the guys who make the building run. The person whose job it is to make sure the ambitions of the secretary and ambitions of the president are the actual output of the agency. What i plan to do is ask a series of questions of each individual, but all three will have a chance to comment on them. They all have similar experiences, so i will start alphabetically. You have all walked into the building. You have all been part of the process before where your person was just a candidate, and now is the president elect and he walked into the building and did the job and what i would like you to do is think back to the end of the second week, not the first week, the second week and ask yourself if you could only draw on that twoweek experience, what thing would you tell your successor that would help them walk into the building with more confidence and strength . First, i want to say thank you. Thank you for the bush library for hosting and the Moody Foundation for making all of this possible. I think both mac and a josh talked about this. You want to come in with a very clear plan and roadmap for what you want to do clearly for the first two weeks. There is pomp and circumstance, executive orders are announced very quickly, and you want to set that tone very quickly. What you want to do is know when you walk into the door, we had a plan, and we knew what was happening on day 1, 2, 3, specially for the first two weeks. You want to have a clear plan, but also be willing to be flexible. It is a remarkable time to do things done, you do not want to squander that. But you also do not know what is going to happen. You also need to be able to be agile when something does happen so that you can respond to it. I agree totally. I want to expand on that lisas comment, which is, you need to take charge of the kind of president you want to be and want to be confident and comfortable and assured that you will be able to be in those first couple of weeks. Barring unforeseen circumstances, what do you want to do . Educational things, statutory things, congressional things whatever you want to do. One of the things that could be risks if they show their face, where countries threaten, and there are Economic Risks and health risks and so forth. The candidate needs to be thinking, how prepared do i want a threat tol with our country . Or a health risk . Wellstaff do it want to be in key areas and departments, how wellbrief to do i want to be . How knowledgeable about potential circumstances that i may be faced with . And make sure that that happens. The thing that should not be a variable but be ford is, what the candidate president today what kind of president they want to be those first two weeks. Without a doubt, do they want to be . What is fixed is not the amount of time they have between now and then, it is timed in terms of man days, do you have someone working on it . Two or three people, a three people man month, but if it is 303 am i devoting the resources, mi expanding the time, adding more days to the calendar than really exists by adding more people to really be prepared . Mi in a position to succeed and , those other things that might occur help from a National Security standpoint. Take control of that. That is the picture of success you want to accomplish, that you want to have painted it your two weeks in the presidency and own that and take responsibility. This is why the transition period is so important. You want to come in and hit the ground running. You want to start governing the minute the president is sworn in, instead of, where is the bathroom equivalent. Using that 77 days or 34 days as best you can, so that when you do governance like clay just described. So when you walk in the door, you can immediately start acting and setting the tone for your presidency. Terry and not really 77 days, that is president elect. You did not start thinking about the transition on election day, right, chris . You started months ahead of time. Days, howeverose many people you have put into it is growing opportunity to be prepared. Chris we started planning in may of 2008, maybe actually april, before candidate obama had even grabs the democratic wrapped up the democratic nomination. We understood the importance of planning in a very comprehensive way. Planning a transition is one of these really unique experiences where you cannot ask for an extension of time. January 20, ready or not, you have to be ready to go. That time goes very fast. Many decisions you make during transition will ultimately affect the success of your presidency. The key to all of this is understanding this is that no matter how great the planning is you have to be prepared for the , unexpected. In the beginning of 2008, the spring of 2008 we started planning, we had probably a dozen different policy groups looking at everything from education to health care to the environment. Economy was one of them. It was one of the 12 different groups we had. By the fall of 2008 as the financial Housing Market started imploding, all the work you did on the economy expands to take over Everything Else. You have to plan but also be nimble, as well. Host planning is partly about the people you want to put in place and what positions they have and who is going to be the a good fit for the president s ambitions, but it is also about the ambitions themselves, right . The policy . The ability to pivot to an unexpected event or crisis, is that Everything Else is already in place. It is easy for i think it is hard for people to understand about the presidency that the president could actually say, something is on fire, and it is really important, but i have other things to do. Dont mess this up while i am gone, but i have got to do this other thing. So the president s ability to pivot to it crisis depends upon the fact that notion, while he is focused on a crisis, the left the whole rest of the government is not standing still. There is a general policy being pushed forward by others that he depends upon and that matter to him. So that planning stuff you do is not simply what are we going to , do the first couple of weeks . Is the president going to give a speech on this topic on day four, but where is the president s agenda, how far hasnt been advanced, and how well is it organized . Because now i have got to focus on this other thing that no one was expecting. That is a part of the transition as well. Everyone agree with that . Yes. So if we set that out as an objective, first set out the president s agenda, and then how can we use that agenda to help him pivot toward the things that are unexpected for him or her toward the things that are , unexpected . Where does the personnel fit into that . The nice thing about the campaign is that it is a ready group of people that the now president elect is now familiar with, but there are now all these other people like mac and josh talked about to draw in from the washington community. You are not clear what their objectives are. This is a question for clay. You have this responsibility. How do you decide who the president needs from washington, and how do you decide who the president needs from the campaign . Clay the president is charged to me when he was governor. I was the appointments person for the first 4. 5 years of governorship. Which is the equivalent of president to personnel. You decide who to recommend to me to do the work we want to get done while i am governor or president. So for his administration, what does he want to do . That is the goal. We want people to do the best job. About politics. To me, it is very important that you understand what work you want the secretary or assistant to do. The head of fish and wildlife for the parks and recreation, what do you want them to do . So the first thing you do as president ial personnel, you go to the appropriate policy person and say, what does this Administration Want park and wildlife to take care of. And the Health Department or hhs, what do they want . In the three or four years they will be in the particular job, we want them, we think they should be able to accomplish this, go this direction, south, north, reduce or add it. Or whatever it is. Then you confirm with them and others what kind of person is best suited to do that. A change agent, subject matter expert, management expert . You want someone publicly associated with the issue or somebody for very Different Reasons im no Public Association because they will be a lightning rod . What kind of person are you looking for . Then you go out and you say, here is the target of the person i would like to recommend so i can explain to the president , this is the person we recommend because you want to get this and this and this done, this person wants you to get this and this and this done because they are that and that. So you go out and find people in the various ways networking. So what happens to politics . There was a partnership with political affairs. We did not try to do with the political matter as well as the accomplished matters in the personnel office. Personal was charged to deal. Ith the competency matters their charge was, make sure we dont do anything stupid politically. Or politically stupid. [laughter] clay anymore. So they would recommend people that were politically safe or politically wise, or were sure to be loyal to the president , likeminded as the president and so on. Maybe they were people that did not come from them, but they would check their political background, people that worked in the community, who would be acceptable. It all started with what kind of person are you looking for that is best qualified to accomplish what this president wants to do . It was a very clear charge to find the person best qualified to get the work i, we want to get done while i am president. Terry so you do that without reference to a set of names . Clay without reference to a set of names . Terry you were describing the charge is, describe the person we want, for the department of labor, secretary of labor, what does that entail, what kind of person do we want, all within the context of, we dont already know who that chris lu is . Clay you have to be disciplined to go and decide that. Somebody else might overhear as you get to finding them i can tell you chris lu would be a fantastic secretary of labor. Or, i think chris lu would be a fantastic we would find out, what do the policy people suggest labor be focused on for the first three or four years . And, is chris lu qualified to do that, has the skill set to do that, because it means working well with congress or doing this operationally within the agency or as a manager or fiscal or whatever. So you are not given a name. Your first job is to place these people in senior positions. Maybe it did not happen with us. Terry on the other hand, you are directing, in obama transition, you are directing 600 people that are looking at agencies that are basically agency experts, policy experts, people like that. Are you telling those people that they are the policy people that have an indepth understanding of what it is like to deal with Employment Training or Something Like that, because that is what they are interested in in the department of labor . Are you also saying that . Also keep in mind there is no way you will meet all the classifications to be the assistant secretary of training. Or do those people go to work only because this is their ambition . Lisa people join because they care about the government and to be honest, they hope they will go into the government. We were very clear you would not necessarily be given a job. We put together a Transition Team, we were very clear with folks that while we welcomed the participation, they should not necessarily expect a job. To some degree, people prove themselves through the job. They do a great job on a Transition Team, and then they are thought of when you are looking to see who will be your deputy secretary of justice. Terry did you guys start with did the obama team start with a profile . Lisa can i say one thing . I dont know if it was mac or josh who said this earlier but , we had our Transition Team was completely distinct from the campaign. So what we did was, we actually drew a lot for the agency. These were teams that went into individual agencies to learn as much as they could very quickly so that they would know when the secretary came in not only would , they know what the president wanted to accomplish, but also what would hit that secretary in the face when they walked in the door. Whether it was a regulatory or budget issue. We chose people who had previous government experience. If somebody had worked in justice previously, and they were on the Transition Team, you went in knowing about the department and the issues. You dont really want somebody who is trying to get up to speed on this set of issues. When you were talking about the balancing of people from the campaign and people with previous experience, that often was the half that would be from previous experience. Terry the people from the campaign why is it important that they transitionplanning people are sequestered from the campaign . Chris it is not that you are try to keep them separated. The sole goal is to win the campaign. They should not be looking over their shoulder, trying to cut around corners to game of their next job. If there is a moment in time when they think about it, needs to go to the campaign. Truthfully, the skills one needs to win a campaign are often different than what it takes to govern. There are a lot of wonderful Campaign People that transition over into administration, but some people can because that is not their skill set. Terry whose job is it to tell them their skill set will not land them in the administration . Clay everybody has a place. There is a key in appointments which is how to say no. , personnel types, we say the president makes the appointments and we make the disappointments. [laughter] clay so the question is, how do you disappoint somebody . Terry sure. Clay you never say you something negative. You never tell senator soandso about his person is not going to be, you know, the king of something, a small country at his request. You never say your constituent, something negative. You say what is going to happen, not why. And, i am very interested in your qualifications which is all true. Your ability to serve and campaign. So, we hope that you will hang tight because there is a different role you could be challenged by. And that almost always happens. Chris i think the challenge also is you have to hear out the different kinds of people on campaigns. People, a senior policy they all have a role. There are real challenges, what do you do with the 23yearold field organizer who has camped out in a battleground state for the last six months and has organized all kinds of the volunteers, and really given up a huge part of his or her life to help win . Trying to translate that skill to governing is a harder challenge. One that all administrations face. Clay i dont know how many of those people there are, but i think it is 15. There is no set limit to how , generallyle cs about 1600. This lower level, very important jobs in key areas. The person who has camped out in eron, ohio for six months generally the ideal person to have this person over commerce , that person not expecting to be assistant secretary for nuclear defense. [laughter] there is a fit for everybody in the campaign if they want to be involved in the administration. Terry you dont have to say no very often . Know at theght not time, but the key is, you are not trying to fill positions. You are trying to get work done. The first step in that direction is come up with the one that is qualified to lead that effort to get the work done in that position. Terry the work you are doing is the agenda the president is pursuing. Right . That is the defining anchor. Lisa people are policy. I think as clay is describing, you think about your priorities. Obviously, you will do your cabinet quickly. You want to think about, what are the key things the president , the candidate has, the goals they set on the campaign . What do you want to quickly do when you come into office . You need people to quickly implement those. One of the challenges is what positions,confirmed what mac was describing in terms of the cooperation that he got on the hill, is more of a challenge today. One thing and Incoming Administration needs to think about is taking advantage of the positions where you can just appoint someone, and getting people into agencies in those. And there is a lot 4000 positions, is that right . Upot of positions, and ends adding inevitably something that slows down. For an Incoming Administration to try to back that up as much as possible, so when you come in, you have people or slates lined up that you can start to move and get an agency that will be important. Clay what is an example . The question was, somebody had said i just got an idea yesterday. Norman would be a great democratic member of Senior Member of our administration. He sounds great, he knows housing. Im sorry, transportation, he knows transportation as well as the chairman of the whatever committee. And i say great, what do we want the secretary of transportation to do . Be really effective at working with the congress. [laughter] clay touchdown. So he has that background, well regarded in congress, both sides of the aisle and so on. It is winwin. But that came up originally because he was a democrat looking for a political thing of, the whole thing is this is bipartisan. The thing that drove it primarily was the nature of the background, and that fits exactly, what the policy people said they would want at the head of their department. Terry so to take this example, transportation and countrys Airline Infrastructure was not george w. Bushs primary policy structure. Objective. It is probably 13 out of 13 on the list. How do you decide to Pay Attention to that nomination and that, the qualifications of somebody who is not obviously in the cabinet . Skip the cabinet because you have got to fill out the cabinet. How do you go out feeling below sailing down below the agencies . Do you focus on the agenda or find we can fill out the entire Transportation Department in one fell swoop. Because norman minetta will walk all these people throughout secretary. Do you go for the guys you can get in and stand up that part of the government whether it is important to the president s agenda or not or do you fight , what you have to fight for the people that you really want because they are key to the president s education agenda and you want the Education Department filled top to bottom to promote the president s agenda . Clay you tie it to the work you want to get done. On the subject of norman minetta and filling up those transportation positions. He has been asked by the president to be this, and it has been announced. Norman and i are good friends. Now. [laughter] clay and he comes in and he says, i have a whole bunch of people i want to bring with me into the Transportation Department. And i said this is kind of what i said here is the way we would like this to work. Nobody has recommended to the that we recommend for future positions, and we have not recommended that anybody be personally pushed out. So we will name, and you have to agree. So maybe you have 15 people for and will be looking at it from a different perspective, perhaps more focused on other things than your relationship with them. But if she agrees that is the right thing because she is the one held accountable for filling the ranks and transportation for people that can get the work done, the president wants to get done, then you will be happy, she will be happy, and it is recommended to the president. If you cant agree that this person is significantly more successful getting it done, this person is the risk and so on, then you agree to disagree and find somebody you can both agree on. Terry so you dont agree to disagree and take it to the president . Clay no. You have to honor your relationship with the secretary so that they feel good about everybody on their team. Whoave had people come in were governors of states, they remain nameless, and their suggestions for who they want other team all came from that state. They all came from their staff as governor, every one of them. We said, you know, this person is going to be the secretary of x for the United States of america, not United States of whatever. This will not work. This is it is not going to work. We cant agree on this. We will take one job at a time because we both have to agree. It is hard to do it that way. I think nixon told his cabinet, you, you can pick all your own people. Be your team. Disaster. Others have said, i will pick all the people. And i will tell you your own team, who your direct reports are, disaster. Because you are an extremely wellqualified person. You are the secretary of something, but you have never met your direct reports before. You have no relationship with any of them. I dont believe i want that job. It is a mistake looking for a place to happen. Terry and the guy that says, i will take that job is not the chris i will add diversity. It is not only diversity as gender, race, it is people that bring variety of experiences whether it is state and local government, private sector, or nonprofit. You look for people that do not just come out of the typical washington establishment. Lawyers, lobbyists, people on the hill. To be sure, there are jobs for which specialized experience is necessary. For your head of the faa, you want somebody who knows who knows aviation. That is not something you want to mess around with. But there are a good number of jobs where you want a good, smart manager who has got some level of policy with political savvy. They can be very, very successful. Terry is diversity something you expect the democrats to talk about and republicans not talk about . In other words, this attitude you have because democrats typically are thought of his having a giant coalition of a whole bunch of groups that have different interests so the notion of diversity is a critical way of doing business in the democratic party, because it is a big tent with a lot of different voices, and the Republican Party is one voice articulating one position didnt seem like that to you . Clay no, here is the way we did it. The president said about a month in, by the way, monthtomonth or every couple weeks, tell me how we are doing various types of diversity. Give it to me by ethnicity, gender, by washington insiders versus washington outsiders, by different ways of because if it is only all the usual suspects, you are going to get only the usual type of government. So you want new thinking, you want fresh thinking, you want and all these studies about the more diverse a group of people is that is making decisions, the better the decisionmaking is. Diversity can be defined as many different ways as you want to. Tell me how that compares to prior administrations. We would talk about how many washington insider the beltway people we have appointed, what percent were outside the beltway , what percent are from mississippi, west of the alleghenies. For whatever. Der we, the firstthat time we started to look at that was probably march. And we were very diverse. It is not a conscious thing, there were no quotas or goals. Proud of theetty way we had done that. Terry is that something that gets decided before he is president elect . Clay what is decided . Terry this thing about diversity. Chris president obama said early on he wanted an administration that reflected america. As clay said, there was no specific quota, no saying, we needed this and this and this. It was, we should look for a diversity of people. Every study that has been done on this in the context of organizational dynamics is, the more diverse set of views, the better your decisionmaking will be. Clay and it can be age. This and i do not think is democrat versus republican, it is about a wellmanaged organization. Lisa i agree. When you do the policy panels, is that a concern, or is it just about their policy expertise . Do you sit down and say, look at this group, they are going into the labor department, and they are all this one type of person . They all have a strong union background, for example. Lisa these agencies are huge, these agencyreview teams are relatively small. The expertise is the piece you focus on the most. Because you want someone who knows the faa, someone who wants act,air labor standards the substantive needs are great. But you keep in mind that you wanted to be a diverse a group. You want to have a variety of perspectives. Terry transportation may have been 13 on president bushs list based on his agenda, but, 9 11, there were a lot of important decisions to be made. Upsometimes you set yourself to pivot an issue that was unexpected by how you set up the personnel that you want. Chris let me give you a good example. You want to find the best qualified people because you never know that even if an item is not your top agenda, you never know when something will come up. One of the big things that happened from the Obama Administration was, the deepwater water spill. Coast forted the gulf about three or four months. We appointed, nominated and confirmed as our secretary of energy a physicist. A nobellwinning elwinning physicist. He then got detailed down there and could actually help design the mechanism to cap the oil well. It is a luxury to have expertise like that, which is why you want to get the best people on your team. Clay i am not necessarily looking for the best people to do the work who would say that . Lay it out there as what your goal is, find the best people to do the work. Turns out, norman minetta was a fantastic guy to beat secretary of transportation. That going in. And the importance of transportation would be led by an extremely knowledgeable we have one. Terry and somebody congress can count on . Ironically, i would say one of the most successful cabinet members we had was a republican congressman from illinois that was placed after secretary of transportation. Nobody might have said at the outset, this 12 or 14 term republican congressman who had touched on transportation issues within the becoming an effective secretary of transportation, but he was because he was just very good at how he did his job. Terry can you talk about the demands to have someone else from the other party . Clay the demands . Terry is that something you think about when sitting down to identify the cabinet of yours . Is it useful to be able to say, we are stepping across the aisle, and making somebody find a place in the government . Clay if the person is incompetent terry of course, but is that an advantage . Like we said, diversity is good. When the cabinet is sitting throws and the president out a sizzling issue at a candidate meeting, and some on from the other party is sitting there, i can tell you, this may not go down well. Diversity is good. All different standpoints, diversity is good. About chris, can you talk how you decided, you started with these candidates and were assigned the responsibility, you have taken care of the transition and walked into the white house with the president and now have this job for three or four years were you carry out his ambitions in the agency and decide it is time to do that job down in the weeds how do you make that decision . You, i think tell this is true for the five people i have spoken to, we have a multitude of different jobs within the administration. When the president asks you to do something, you do it. And i do think there is value in having people move throughout the government. Many political jobs in the administration are really highlevel project managers. They certainly need expertise in those areas, the people who understand how government works, and how to craft and diplomat solutions, you can use those people all throughout the government. Every one of those people made that decision at some point to leave the white house and go into the federal government, into the executive branch. Clay you are in the executive branch in the white house. When the president suggested me we just got almost all the positions filled. Said, the president wants you , heet another role here does not want to to get burned out. I said, that is great. What i would really like to do is be Deputy Director for management he said, what . Terry so why . Method touse i bring madness, that is what i do. And there is a lot of madness and the federal government. I think i would be really good at it. And he said, go get them. , so he brought to make sure people are not at a flat learning curve, they have to be excited about their daily challenges. They did not ask, why labor . I have not worked on labor issues extensively during my career, but i had a passion for what the department of labor does. We help people find jobs, and when they find the jobs we protect them in the workplace. It was hard for me to see a more noble way to spend my career. It was also a chance to work with a dynamic secretary of labor, who a lot of people are reading about these days. And, to work on hard challenges. I spent most of my career as a political person, but what i lacked was True Management experience. Coo of a massive organization. Budget, hr, i. T. The nuts and bolts of an organization. That was a challenge i wanted to take, and fortunately, i was given that opportunity. Is a focus on peace or prosperity. Labor. Lisa most of the work of the government is done in those agencies. A lot of young folks who come into the white house think, i am in the white house, i do not want to go anywhere else. But i encourage them to. Because the practical experience you get working on programs, most people in the country know more about the department of labor than they do the white house. You can actually make a real difference in those jobs. You went to office of management and budget, as well. Lisa because the president asked. Terry not because you bring method to madness . Lisa it was similar, i went to work on an initiative. It was a management position, and ended up being a lot of interagency work. Is there a point at which you sit down and say, on election day we had these 12 things most important to the those things josh talked about, those key items. We either succeeded at moving or we swam the length of the relay and someone else picks it up. But out there in the executive branch, there are all kinds of responsibilities, someone has to make sure the faa radars are still working, and that is not a it is an important part of the government. Until you get to a point where you can say, we are replacing the president s agenda with this sort of regulatory responsibility, maintaining the government, we have done what we can do, but there is still a lot that we need to do, as opposed to want to do. Still has to do these things, and that is an important part of the labor agenda. Have you keep doing that every knowing that there is a time it will run out . And, you need to be preparing if there iseration going to be another democratic administration. To go of your democrats, you are in a situation where there could be a successor. How much time do you spend preparing those guys to get ready with the problems that are faced in labor or management, regardless of what party, but they are not the statutory things . You know what i mean . This, i would say think, fortunately or unfortunately, given the state of gridlock in washington, you never reach the point where you say i have gotten everything done. Until the very last day, you will try to push your agenda forward. As we have learned and future president s will learn, given the dynamic in washington, the agenda of your agency will be the agenda of the administration. I think we will continue to have divided government. The ability to get legislation passed in the absence of crisis will always be challenging. Grantllions of dollars of money that the federal government gives out, the multitude of regulations and initiatives that arise from government agencies, makes the accomplishments of what the white house is trying to push. Terry are you saying the record of the ministration is what you have done, or, the record of the administration is that we set out in this big book that josh was talking about and we want to check those things off did it , didnt, did it, didnt. Or, is the Administration Just a list of things we checked off that we did . We had a big legislative accomplishment. Did we get comprehensive climate nge legislation done, done . No. But we have made changes in emissions of Motor Vehicles and trucks that will substantially lower greenhouse gases. You can either go about it with one big legislative accomplishment, which is how people often think about. The regulatory changes which may have the same effect as big legislation. Lisa it is not an onoff switch. Ontinually we are working the priorities of the administration. Gorewhen Vice President was running for president , the Clinton Administration was still working very hard to accomplish all the things that president clinton had promised. To the other part of your question, you have a discrete set of people working on that transition. It is not an eitheror. Terry is that an important thing . You are worried about transitions, you need a Discrete Group of people whose job it is to focus on . Clay if you want to get anything done, you need that group of people. No matter what . Clay here is a statement for you. All generalizations are false, including this one. [laughter] one thee is another primary reason every government organization, every government in the world is not working to satisfaction, is because they do not govern with desired outcomes in mind, and there is little transparency about how well they are performing relative to the goals that they do have. That is the case in the federal government, the case in every country, every state. Their goals are not outcomeoriented enough, not specific enough, tied to the money available, or time frames. It is just not very goaloriented. Govern with to specific goals, especially if you make those really clear and transparent, and how you are performing relative of those goals. To a president who shall remain nameless, i propose to him, that his next state of here is howdress i want to be held accountable, he proposed it to his speech writer. Here is what i want to be held accountable for a competition in the next four years. You could have heard the explosion you have to be kidding me . You cannot be serious. I said, what if we do not accomplish one of them . People will be shocked if youre competent of them. [laughter] clay they have so little regard for the federal government you want to be held accountable to what you say you will do . They will be just stunned. Maybe it is too big an idea. That, is whyis of governments do not work better. , here ishere is no what we promised, here is what we want to do, and here we are doing it. There was little transparency to that type of performing. Gotchaome of that is the game. Why do we not want to make wellknown what is not working in the federal government . , toyou ever take a class shine a little light on democracy . That is what that is. We have to figure out how to bring more sunlight to what people are trying to accomplish, and by when. Exists, like put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, mountains move. Mountains move when that happens. The president s management agenda, president bush 43, defined outcomes and goals on a quarterly basis, evaluated agencies with how they were performing through those goals, issued a scorecard yellow, red, green, how people were working. Agencies noticed they were having motivated we celebrated when they got to green it was incredible. The congress resisted it because it is harder for them to be members of congress, and you cannot get bridges to nowhere if you have goals to deal with. [laughter] clay so in general, there is a list and you go through it. Of whattle list making we accomplished, especially not in a public fashion where you let your stakeholders know how you are doing relative to what you set out to do. What is the question . [laughter] is that a viable threat . Clay it may not be viable. But it has not ever been done. Believerok, i am a that you should set clear goals and make your best effort to do them. , if thatraditional way is your version of how change happens, you will be waiting a very long time. There are other ways to move the agenda forward. Terry can we talk about the other ways that are executive in nature . Ifch you depend upon you are setting aside a team, that team is set aside to prepare the next administration, is that team mostly the political people that you have brought with you, that represent the agency in person . Represent the agency in person, who group of Civil Servants are the professionals who face these issues day in and day out, all their lives, regardless of what party is an administration . Is it possible to sit down and say, president obama has a long list of goals in the department of labor that we will objectively accomplish, and we will fight for those every day and the day we walk out of the , and the responsible decisions that have to be made to help the next administration get ready, we will leave to the professionals who have faced these problems in the transitions to new and ministry since, regardless of party . Chris i do not think it is an eitheror. Do not think political people are running through the tables on january 20, and the others are minding the shop. Regardless of who is my successor, i have a lot of things i want to talk about. What you need to realize, and i know you know this, the vast majority of what happens in partisan, its not happens regardless of who was in the administration. There are the broad agendas and priorities, the nuts and bolts of government, in terms of programs we administer that are not partisan, and you just want them to work as well as they possibly can. Clay same for management. Things. Any administration in their last six months tries to launch new ships. But they better be prepared to fail at that, because it is not going to happen. The important thing is, the white house and its Department Agree on our priorities and how to run the business in the next six months. Basically, they would agree they will not try to get a new bill passed or cut something in half because it will not happen. That is one thing. Have some rogue agency trying to go out and get 30 new balloons launched it is just impossible. Because thehing is, standard for handoffs between outgoing and Incoming Administrations has been set so , because of the work by obama coming in and bush , that is a standard that the Obama Administration has to live up to. They were the benefactor, and they praised those people. So they want to be held in the they caused the Bush Administration to be held in. You do not want to its a very high priority so you dont want to give secondrate status to that responsibility. The third thing is, in the primary, the responsibility for welcoming a staff. M in is the career terry yeah. Clay the only role that the political staff in an agency, to have, is identify their senior career people who to lead this effort and say lets talk about what be, whatities ought to the components of a wellorganized welcoming and heresght to be, what we ought to do and heres the information well pull together and so forth and youre in charge and youre in charge of whatever and stuff. And then they are highly highlyed, careers are motivated to implement that because they want their new bosses to like them. Thats human nature. Are going to make that the best welcoming party and speed in am up to fast paced effort thats ever. Een then their agency will benefit from that. Months from january january 20, 2017 clay july 20. Terry so chris, in your agency, have you had this conversation . Did the conversation sound like this . Chris it sounds exactly like this. I think thats what all its not to say were not going to pushing agendas, not going to continue setting the table for the next the prioritiesof that we hope that they implement but youre also sort of thinking longer termre the transition issues, what are the documents that we want to incomingor the new secretary, the new incoming team . So they understand the and challenges they have ahead. Terry and on that were going to turn the questions over to audience. Does anyone here in the front. Microphone. To transitions, aboutwas no discussion the transition of congressional leadership as a goal or idea for Incoming Administration, reelective administration or whatever. That a good to me bit of the gridlock in washington, i think a lot of people in america think, is because of perhaps the leadership in congress. About both the house and the senate. That any attention paid to wereems to me if i president , which i will not be [laughter] want my guy, as much as possible, to be in charge of the senate and in charge of the house. My guy or gal. But i recognize that has some problems in itself. But id like to hear a little terry they have no control or influence on that. Are elected. Clay in other words, thats a environment. Its not a part that the president feels like terry the executive branch, the legislative branch. Clay so george w. Bush, texas, charged to you was not to try to figure out how to get rid of the republican theership in the house and senate on the way to being president . It wasnt part of your plan . [inaudible] [laughter] it was for sure not part of plan. Terry and that makes it in other words, the way that way thatlooks is the congress looks and you have to work against you have to deal with that as an issue. Its not something that the president also a great the has aate or the president great influence over. Clay independent. Chris and obviously very early you set upection day courtesy visits between the president elect and leadership, she may be. R and you try as hard as you can to form good relationships and agreement. Of common that becomes more challenging in this political dynamic we have. Ight now terry anyone else . Unusual than more the usual. In that any thought maybe a staggering of taking over, do you think that thats something that would be the future . N clay i think thats exactly the way the state of texas does it. Positions are termed. Of all positions turn over every two years. These arent fulltime positions. These are position that are boards that run all of our state agencies and stuff. There have been some legislation had reduced the number of senateconfirmed positions, kept them as removedl positions but them from some confirmation. I think there are about 160 or reduced out. E 1,200. So theres recognition of the opportunity or wish it wasnt so we could change it. But i dont know that theres a be tothing that ought to be that hasnt been done. Christopher i think that has a lot of merit. Orres nothing democratic republican about Homeland Security or National Security or the faa. Think having everyone turn over on one day creates certainly risks for mischief. President sly any new wants his or her own people in there. So that becomes the challenge as. Ell clay the country of australia, when a new administration comes. N, eight jobs change, people for the United States its couple thousand. Clay 4,000. Theres 1,000 senateconfirmed positions. Terry the director of the f. B. I. , for example, is a has to beappointee, confirmed by the senate, and he has a fixed term. So as a consequence, he is Still Standing there when the administration arent most regulatory boards termed . Terry right. Amount of theair administration that is defined when the president comes in. And its mostly regulatory. And its a recognition of those need we need a federal reserve. We need a central bank working. One to beglobe needs in place. So there may be some vacancies but they dont they dont all leave. There is nothing that would restrict a president from doing that, and personnel from doing they decided that they wanted, for whatever reason terry if you recall, saidditate sp premeditate to the secretary of president obama said to the secretary of stay in placee and tell your people to stay in place until somebody comes and. Tands you down and thats not an unusual practice. Its not usual either. That. Is possible to do here. Thank you. Wasnt until i had the privilege of being an appointee that i really did understand the process. So i came from the private sector and had the opportunity bush. Ve president but i will tell you it was at my expense to relocate. Process to go through the security clearance, checkpoints. And you really dont have any security in your job whatsoever. Came first term and hoped that we got a second term. Did. Ortunately we and i was one that got to make changes. Department to another. But i just want people to know that its really quite a process from an appointees point of view what it is that you are your life. So i didnt come necessarily from the political campaigning, was active. I thats not how i was known. I was recommended because of the s that i had in the private sector and in the community. So it really is quite something to recognize those 1,000 or changes inmake major their life to have the privilege of putting forth the president s of theand doing the work service for all americans. So i just want to say thank you hadhe three of you who critical roles in finding people ine myself who never dreamt a million years that we would have the chance to work for the. Resident of the United States christopher i think youve touched on an important topic disincentives that serving in government, leave ago side the pay. The pay. G aside i spent an entire career hoping i would never have to go through senate confirmation. Obviously i did for this job. I had a relatively smooth confirmation but you are opening a lot of people, every aspect. In college, i wrote a column for the School Newspaper a copyy asked me to get of every single column i had written 30 years ago. And i said, i just dont have it. If you want to go back and pull bound volumes, feel free to do that. They looked through all my social media. And then once i got confirmed, because the department of labor regulates every company in the divest everyd to individual stock i owned. Now, fortunately it was during a bull market so that was a little better. But imagine doing that in 2009, 2008. So you make a lot of personal and Financial Sacrifices for these jobs. A disincentive to people serving. The Bush Administration, we put a little of it. I found a copy its whats involved in serving in an appointed position. Scary. Was it was kind of all the things chris talked about. You know, this is likely to happen. Withl have to come forward this. Everything that has occurred in your life. When it becomes known, not if, it becomes known you will have to live with it and take Public Ownership of it and so on. Divestiture and so forth, put it in there. The say make sure people had some understanding of what they might be getting into. And i called the person that was the head of personnel at the bush 41, in houston. I said, look at this thing. On the websitet when you go to fill out the application. You have to read it before you go. Tooaid this is way negative. I said perfect. And we ran it. [laughter] exactly. Was terry in some ways all leadership is about getting other people to do sacrifice. Right . And i think the amazing thing is that there is an enormous number are actually willing to sacrifice. People saych to you, thank you for your our country. Where else do you get that . Mean, its a great privilege, honor, and a great challenge. Ts hard work terry anybody else . Yes, sir. Over here. There are a couple over here, too. Erry ok i think mines short. The Transition Team and how is the Transition Team formed . Clay the Transition Team for bush 41 was one person. Beforehand, planning. It ended upnsition, there were19 of 2001 people. Some of them were just hanging around but there were 600 people doing things. [laughter] ofy you all, by say october 2008 had however many hundred of people working. Christopher maybe 100. Yeah. Clay and i suspect by the end of we had 60,000 or 70,000 people apply electronically to positions. Ed for you all had 400,000. Yeah. Opher applied0,000 people online. How many people are online . Terry lisa, how many people lisa we had over 600 just on agency review. Thats probably the largest chunk of people. Have had overall christopher probably 1,000. Terry the one thing to remember is what clay said, at one point person. Ust one it always starts with just one person. Lisa its a massive management think about it, in such a short period of time. And it is longer than 77 days because we had our teams in place prior to the election. Clay it has to be. Additional capacity you have to start sooner and you have to have more people working it. Terry at some point george w. It, says to you, youre figure it out. Clay yeah. And that was a year and a half. Efore the election terry and chris . At some point Barack Obama Says it, figure it out . Christopher mmhmm. And there fortunately are organizations like the partnership, folks like you and martha who are the institutional memory. First thing i did was i went jim johnsonked to who ran john carrys john kerrys 2004 transition, handed me a box of his documents which included all the gore documents. Weve got this compendium in my attic of three different transition documents. Faced was we we were drawing on two transition implemented. R been so you could do all the planning you want but until you actually have to see whether your plan works, its hard to atess the effectiveness of it. Assess the effectiveness of it. So we were flying a little bit blind but obviously having someone like the to see john modesto, former white house chief of staff, gives you an incredible level of expertise. Sorry, were out of time. Maybe you could ask your question right now and then confirmationthe process is broken in both democrats and republicans. And the transition is so important. There any effort to reach out leadersenate majority and the Senate Minority leader to agree on what the rules might be for the confirmation process . Not who is going to be in the we get thebut how do president s appointee in the government faster than were able to do that now . Clay there is. List. s on the to do but if the white house is going have the president s personnel is going to have instead of seven people, special assistant to the president level, the amount of work that comes out of the president s personnel if they want to get 400 people by the august recess instead of 225, typically the number confirmed, theyve have than seven people working on it, seven key people. There needs to be 15. If the senate doesnt expand their capacity and if the f. B. I. Vettingexpand their capacity and the government of ethics doesnt expand theirs and department ande state department, then its just going to back up. Its not going to flow through process. So there have been general discussions about expanding the capacity but that will have to again, this year and with thei. Senate leadership. And i dont know whether that will be representative to the candidate, the Obama White House involved in that. But if the candidates are you got to start with what their goal is. If their goal is to get this many instead of that many, they to sit down with the senate and the f. B. I. And so forth and say, all right, were going to as manyng you twice people as we normally do during these months. Together . Work thats going to not get hung up and theyll have to figure it out. Christopher even in the best of all worlds, the senate doesnt move very fast. Designed to do so. Its a body that runs on unanimous consent which means if blocke senator wants to something, they can hold the senate up. And at a period of time when youre trying to move as many through as fast as you can, if one senator raises his or her hand and says i dont this person to go through that gets stopped. Clay if youre talking about approval of it. Im talking about the vetting, vote. It even gets to a the rules incentive if you leaded out to the majority eastern the minority leader leader and the Minority Leader Senate at this point in time when its one or the other could win, could there not be some sort of effort to make an between the two point in Senate Leaders of the two parties . Going to they are limit some of the things that in the way . I recognize that it operates by unanimous consent but it wasnt always so. Theham lincoln appointed secretary of the treasury, sent it up that afternoon. Confirmed that afternoon. He fired him the next day. Up. Sent another one its not impossible. It is that weve gotten somehow, into a situation that when one side wins, they want to punish the otherside and when the side wins, its revenge for the past actions. To me its neither in democratic or republican interest for that to happen or certainly the countrys interest for it to happen. Lisa its also Senate Prerogative. So mack and clay and i democratn an Initiative Just to streamline part of it. K because you have to fill out so many different forms. And you get asked the same question in three different ways. Well, you answer it this way here. Even trying to get that through is a challenge. So it really i completely agree with you. Where theres so much room for improvement. But the Senate Prerogative on and theirittees jurisdiction is just something that we have to continue to work with. Clay but theres the getting to favorable towards more of the people that are sent to them is one thing but thats irrelevant if they if they cant vet them in a reasonable period of time. A totallyonduct separate vetting process, the senate does. And the f. B. I. Does the vetting vettingot of the decisions are based on. So the capacity has to be consistent with the volume of potential nomination that are coming at them from the white house. Thats why there has to be some syncing up of the capacities and now. s none want to go back to something that you said when you said its not in the hold up interest to these people. I agree. But it may be in an individual senators interest. The problem with congress its the individual interests of a member of is good forsus what the institution or what is good for the country. And thats one of the reasons as broken as they are right now. Time. Were out of thank you very much. [applause] sal car willken serve as chairman of the Hillary Clintons Transition Team. Former senator will manage the preelection effort and advisorational security tom donilon. General forgranholm, mira allem, and Maggie Williams serve as cochairs. Both tandem and williams worked for Hillary Clinton during her 2008 run for the white house. F. B. I. Today turned over a number of classifyied documents relating to its investigation of former secretary of state her use of personal email server. The f. B. I. Also sent a letter to Committee Chair and the Ranking Member Elijah Cummings about the email investigation. The congressman has been requesting charges be brought against Hillary Clinton for testimony she made to the Benghazi Committee that he says what therent than f. B. I. Director presented to congress. In the letter, the f. B. I. Writes f. B. I. Director comey said that secretary clinton was handling careless in classified information, he did not equate that with the Legal Standard of gross negligence and the facts did not support a ommendation to prosecutor prosecute. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] asking elected official whats issue is most important or youryour district, state. Im state senator from the of louisiana and probably the most important thing, issue, in our state is education, by far. All the things that were top of list and bottom of the good list is because of the lack of education that weve got from population of louisiana. We need to do a better job of earlyng probably an childhood education and Going Forward. Hi. Ryan. E is im from the u. S. Virgin islands. In the most important issue my district right now i would say is having the United States grant the Virgin Islands the right to vote for president in president ial elections. To votey we are allowed in the republican nominations and the democratic nominations tolt we dont have the right vote for president. And historically more americans per capitaave died in the u. S. Virgin islands for this country than any state or under our flag and we think its right to have those heroes celebrated by allowing us to vote for president of the states. Thank you. One of the most important economic me is the issue and jobs. Problem of the people that are impoverished all over this country is that they a voice at work. I am a union member and im a advocate for having that voice at work. To strengthen and enforce our laws and encourage to organize and have that voice. Thank you. Pete. Name is im the state rep from colorado springs, colorado. And the most important issue to me right now is criminal justice and criminal justice reform. Weve been working in colorado on modifications to the criminal Justice System to incorporate restorative justice, a way for people to accept responsibility for what they did and repair the. Arm good morning. My name is Patrick Oneil jefferson. I have the good fortune of representing district 11 in the great state of louisiana. Proudly supporting Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States of america. I believe secretary clinton has all of the proudly essentials ny to lead us in such a time as this, in addition to a vast experience, she also provides an outlet so that we will be able to tackle all the evils of the day and as a result stronger we are together. Voices from the road on cspan. Half about an hour and a here on cspan, former u. S. Representative frank wolf talks about religious freedom in nigeria. Mr. Wolfe was responsible for the International Religious freedom act of 1998 while he served in congress. Event live here on cspan at 7 30 eastern. Look atnight at 9 00, a Climate Change and jobs. Two authors and university the dust bowldy era of the Great Depression to look for clues about how rising climate impacts could change the economy. Cities andssion on how theyre using technology from the Information Technology foundation. On this is an hour and 25 minutes. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] good afternoon. Us forou for joining local economies of the future how do cities thrive in the digital age. Im the Vice President of Global Innovation policy here at the Information Technology and foundation. ll be your moderator the twitter handle is futurecities. Those watching via webcast can submit any questions there for discussion during the q a period if you would like. Economicve become key units driving the modern global economy. More than half the World Population already lives in cities and its expected that for 90 of account global population growth in this century. Of manyely the advents new technologies, including mobile telephony and broadband internets, the internet of things, automation technologies, big data techniques, and many others are opening up transformative possibilities to reimagine how cities deliver services and utilities, manage transportation networks, andate their citizens, improve quality of life and standards of living. Today, thel hear worlds leading cities are thinking deeply about their canre readiness so they remain vibrant in an increasingly competitive global economy. Of highly competitive, we have a world class panel with us here today to discuss how cities can thrive in the digital age. From thell and president of the asia pacific. Nd japan region for dell hell introduce work on future ready city and economies. As the chairman of dells Global Emerging Markets group and has been with for 19 years, holding leadership positions previously in china where he was the china regiondells and while there won the magnolia was conferred honorablery chinese citizenship. The highest recognition that can go to a forner. After emit, we will hear from christy mcfarland, Research Director for the National League of cities, where she leads the nlcs efforts to transform citylevel data into information capacity ofhens the city leaders and raises their awareness of challenges, trends, successes in other cities throughout the world. Christy also launched nlcs finance and Economic Development program and is currently pursuing a ph. D. In urban economics in Economic Development from Virginia Tech university. Michael hendricks at the u. S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation where he leads the foundations Public Policy research and outreach. Michael also served as project foundationsthe partnership with the startup incubator 1776, coproducing the seminal report innovation that matters a study of innovative city economies. But certainly not least, for the global fromective, we will hear megawho is the team lead for Competitive Cities and lead authored the world banks flagship report Competitive Cities for jobs and growth. Megaworks on issues of competitiveness and urban developments for the world bank manager for a city competitive project. She also teaches on development and economics at the school of studies international here in washington and at Columbia University in new york. Ph. D. From the London School of economics. In the interest of space today we are not going to present the presentations up front. They will be to your side. And you should have received a the back. Pies at raise your hand if you didnt receive one. But look for the presentations there. That, let me turn it over to emmitt. The floor is yours. Emit good afternoon. An honor to be among such a distinguished panel and such a audience. I arrived freshly this morning so i am just ready for this session bring crash and burn. My double espresso cappuccino ready to go. Before you can ask a question, ill answer the question. Yo. s my mat asia. In i am what you would call a practitioner, on the field talking to customers, immediatia, every day, every week. Asia. D 250 days on the road. I am basically thats what i do. So you will have me bring to you a lot of perspective from what im seeing in asia but also a