Documents america story. And on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan two comes from these Television Companies and more. Including comcast. You think this is just a Community Center . No, its way more than that comcast is partnering with 1000 Community Centers to create wifi enabled lift services, so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. Comcast, along with these Television Companies, support cspan 2 as a public service. So, i am going to, this is a panel where we are going to spend some time and each of our panelist is going to spend five or ten minutes introducing a particularly president ial transition and highlight a few of the big takeaways, interesting points, lessons learned. So we will go we wont go and program order, were actually going to go in Chronological Order of the elections that they will be highlighting. We will do that for about 15 minutes or so and then open it up for discussion and conversation and discuss questions. So, i will go forth and introduce everyone at the top and then we will go in turn. So i will introduce, first in the order in which they are going to speak. I love lindsey chervinsky, a senior fellow at the center for president ial history at Southern Methodist university. Shes a historian of the presidency, local government, and the president. Especially the book the cabinet. The first book the cabinet, the president needs to shunts it is now out in paperback. Her next book, an honest man, the inimitable presidency of john adams is on their contract and will be published in the fall, 2024. I like that definitive. Thank you. Yes. Just in time for another election. She will be talking about the transition of elections in 70 76 in 18 hundreds. Second up is ted whitmer, ted is a real writer, librarian, and musician who is honors at currently. He also served doesnt buy should bill clinton animus an advisory to Hillary Clinton when she served as secretary of state. He is has taught at harvard, washington college, director of the library Carlton Brown library and director at the library of congress. His next book is lincoln on the verge, 13 as washington. Hes also 2010 recipient of the guttenberg polish fellowship. It will be talking about the transition after the election of 1860. Its futile, we are choosing good ones. We killed sheldon is an associate professor of history and director of the record civil war era center, at Sea University she specializes the long 19th three and teaches about slavery allocation, the civil war, and constitutional history. Shes the author of washington brotherhood. Politics, social life, and the coming civil war published in 2013 which received Honorable Mention for the best first book on the american civil war. She is also coeditor with Gary Gallagher of a political nation. New directions of the mid 19th century american political history published by uva protests in 2012. Our current book project, the Political Supreme Court examined in the political world of the u. S. Supreme Court Justices from the early 19th century to the 1890s. Rachel will be taking on 1876. Joshua sellers, associate professor of law at the standard in calmer Commerce School of law. Here is a j. D. And ph. D. In Political Science from the university of Chicago Service the article that for the University Law review. He previously taught at University Oklahoma college of law and was opposed doctoral fellow of law at Syracuse Universitys school. Before entering teaching he was a law clerk to judge rosemary bracket of the u. S. Court of appeals for the 11 surrogate in associate at at washington d. C. His principal areas of research of teaching our election law, legislation and regulation, constitutional law, civil procedure. His scholarship has been published in the panel of review, and why you law review, annual of, your stanford law view, among others. Josh will be talking about hanging tads and timorous its white board. Yes, you got, it election embers transition of 2000. Last but hardly least, the remark track is a scholar of and participant in president ial that administrations and transitions at the school of business in dartmouth. In 2020, one he served in the biden ministration the ceo of the u. S. International Development Finance corporation. Mark jack previously served as the director of the nonprofit, Nonpartisan Center for a president ial transition where he worked for the Biden Transition Team transition planning efforts. He also spent 12 years as managing director of the Carlisle Group and held several positions in the Clinton Administration. They will bring us closer very close to the present day by discussing the 2020 transition. With that, i will turn it over to dr. Chervinsky. Thank you so much for being here, i am very excited about this panel which i had the privilege to put together and it was really just an excuse to talk about the things that i am working on and was able to find people who were interested many of the same topics. I am sure all of you recall your history textbook lesson on the election of 1800, this is usually described as the first major transfer of power and light say that that is very wrong. And its very important we look at the election of 70 66 and the elections i come over as two sides to the same coin. And we look at our constitution and what it says about president ial transitions, there are some more statutes about how these things are supposed to go. In 1796, there was almost nothing on the page. So, every single action from how people would enter a room, how the transfer of power would take place, what they would wear, who would you present. Everything had to be crafted from scratch. The context is really essential because in 1796, the last transition that most americans had witnessed was the french revolution. Which was, of course, characterized by heavy use of gilles teen and blood running through the streets. So, not a great model to follow, ideally. Everyone presents, everyone aware, everyone participating in this situation was acutely aware of the fact that this is pretty much unprecedented. Never been done, it required extraordinary care and attention in detail to make sure that it went right. John adams wrote in his letter to his wife that he was gratified and surprised that washington and showing up. That was not a guarantee. His presence was essential to giving the stamp of approval and he walked out of the room, behind john adams. I dont know that washington walked out of a room behind anyone in at least eight years, if not much longer. So that entire process was one of crafting something from scratch. Crafting something with really no model to follow. Having to be very thoughtful and attentive about those details and everyone that was president in the room revived later and how remarkable it had been that one stunt had risen in another had set and it had all been done peacefully in the nation hadnt fallen apart. That sounds kind of hyperbolic, because we know how it all went and we know the nation survived and it was there were other elections, but they meant it. They were not being mellow traumatic at that moment. A few now, its just to sort of remind us of the timing of the transition and how this worked at that time because there is no social media, because there is no cnn, there was no decision desk. There is no theyve saying ive seen enough. They werent really sure what the results were going to be. They feel confident enough on december 30th, 1976, several months after the auction had begun to write back to abigail that he knew the outcome but that he wasnt sure, he wasnt sure until he himself opened the results on february 8th, 1970 1897 and claims of the winner. That actually left him just about a month for the actual transition. The timeline, i think, is essential there. Fast forward four years, of course the result was a little bit different. By the time he came around to opening the by the time Thomas Thomas jefferson open the result in 1801, it was pretty clear that everyone knew that john adams had lost. It wasnt clear who had actually won. Just a bit of a refresher, of course, erin burr and jean pence gemstone tied in the election, took 36 ballots to select who was indeed going to be the next president , and in that process john adams, Thomas Jefferson, in aaron burr were all invited to meddle in that process. To put their thumb on the scale to determine who is going to be the right person. As these deliberations are taking place, john adams invited Thomas Jefferson to a dinner with the white house and it was deemed the white house at this point because he had just moved in. They committed to each other they would not meddle in the election they were the time to side who isnt going to be the next president. It must have been a spectacularly awkward dinner, because at this point they hated each other and had spent months criticizing one another and their supporters writing terrible things in the newspapers. Analysts, they committed to this peaceful transfer of power and it was the first transfer from one party to another. A couple of takeaways from this to these two elections together. Peaceful transfer the power dont happen. They require attention, care or, they require commitment to that principle and the participants in 1796 and 1800 understood that. They understood how fragile these institutions were and they did not take peacefulness for granted. I think one of the greatest gifts to the people that came after them where that we could take it for granted, at least until 2021. So that commitment to ensuring the central peace of democracy, though i yet when i say that. A democratic republic. The commitment to ensuring that central piece was essential in and understood by early participants and i think one of the things that we have lost a bit and one of the takeaways i would like to bring up in our discussion. Thank, you lindsay. Nice to see you david, who i talked with a lot a euro go and have not yet met in person but im happy to be here virtually with david and physically with all of you. Ill talk about 1860, which i think is still the worst transition of alltime. It is close. We may have a spirited debate and i think the verdict is still up in the air and after last night it was trump all over again there wasnt a guillotine in washington on january 6th. Rachel is also an expert on 1860 infused in mind me that i was moderator a year ago on a panel on which she was the expert on the 1860 transition. That was supposed to happen on january 6th it was scheduled for them. At the massachusetts detour historical society. So why was it so bad . It revealed a fatal flaw in the architecture of our system, which is that the losers of an election would accept the result. In 1860, as in 2020, a significant part of the population refuse to elect but they didnt claim the election was rigged they simply left the United States of america. That is the simple version of what happened, but at every level it was very, very complicated as the government slowly fell apart and was rebuilt by a complete outsider who, a little under a year under was so visible to people that in 1859 the book which listed the 21 most likely people to give the nomination in 26 failed to contain a rambling instagram. Thats one the many things i discovered in a whole lot of research that was really on only 13 days of lincolns train trip at the end of the transition. In order to do all that research, i had to look at what the country was like before the election, during the election, and then in the very long aftermath between the election of number from her sixth, 1860, and lincolns first inaugural of march 4th, 1861. It is just an extraordinary drama and i learned to my surprise how much of it was already planned and it was kind of akin to what we are hearing on tv about how concerted the plan was well before the election to a siren article in the enquirer saying that if a socalled black republican is elected we will simply leave the country and we will take the armaments and we will conduct a new country from richmond and its similar to what happened in richmond of 59, lincoln gives a speech and he is an extreme outside of this point. He says, if they fail to accept the result of illegal election, we will have to deal with them as we have just dealt with john brown. Because john brown because lincoln was just on stickler for the lawn concert it before, during, and after years the transitional legal to secede from the union. So, there are these two amazing dramas happening at the same time. In 1861, the actual shattering of the union and the rise of a political supernova who was barely known. I think we overstate his popularity after the Lincoln Douglass debates of 1858, but it really is an extreme outsider and there are all of these very slight ways in which the doors open for him to walk through, one of which also happen 18 the Republican Party leadership voted by one vote to have the nominating convention in chicago and not in st. Louis. If it had not been in chicago, lincoln probably would not have received the nomination. So he isnt on course, he gets the nomination and its an Extraordinary Campaign even before the election. Theyre actually four people running, the Democratic Party split and a half. Into, it has a north south divide like the entire country. Stephen douglas is the candidate of the northern Democratic Party and he violates a taboo by traveling and giving campaign speeches. So, i think for the first time in American History, lincoln stays our home and it is clear to all observers that he will win. The electoral strength in the midwest in north is such that think it is going to win the election even before it happens. Then we enter the strange and he does. Snowy interchange highlighted for difficult month when its not clear how the unites its government is going to keep together. There is a president , james from cannon, who is a weak president coming in in late 1860 he is really falling apart. It is a situation kind of the opposite of trump in 2020, it was the president just isnt doing anything. The schism of the country, of the body politic, seems to sundays are verse to also be happening inside of his actual body. His facial tics, trouble making up his mind even the smallest decisions. It is a bit like Woodrow Wilson at the end of his presidency. His cabinet is split, also there are a few northerners. There is a very strong southern wing. There are three cabinet members especially who are actively involved in dismantling the United States government under their charge to get ready for whatever is coming next. The second the zoning john boy descending are minutes into the south island there is cobb from georgia who is essentially bankrupting the United States treasury and the secretary of the interior is a mississippian named Jacob Thompson who is traveling around the southern part of the night states drumming up support for secession. He is also one in washington, reporting on cabinet meetings and sending all of the information back to the secessionists in South Carolina planning to leave the country. It is, if i dont want to overstate the comparison to 2020, but it is as if there is another country ready to start and the people in the final months of the government are putting all the strength they can in to this country that doesnt quite exist yet. Theres a lot of activity in the south, especially in charleston, South Carolina where they leave no doubt about their intention to secy succeed and theres a lot of militia activity. There are people Walking Around with rifles and interestingly, again in 2020 contacts, they talk a lot about 1776. They call themselves minuteman. The guards dont flag, the dont tread on me flag, is flown by them. I think we might, as historians do, need more work to connect very strange appropriation of the American Revolution on january 6th with what is also going on in the south in 1860 and 1861 as they are doing the opposite of the American Revolution. They are tearing the country apart. South carolina sends a diplomatic to washington to begin negotiating for most favored nation status. Larry, for a short time, South Carolina is thinking that it is a country unto itself called the palmetto republic and its the seeds on december 20th, followed by mississippi, alabama, georgia, louisiana, and texas. Seven seats have gone out of the union by the 1st of february which is still over a month before blinken can get to washington. There is just a general panicky feeling in washington. The social quality of the city has evaporated, northerners and southerners cant even go to the same parties together. There is some violence, a congressman from new york is beat up while walking home from the capital one night. What a scariest is this winter, henry adams who is a very perceptive observer called a great secession winter, what a scariest is a feeling that washington is really extremely vulnerable in a military way to southern militias that might come over from virginia, which is still in the union, but has a lot of hot heads who are pro south or maryland which is also full of hot heads. Washington, d. C. It surrounded on all sides by slave territory and it wouldve been a matter with militias of taking over the Capitol Building and maybe a couple of other buildings and begin an operation of something that would have been very strange. It was a bit like january 6th, it, would have been a continuation of the buchanan presidency but without james buchanan. It probably would have been removed and his Vice President wouldve wrapped been created as a kind of acting president. He lost to the 1860 election. He was the candidate of the the south. Two very impressive southerners stand up to their fellow southerners and prevent a takeover of washington from happening. What is winfield scott, still the commander. He is very elderly and not in very good shape, physically, but hes still the commanderinchief of the United States. He is so old and infirm he cannot sit on a hearse horse anymore. He is in passive and returns the capital with cannons and loudly threatens to manure the hills of washington, of washington, with the bodies of anyone who threatened to take over the capital. So, he is a virginian defending the capital, u. S. Capitol, from southerners in the crucial weeks of december and january in february. John c breckenridge who i just mentioned, the Vice President is a lot like, very much like mike pence. I was always astounded by these echoes of my ancient research and what was happening in 2020 in 2021. Breckenridge has to provides preside over accounting of the electoral stiff it gets held on february 13th in 1861 in which just like on january 6th, that wasnt senate gather in the chamber and each states electoral certificates are opened and the president s of John C Breckenridge who was the person who benefited most from the decision to throw out the results. The electoral circuit themselves were sent to his office, so he might easily have lost them or declared that they were altered or not sign or sealed all of these ways which you can declare a document. To his internal credit, let me know for he declared that the election was valid and from newspapers accounts that they were angry mobs chanting outside of the capital on the day of the county of electoral certificates. So, exactly like january 6th. The key difference was that once scott was there with his cannons the win that anyone in. So, the election came off as it should have. And then election happened, lincoln was already en route and the premise of my book is that the whole thing was just hanging from a very slender thread hand on the train he recently gamed strength, just the active coming into washington which had been very difficult for earlier president s. One of the reasons William Harrison may have died so soon after becoming president is that the trip came through with a lot of snow and rain the train moves fast, he could speak to large audience, he finds his footing in a way he had the campaign ever had. He stayed at home in the summer but. His large size impressive to people and he seems to get a big bigger every day as the south seems to get a little smaller in the crucial days february 22nd. George washingtons birthday, where lincoln gives a beautiful history, loving speech. Sort of taking back the American Revolution and saying what it really was about was about the declaration of independence and the promise of equality. Jefferson davis, who is already the president of the confederate states, does nothing to remember the american. Current a friend Current Events and choosing what you remember from earlier history is also pretty potent politics. Lincoln and the very well. Im supposed to press this, here . Okay, push. All right. It is great to be here. Thank you to lindsay for organizing this panel. Im going to check briefly about the election of 1876. Anyone who knows anything about the election of 1876 knows how impossible that is because this is a ton incredibly complicated and difficult election and transition. I want to make three broader points about this election in how it relates to sort of our modern understanding of elections and electoral transitions, so also in what made this election different and unique in some ways. Because of the context of partisanship and how partisanship worked in this period. The structures of federal government, governments, federalism and also the relationship between various branches of government. Also, with the aftermath of the civil war. The meeting of that for understanding sort of the context of how people were operating. So, just general reminder of how the election operated he you had with deferred behaves, throughout the country mohawk, facing samuel tate children from new york. In 1876 you need 185 electoral votes in order to win the election and as the polls closed it was clear that tilden had 184 but that there were four states in dispute. South carolina, florida, louisiana, in oregon as a result of sort of a rogue electoral vote problem. So, because of this, congress convened and what sort of onshore about what to do. Debated for about two months and came together to create a federal Electoral Commission. The first of its kind in only of its kind. It has not existed again, despite ted cruz and insistence that it should in the 2020 election. And that body consisted of five members of the senate, five members of the house, five members of the Supreme Court chosen by their partisan affiliation. This is an important thing to remember going forward. Over the course of february this commission heard all of these four cases and resolve them on a Party Line Vote 8 to 7 in favor of rutherford b. Hayes, just a couple of days before his inauguration. So, i wanted to talk about three sort of parts of this transition that i think were really interesting. Though there are many others that we could discuss. One of them is that it is probably whats most alarming about this electoral transition, that almost everyone saw coming. This was not a surprise to congressman, they had been talking about the problems with the electoral system for many, years. At least five years, because there had been problems before. In 1872 election, louisiana had, just as they win 1876, submitted two sets of electoral returns. This didnt end up mattering because grant won in a landslide. It could happen as they noticed, yet they did not do anything to inform this particular problem. There was also a rule in place known as the 22nd joint rule. People who are congress nurse probably are really into this particular problem. This is passed in 1865 and the basic idea behind this rule is that any, either of the houses, could object to returns from any state and then they would be thrown out. So, you can imagine how what would happen if all of a sudden divided congress, the house, the senate controlled by different parties decided that they want to get involved in different elections and can evolve electoral votes. This would send this particular election into the house of representatives. They knew that this was a problem. Democrats insisted that this was still enforced in 1876. Republicans disputed this. There was not really clear resolution. One other really incredible thing happened in 1872, which is that the losing candidate actually died between when the election happened and the county of electoral votes. All these problems, everybody knew about, nobody had any solutions for this. I think that the real reason for this is that republicans in particular did not really see democrats as reasonable contributors into the conversation about how to reform the electoral process. Because they were still thinking in terms of the democrats are the enemy. They are the enemy, they fought against us in the civil war, they do not believe in true small are republican governments or democracy. We do not think that they are reasonable to negotiate with and that created a real impasse in how any of this could be resolved. Second thing i want to talk about briefly is the makeup of the Electoral Commission. Sort of the particular political and constitutional context there. As i said, the commission is fundamentally partisan and it is by design. It is parched by design, partisan its makeup, partisan its outcome. We assume that this is a bad thing because partisanship is a dirty word in some ways in our understanding of american politics. This is not the way people thought in the 19th century. Whether there were plenty people who are anti party, this is not a large group of the American Public who wanted bipartisanship. Not a word that existed in the 19th century. Not a word that anyone would be in favor of because politics was a life and death sport in this particular period. Having a partisan makeup of the commission was, by design, and this is not necessarily a problem. I want to say, in particular, that this is not necessarily a problem for Supreme Court justices who were on the commission. There are five members of the Supreme Court on the Electoral Commission. They are chosen specifically for their partisan background or for their partisan proclivitys in 1876. We have two democrats notice democrats, was elected because theyre democrats, two republicans known as republicans selected because they are republicans. They do a little thing about why they are choosing these people because of the circuits, but in fact everyone knows what they are two democrats into publicans. They are in charge of picking their fifth Supreme Court justice. This is one of my favorite stories and all of American History to tell you what happened, to tell you what happened with the Electoral Commission if you dont have the story already. With that idea was that the fifth justice was going to be david a this who was lincolns campaign managed in 1860 while serving as a judge on the Illinois Circuit Court and he had come to the court by Abraham Lincoln but was, you know, sort of dissolution with the Republican Party to the point where he had been a president ial candidate in 1872 with a liberal Republican Party, not the same thing as the Republican Party. Not an offshoot of the Republican Party. Several separate party altogether. The idea in 1876 is that you had this guy who was going to be the fifth vote who is not republican and not a democrat. They called him independent, but that doesnt mean the same thing in 1876 as it does today. Independent is a separate thing in the 19th century. I would be happy to talk more about that. They decide they are going to pick david davis. The illinois legislature, meanwhile, makes a decision that they are going to elect david amess to be the next senator from illinois. This happened just as the house and senate are passing the federal Electoral Commission vote. They decide they are going to tuesday this. This is done in part because childrens friends, including his nephew, who are convinced that if they were able to get davis this position on the senate that he would be compelled to vote for tilden on the federal Electoral Commission. It was sort of a bribe. This is how they understood if you read letters from this time. It doesnt happen because davis may be in an ethically good way decides of this is inappropriate and he cant possibly serve on the Electoral Commission once he has been elected to the senate because of state lenders slater in illinois. He declines and is replaced by joseph pew proudly, a republican, who votes with republicans and as a result you get this result of the election of 1876 where hes is going to become president. I want to stress again that this is completely understood to be a partisan issue and that this result is expected once you get proudly on the commission. Some people think that maybe he will change minds but in general democrats ive been very excited by the commission. Theyve been pushing the commission in congress and they have sort of had the upper hand, because if the joint 22nd joint rule was enforce the election we go to the house and they were running the house, they might be able to get this election after all. I asked Eunice Bradley becomes the fifth justice there is an understanding that this is not going to go their way. The last thing i want to mention is that are sort of understanding of the election of 1876 in modern times, in the context of the last election i think is really a problem. They are sort of the assumption that 1876 worked. That it went well. I mean, some people think that its the fault of the century. That is also a storyline about the election of 1876. It didnt actually work very well at all. Many of you, im sure, know the famous story of the compromise of 1877 which is a myth. It did not actually happen. Thats the famous idea that haze got the presidency in exchange for ending reconstruction and pulling troops out of the south. Lots of reason why this is a myth. One of them being that they were not very many troops left to begin with in the south and that south governments had reclaimed, southern democrats, had we clean power and much of the Southern States and we are not really that concerned with the election from that perspective. They had engaged in the kind of role that they needed in their home states. The election didnt really matter as much as you might expect. The other reason why this, well one, of the other reasons why this compromise was a myth and is clearly a myth is that democrats it and not accept the results of the election. In fact, right after the Electoral Commission came down with its decision that democrats in the house voted on a resolution that said children was the rightful president. So they did not accept it they did not attend the inauguration including most Supreme Court justices, who we, democrats did not attend the inauguration. And killed in insisted that his managers in the house in the coming years investigate the election. Investigate what happened in the election to prove that it had been a fraud and famously, in 1878, with what was known as the Potter Committee which tried to investigate what happened with the point of proving that republicans had engaged in all kinds of corruption, it backfired spectacularly. I can tell you more about it but i dont take up too much time. The things i think are the main takeaways about this particular election are that this was a real political battle that operated through partisanship in a way that people understood that partisanship could achieve certain kinds of goals. Those are positive goals from the perspective of the republicans it was that we won the civil war, we need to maintain the way that things operate now. From democrats, it was well, you know, we want our power to. So from that perspective i think that there are similarities to today but it is also sort of a unique moment in American History. I had no idea about that. [laughs] i thought it was a compromise. Everyone does, its never textbook. Im going to bring us into the modern era and talk about the election of 2000 where Nothing Happened [interpreter] , no. When we think of 2000 we think of bush versus gore, of course. Thats the first thing that comes to mind when you think about hanging chad so we think about maybe Jeffrey Toobin on National Television fumbling around with a decision and trying to report on it quickly or something. With that protractive litigation lattice with was a really compressed transition period. Something like 38 or 39 days when it was all said and done so that is one of the, i think, key features of this transition without it was very short until you would think that because it was short it would necessarily be kind of chaotic and disorganized, but the scholars who study this actually believe that this transition was pretty smooth all Things Considered and clay johnson , he was the executive director of the bush cheney transition has talked about how george bush told him as early as june, 1999 to start preparing for the transition. We might hear that and think that this is hubris on the part of bush or something, but i think there is an important lesson for us to consider about just how long the transition actually takes and how much preparation is required to execute it effectively. Particularly in the modern era, one of the biggest difference is from these past transitions to 2000 is that the size of the federal government. It is a massive bureaucracy now, incoming president s have thousands of appointments to make. Over 4000. We have a vast Civil Servants subsequent all the events we have the panel to be active prevention for Civil Servants. New president coming in trying to negotiate, race, the Administrative State and think about how do i want to run this who are going to be my key personnel figures. So if, we are kind of context a framework for thing about transitions i think obviously the timing aspect and how early presidencies and would be president should start should be at the top of the list another important detail for the first president ial election to occur after the amended president ial transition act that was a statute that was first and acted in 1963. But it had been amended over the years and actually has been amended subsequently. Among other things what the statute does is it authorize the General Services administration to give office space and Staff Compensation for members of the Transition Team. So, folks who worked on these transitions will tell you that there is a firm difference or market difference between the Campaign Staff and the Transition Team. Thinking about how to finance the transition is another key aspect in trying to think of lessons we might take from 2000 and beyond and the president ial transition act and some subsequent amendments also requires there to be orientations actions between Outgoing Administration and the incumbent administration. As well as a transition directory. One of the sort of remarkable things is that this still remains pretty lawless period. It is not a lot of rules and regulations governing president ial transitions. We will hear some of that are type of 2020. Is kind of ad hoc in a lot of ways. Everything about reforms you might think about statutory reforms that were formalized the or might formalized process. Part of that is transparency. By requiring transparency directory, at least the public to know who are these individuals and what role are they serving in the transition. A little bit in the weeds, but soon after the transition march 2001 was the first time that the Congressional Review Act which was a statute person acted in 1996 was used to disapproved of an agency role. What i mention that . I mention that because during the transition, the president ial transition, the incumbent administration is often concerned with rare reversing a change in Political Party from one to another, reversing the regulations that came in in the last months of the Outgoing Administration. So if there are four to have midnight regulations. So, the Congressional Review Act is a way for congress to, within a 60day period, prevent some of those regulations going into effect. At the same time the incoming president will oversee what regulations and, they have individuals tasked with doing this, assessing what regulations are fresh, which are new, what we want to reverse, right . As a priority in the first month and beyond that. In terms of lessons we can take from 2000, something is to be said about the role of lawyers and private sector lawyers. The immigration relied heavily on lawyers from the Banking Sector to work on the transition and so, again, if we are talking about reforms with its focus on we might want to Pay Attention to who is serving in these positions. We are interested, as well, in folks moving from the Campaign Staff on to the Transition Team and some of the ethical issues that might be raised from those kind of moves. Again, you dont have rules and regulations to governor this process. We have a key, this is one of the key lessons i think from this transition, is gaining National Security positions look after quickly. The 9 11 report talked about how the failure to have a lot of the National Security folks in place contributed to maybe the oversize. If we are time of our personnel, filling those positional positions may be on the fountain or four other positions with a priority for the central president ial transitions emphasizing this as a persistent problem leading back to the bush, cheney transition that still exists. I would also mention financing the transitions, right . This came up in 2000. Again, we can do is protracted. The Clinton Administration said we have funds that we can release for a bush cheney transition, but we are going to do that until the election is decided. So, bush cheney transitioning team set up a 501 c 3 four and they can receive donations for certain purposes through that vehicle. So, you have private financing of the Transition Teams. This raises Campaign Finance concerns, it raises ethical concerns, so reformers suggest that maybe we devote more money through statutory command to the actual transition so that we dont have private funders that are actually financing the transition. So that is the concern, as well. Of course, we have to talk about the judicial role in resolving elections. It is not only that elections have become so contested now that we expect federal courts and Supreme Courts to be involved during the president ial transitions. It is that some of the arguments that we are actually raising, they found themselves into the bush v. Gore opinion are actually being resurrected now by some of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. I am speaking specifically about what is known as the Independence Day legislature doctrine. The idea that state legislatures have autonomy and independents to decide electoral rules, particularly when there are cases of dissension or debate about whether certain vote should be counted or not in this argument suggest that we should give unilateral authority to state legislatures to establish rules. So that would allow state legislators to override state Supreme Courts, for instance, in resolving these cases. The origin of these documents is as these elections become more contested in and we can anticipate, with, this is not the case but as we anticipate almost inevitable litigation in federal court during president ial transitions, those arguments first on bush v. Gore right before grounded. So, that is a quick summary of some of the lessons that we can take from that transition that there is plenty more to discuss including the role of dick cheney who as, you may recall, was first tasked with identifying a list of potential Vice President ial candidates and concluded that, well, shaped the pool sites that he came off looking as the only real option. Bush wanted dan John Danforth from missouri but ultimately thought that exchange was the way to go. Because i will say one more thing. If were thinking this as sort of a social network. Again, think about how we can talk about that from methodological process and how we study president ial transitions. Social Network Theory might be something that we could work with, just looking at key figures whether its clear johnson, dick cheney, look at who found themselves in the Bush Administration and these are all decisions that were made during transitions. There are people who are known commodities. In this instance there are people who are known to the bush family, many have worked with h. W. Bush and we can talk about the fact that john roberts and Brett Kavanaugh were players in this litigation as well. They found themselves on the Supreme Court, so i think theres something to be said about in transitions about the social network aspect of a mantra you with study that, necessarily. That is definitely a lesson you could take from modern transitions. Great, thank you. David. Thank you very much. Again, im sorry i cant be there in person. I wish i could, but my son is graduating high School Tomorrow so i should probably be there for that. Hopefully he makes it until tomorrow. Let me say its great to see my friend ted whitmer, i did consult with him a lot during the last cycle and for those of you who havent read his book on the train trip to washington it is wonderful. I was thrilled that lindsey another organized this panel for this conference because the president financial transitions are one of the least studied aspects of the american presidency. We have i have a book coming out with a couple of coauthors in october on the history of president ial transitions, where we take a bunch of interviews that we have done with historians and protagonists in transitions and study every modern president ial transition from carter ford plus some of the worst transitions in history including 1860 and 1932 and others that we have books being published by the university of Richmond Press in cooperation with the Mueller Center at uva. When i interviewed eric laos weight with davis for the book, he wrote a wonderful book on the 1932 to 1933 transition and i kind of jokingly said, why are you writing another book on roosevelt there seem to be a lot of books on roosevelt. He said that i feel that the hundred days before roosevelt took office were as important as the 100 days before after he took office. Bush historians focus on the hundred after, but i feel that 100 days before is important. During that period, ted whitmer highlighted the horrors of the 1860 transition with seven dates succeeding before looking to take the oath of office in the 1932 to 1933 transition, the Great Depression peaked and we had big runs in 25 states. Hitler came to power. Japan withdrew from the league of nations, adding tension in asia. Our european allies default on their death in there is no asked nation attempt in roosevelt miami, as you know. Hoovers idea of cropping roosevelt was to try and convince him to abandon the new deal. A feeble in mind and body are not worthy of presidency and im not going to help him. So, what weve learned through history is that the transition period can literally be my life and death for american success or failure or prosperity or recession. President ial transition is challenging enough in normal times as josh highlighted. Modern traditions are very, very challenging that period of 77 days a president needs to develop his personnel or her personal strategy. There are 4000 political appointments. They need to prepare a budget, we need to prepare it per se executive orders and survival legal challenge to prepare their legislative agenda. Importantly, they need to make the transition from campaigning to government which ted highlighted how lincoln did during his famous train trip. In 2020. This is some of that maybe this group could debate a little bit. The nation faced four crises, perhaps the greatest crises are president elect faced since lincoln took office. President biden faced a global pandemic, a huge, deep recession with 25 million americans out of work, a racial political reckoning over the killings in the United States of george floyd another which led to protest. Also a political crisis. More americans died in january of 2021 than any other month. 176,000 americans died from covid. 176,000 americans. Ken burns was nice enough to be interviewed for my book and he said in tune of 2020 he had an optimistic take on transitions. He said that in the 233 years between the time when washington handed the rain to adams and whomever the successor to trump would be, no arm seven raised, their shots have been fired, there had been peaceful transitions of power. All of that occurred until that year. So, what we did in preparation for this transition, the potential transition. Office say we didnt know who would win the election. We look at what lessons we could take from history to prepare them for the potential of the most challenging transition since lincoln took office. So, we learn from chat win or that a lot can change in a country during a political in iraq them. We learned as josh highlighter from the 2020 transition to 2000 transition that every day counts. Busch had 35 days compared to 77, 78 in a typical transition. As john said, that impeded his ability to get people into their seats. Eight days after bush took office, 9 11 occurred. In that moment, bush only had over slightly half of his National Security officials in place. The d. O. D. , department of justice, which obviously investigated deals with terrorism, in the state department. Every day counts. We learn from the bush to obama transition that the cooperation from that point with the incoming is critical. Bush actually gets credit for the Gold Standard of transitions because he felt like he was burned by his short transition aged 9 11 occurring so shortly after. He basically said, whoever wins after me, whether its mccain or obama, im going to roll out the red carpet for them in a cooperate. He started chief of staff at well in advance of transition to cooperate with both obama and mccain to ate the ascension in office because we are facing two wars, the Great Recession at the time of the transition. We learn from the carter and clinton transition that focusing on the white house staff as a priority over the cabinet is more cabinet is more important. Carter and clinton focuses on their cabinet and its at the back. So, biden and bush did a good job of focusing on their white house staff versus their cabinet. We also learned from president carter that campaign in the transition staff need to cooperate. This is something that josh highlight it. Carter was the first modern president to devote resources and put together a Transition Team, he had 50 people to devote to Campaign Resources but what he didnt do was tell the campaign that he had a separate transition operation. But a week or two before the election, the story started to appear in the press about what carter had planned in the Campaign Staff and no idea where he was coming from, he went to governor cardin or at the time and said where these coming from . He said i have transitioned staff, 50 people preparing for when i win. We worked with the biden team on all of this and they actually took it one step further, they actually decided to create a work stream which they called unconventional challenges. It was to try to anticipate all of the issues that they might face as face as a result of a President Trump being unwilling to cooperate one willing to accept the outcome of the election. So working together, they anticipated a potential delay and not only beat the delay because of covid and absentee ballots being records but also the potential delay if trump did not authorize the General Service administration to ascertain the outcome of the election, which we know happened and the actual cooperation was not triggered for over a month. They anticipated lack of bree briefings from outgoing officials to incoming officials. Biden had teams to cover more than 100 agencies. 600 people to cover 100 agencies and to meet with him and figure out what was going on, whether priorities are, personalities are, and they anticipated not being able to launch those because of the delay. The anticipated delays and Intelligence Briefings. Typically as soon as there is a president elect, they started Intelligence Briefings. Trump didnt talk to isis for sometime. Most importantly, confirmation. Josh highlighted this. Personnel is everything during a transition and you need to get people in place quickly so with the biden team focused on an unconventional strategy given the non officials in places quickly as possible. On january 20th they had 1100 Officials Take Office that were non senate confirmed. That is more than obama and trump had combined at the 100 day mark in their presidencies. Biden knew that the senate would be slow and confirming people not only is the delay in ascertainment and the promise of january 6th, but also just because there was a Georgia Election on january 6th and the senate could not organize itself and so confirmation hearings were tell obama had 25 cabinet officers received preinauguration confirmation hearings before he took office, and more than a dozen officials took office on inauguration day. Biden had one official in place that was confirmed on inauguration day, the director of national intelligence, avril haines. The secretary of state, secretary of defense, they werent confirmed until the next week. So, like we learned at 1816 and 1932, and effective transition is a matter of life and death. The key thing that the president folks wanted to cooperate with with the Outgoing Administration was on the covid19 vaccine strategy, i remember talking to Jake Sullivan that had a policy and other National Security adviser about the most important policy priority on january 20th. He said, its logistics, getting shots in arms. The delayed cooperation made it more difficult for the biden team to get their strategy in place, because they couldnt work with d. O. D. , they could work with hhs, they can work with the office of management and budget on their distribution strategy. Ill just close with this, because historians love to debate these issues. Ted whitmer and i debated this quite a bit. The best transition in history was bush to obama. It was the Gold Standard of cooperation, in the laws that josh talked about, they were put in place based on the example that president bush shaped on his Outgoing Administration. The worst transition in history, i think it has to be 1860, as ted highlighted. One can debate whether 2020 was worse than 1932. And perhaps others can have a view on that. But im thrilled to participate, sorry i couldnt be there in person. Thank you very much for organizing this important session. Thanks so much, david. And thanks to all of you, just a round of applause to everyone. [applause] i want to open it up to questions and discussion, but i have to, i cant resist, because i think of this very illustrious group. I happen to be maybe the only person who worked on both a campaign and a Transition Team, and so much of what was said, here particularly josh and david, was making me think about 1992, 93. I was very young, but one thing that was distinctive about that clinton transition was, one, the line certainly i was in the little rock transition office. The line between campaign in transition was almost invisible. It was all the same campaign people. I think all five of you raise this interesting thing, transitions are such this interesting animal. Where, are they political processes or administrative processes . When they work well, it is when some political person, when George Washington goes out behind john adams. When breckenridge counts the votes. Or al gore concedes where there is a moment where somebody, george w. Bush, says im going to make sure whoever comes, then im going to do it right. That, particularly in the modern era, that is a critical. The other thing thats reminded me of the clinton transition, yes, way too much attention on the cabinet. And the white house was really the same people in the early 30s who where that campaign aides. That was one of the problems of the first year of the Clinton Administration. Part of that too was this real, and im curious what everyone thinks. I was struck by ted, your remark that basically everything falls apart so Abraham Lincoln has to rebuild the government. Of course, thats the most dramatic moment. This kind of constitutionalism and Institutional Knowledge. One striking thing about the clinton transition and the early white house was this really resolute turning away from anyone from the carter administration, by and large. There are a couple people, Donna Shalala who was my boss was in the carter administration. But in terms of that Institutional Knowledge, carter was oneterm president but with the last democrat who had been on the job. So, there was almost no Institutional Knowledge and there was so much resolute, where from outside washington. You end up with someone like mac mcclung ready from arkansas, white house chief of staff. Incredibly smart, i im from arkansas, thats one reason i was on the campaign. I can tell, you its a state of 2 Million People in does not prepare you for that. That was part of the problem. But you ended up with these two near hill aides like George Stephanopoulos in very, very high level, consequential positions. The real turning away from anyone with Institutional Knowledge of the executive branch. That was a huge, huge problem. Those are my kind of reminiscent times, but it is so reminiscent. Thinking of this weakness of is a political, its an administrative, how is it being treated . And how different actors, certainly in 2020 you had an Outgoing Administration treating it as entirely political. As youre saying, that that such a good point. I have a memory, very briefly. When bill clinton was elected governor very young, in about 1978, and then he lost. The only time he lost an election. One of the reasons he lost was because jimmy carter, president jimmy carter, sent in all those cuban prisoners to arkansas. Which was very unpopular and helped clinton to lose in 1980, i think. Maybe it was some payback for that. Think so, warring southern democrat politicians. All right, i want to open it up to discussion if anyone has a question, comment. If you, do speak, please get yourself near one of these lovely devices. And press at the bottom where it says push, so the green light comes on. The people in the outside world can hear you. Any comments or questions. Yes . I, ted franz from the university of indianapolis. Enjoyed this discussion quite a bit. And im trying to give something that all of, you whether youre here in person or out in the ether could respond to. Rachel, you talked about partisanship being a good thing. It strikes me that you probably have the only example of that where thats true. Im wondering, for any of you, how you might see partisanship playing . Whether its 1796 or 2020. And how the American Public thinks about partisanship in transitions. And if we had a different view of that, how we might actually treat our president ial transitions differently. I would make one caveat, hopefully this is on. Which is that maybe, i dont know if i said this directly, maybe not a good thing but it wasnt considered to be a bad thing. That sort of a slightly different thing. Whats important about that is there is an assumption that it exists. So, its just sort of a given that people are going to behave in partisan ways. And that partisanship does not have to go down the just a democrat or just a republican way that we have seen what is today, right . There were many parties on the 19th century, many parties interacting all the time. Thats the important part about david davis. Partisanship is more complicated than just there are republicans and there are democrats. Its a lot about legitimacy, from that perspective. But ill let others jump in. I totally agree with that. I think so many, to tie into one of the, others i think he made this point. There been so many moments and many of these elections that it is clear that problems were coming, and it was pretty obvious many years in a row. For example, in 1790, six hamilton behind the scenes had been trying to throw the election to the vp candidate. And make sure that adams lost. So, it was clear to people that these electoral shenanigans were very possible, yet they seemed sort of surprised when indeed it did happen in 1800. Gross 18, 60 1876, but id also say in 2020. In 2016 trump had said he wouldnt accept that outcome of the election if he lost. If there is a debate whether or not that would happen. I think a lot of our problems with anticipating issues are that we dont expect partisanship to come into play. When we think there are positions that people somehow check their partisanship at the door. So, if we were much more open about yes, partisanship can cause problems and can be a very intense, nasty element of our system but its there. So lets own it and see what we can do to mitigate that, they would go a long way. I dont know if you talked about this or if im stealing someone elses idea, but the person who is responsible for the ascertainment is a political appointee and its responsible for their job to the person they are potentially kicking out of the white house. Which was kind of the problem in 2020. If you have a non political appointee, a civil service, person a commission, whatever it is, its not that partisanship wont come into play, but lets be a little more honest about those motivations. David, where you i would just add that, up until this year, in the modern president ial transition context, which i would say is vince carter, the transitions have been largely bipartisan. There is a cadre of officials who have worked in incoming and Outgoing Administrations and transitions that cooperate, but elaborate, that share experiences. In order to facilitate the smooth transition of power. For example, the organization i was working, with the partnership of public service, organizes a transition conference every cycle. I which everybody has traditionally come together. So, for example, in the previous cycle we had Hillary Clintons team, Bernie Sanders team, ted cruzs team. There were multiple players that participated and they all collaborated. The romney team collaborated very closely with their successors, romney did a very good job planning his transition. Obviously he didnt win, but he took the approach much like a Management Consultant and had a very methodical plan. Which others benefited from. This, year it was an exception. And hopefully in the future, we can get back to a nonpartisan approach to president ial transitions. Great. Yes . Here and then there. I have a question about the Supreme Court. I think, at least in the first instance, mostly for rachel and josh but also, as i think about, it lindsay with her sons of how in the earlier public back Channels Communications would have been among different branches of government quite openly. You too have each presented on elections where the Supreme Court played a decisive role. Obviously, the role certainly as a formal matter, was radically different. Not everything needs to be better or worse, but im just wondering to hear your thoughts. If youre to compare the role thats played in those circumstances, and overtly political role that we are calling on people who have certain institutional credibility to play versus an institutional role played by people who we know channel in part political interests. Right . Both of them leave me an easy, but im wondering how you all, anybody, thinks about that. That role for an institution at least historically has been an important legitimate or for good and ill. We want to start, want me to . Ill let you. We know of course that resolving bush v. Gore, i dont think this is just because legal reasoning is questionable, really damage the institutional credibility of the court. Im aligned with many others when i think the court has continued along that path, but a lot of people will push to bush v. Gore and say thats when they questioned the court as a neutral arbiter and side of the political institution. Its inconceivable to me, at least, that the justices would play an active role today, as seem to be the case then. I dont think we would gain anything by i dont think it would be necessarily preferable to have i dont want the court resolving elections, i guess. Let me just say that. I want to court resolving elections, whether its under the guise of neutrality, i dont want this court playing an active role in the resolution of elections. And im afraid they, will obviously President Trump believe that they might. Some of the justices seem eager to do so. So, i dont want them playing a role. I dont think that there is much daylight to be honest today, between the partisanship that we saw in 76 and the kind of messages and signals that we are actually getting from some of the justices today. I just dont think theres much daylight between that. So, my suggestion would be, you know, criticize that. Do our work of trying to expose, basically, when we see partisanship and bias creeping into these decisions. And do it ever we can to try to keep courts out of the business of resolving elections. I could talk at length about that and how we can have pre commitments tragedies and ex anti rules that are established in such. But having courts resolve these issues his post is concerning. I would say theres been a long history, historiographical tradition of saying that there were many people in the 19th century who wanted the court to resolve 1876 election. Read a lot of books i compare the 1876 election to the 2000 election in particular, and say that. That i dont think thats true it, all actually. I think is a very small minority folks who are really interested in the court deciding the election. And theyre mostly republicans, because they expected court would decide in favor of hayes because it was a mostly republican court. In general, the main point there is that the court just did not have that kind of power. Did not have the kind of power to decide really anything involving elections. Courts on the state level and local level play a huge role in the 1876 election, it is not true that courts were separate from the election itself. But the Supreme Court, because the justices had these political proclivitys and people knew that, they couldnt be in charge. Unless you really wanted to swing it for the republicans, which some people did. I would say maybe the lesson is just that the court should not have so much power. And if you accept that they are more of a political body and engaging in partisan politics in certain ways, you could still be an honest judge and have partisan proclivitys. Those things are not necessarily in conflict, right . But if you acknowledge that, and then the court does not have as much power, then maybe its not as much of an issue. I think theres an understanding going on in 1870, six maybe this relates to some of the other comments, about the inter relationship among politics and washington. All of the same people are involved in all of the same things. Many of the lawyers who are presenting in front of the federal Electoral Commission are people that are very close with the justices and were part of their political campaigns and careers. So, there is no way of taking men out. Thats just a much better acknowledgment that that is the way things worked at that point and maybe it wasnt such a bad thing. As long, that is when they got, cases they were decided them on the basis of the case and not the partisan issue. But in the 19th century, when you dont have finalist already over the constitution as a Supreme Court, then it matters less than you have those partisan proclivitys. Because other parties and other people can say no, we dont agree with what the court is doing. I think if we take it a step further back, i would apply the same assessment. Actually, i wrote down social Network Theory when josh said this. The early republic is just the most incestuous place that there has ever been. Because one of the main plots behind the election of 1800 was from alexander hamilton, who had written to john j once it was clear that the new york electors were going to go republican. And john j, the first chief justice who now the governor of new york because the chief justice was not prestigious enough, because the Supreme Court wasnt powerful enough, he said why dont we change the way the electors are reported. That, way we can swing them to the federalist case. Jay put the letter to the side, so he didnt have to acknowledge that it happened, so the election could go ahead smoothly. But all of these people near each other. All of these people had very close relationships. Thomas jefferson and John Marshall were, cousins they despised each, other which was one of a lot of the Supreme Court animosities were about for the first decade in particular. But theyre able to draw a between partisan judges and super partisan judges. They knew the partisanship was there, they just were willing to sort of accepted until they were so ridiculously partisan that jefferson tried to get them kicked off the Supreme Court, like samuel chase. So, i dont know that the early republic is necessarily a good Supreme Court model for what we should aspire to, but i think that there is a space for partisanship that is accepted and acknowledged. And i actually wonder if our Supreme Court and our relationship to the Supreme Court would be better if we stop pretending like they werent partisan. And said yes, these are the spoils i come from the presidency, go, route it that way. I saw a hand on the side of the room earlier. I think this is on. Yes. Okay, im rob baker, from georgia state. Im having trouble formulating a coherent question here because my head is spinning listening to this wonderful roundtable, its been just fabulous. But im really struck by the partisanship of the 1876 election. I gather that a lot of people are. I knew the corrupt bargain wasnt real, but i did not know that there was a celebration of partisanship there. That actually struck me, because there are a lot of instances right around that time of people elevating constitutionalism and office. I, think just off the top of my head, benjamin art curtis coming out of retirement to defend president johnson in the impeachment hearings. Or lincoln, for that matter, in 1864. Holding an election in the middle of a war. These are moves where they are elevating democratic norms above what would be a personal partisan interest, maybe. So, and wondering if there is a tension here with this appointment of the commission and the idea that its a good thing that is partisan, was there its accepted, yeah. I dont want to believe, that have put it that way. Im just going to say i dont believe you and i want to see if you can convince me otherwise. I think my friend and coauthor, eric alexander, is in the audience in the back. Weve written quite a bit about this. The key is just to have a different understanding of what partisanship is and what it looks like in the 19th century. , so the idea that you have two Political Parties that are fighting each other out at all times, its just not the case. There are lots of Political Parties. And the idea that a Political Party is going to last forever is not universally held. So, i would say, in 1864, lincoln of course hold an election during the civil war. , yes that is upholding democratic norms but its with the Political Party that he is trying to create into his own political organization, the union party. Right . This is not like, im a republican, i could, you know, become a dictator. Its, i need to build a political coalition, im going to do it this way in 1864 as opposed to this other way. I dont think all these people are super and principled, i think they just had an understanding. Something, organizing a group of people into a party to try to advocate for a political perspective was the way that you did it. Even when people argued against partisanship, they were often just arguing against one party. Not both parties. Just the idea that, well, i dont like partisanship but im going to organize myself into a party to fight against the party that exists, right . Thats the know Nothing Party right there. I would just say, its sort of an acknowledgment that partisanship is going to inflict the way that people behave. If you understand that, then you can better understand why people are engaging in what theyre engaging in. And a belief that the other Political Parties are not legitimate, right . Your Political Party is legitimate. So, im going to be partisan because partisanship is important for me to achieve something. But the democrats, theyre not a legitimate party because of course they supported the confederacy, right . So i think its more of a complicated relationship to partisanship that and good versus bad. More of just an acknowledgment from that perspective, i dont know if ive answered your question. Or if ive convinced you. But glad to talk more about it. David, id love to ask you a question, im sorry to put you on the spot in this. Moving, forward we have another election coming up. In theory there would be another transition coming up. How does a bipartisan transition work if one side wont play along . Great question. So, obviously, President Biden has said he is running for reelection. He and his team will hope that they win the election. It will also be required under the president ial transition act of 1963, as amended, as josh was highlighted, to prepare for a potential loss. He will need to instruct his cabinet, appoint Transition Coordinating Councils and instruct his cabinet to prepare memos and prepare a plan for if he does lose. And there are requirements to report to the congress and the public on the implementation of the law at the six months mark prior to the election, and the three month mark prior to the election. Actually, ironically, in the last cycle, President Trumps team did a very effective job up until the election. There was a fellow named chris ledell who is the deputy chief of staff, he was also the person that ran the ramy transition. He worked very under the radar screen to implement the law as required. Only after the election, when President Trump got involved did those plants go off the rails. And ledell, he was handcuffed essentially of. So, president obama did this under the law as well when he ran for reelection, and his team actually worked with us romneys team to prepare for the potential that romney could have won. And obama, on the way out in 2016, actually did coordinate with both Hillary Clintons team and with thencandidate trumps team. There is a law that requires this type of cooperation. The culture in washington, up until this year, has been that there is a group of bipartisan officials that care about transitions deeply. And that worked to create an environment where a transition is seen as this kind of holy and very important part of american democracy. Where the outgoing cooperates with the incoming. Thats been the tradition, its the law, hopefully that will happen in the future. Can i just follow up on that, david . My understanding is there are these memorandum of understanding that the respective campaigns agree to, right . There is also these ethics laws that are in place to prevent someone from, i dont know, coming in from a law firm and doing certain things on the campaign and then going back to the law firm, that kind of stuff. I dont know that any of thats actionable, is it . What is the cost . It is actionable, there is a series of obligations that the incumbent administration has to execute. A memorandum of understanding with each of the candidates after the nominating conventions. The law recognizes that nominee is to be official nominee is after the nominee conventions, and they start to, get as you mentioned, staff offices, access to government computers, mobile phones. And one of the post 9 11 reforms, they can submit names to the department of justice and the fbi to get security clearances, so that their people are ready during the transition to receive Intelligence Briefings and ready to go through the Senate Confirmation process. And then there is also a memorandum of understanding thats negotiated between the white house and the campaigns, or the transitions, for how the outgoing and incoming will cooperate. Again, all of that was done prior to the election, under trump administration. It just wasnt implemented after the election because trump impeded the execution of the plan that the staff did a good job i pursuing prior to the election ebbed. One of the Untold Stories of the last election that the we people did a good job going up to the election and they didnt execute it required under the law of. Well, at least we know the laws are there. Obtained cute all of our panelists, in person and virtual. I want to thank all of our audience members in person and virtual. This has been a really terrific and interesting roundtable. I have a feeling that the conversation will continue. Thank you to all, thank you lindsay for bringing everyone together. Thank you all. [applause] if youre enjoying American History tv, then sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive the weekly schedule of programs like lectures in, history the presidency and more. Sign up for the American History tv newsletter today, and be sure to watch American History tv every saturday or anytime online at cspan. Org slash history. Middle and high school students, its your time to shine. You are invited to participate in this years cspan student cam documentary competition. In light of the upcoming midterm elections, picture yourself as a newly elected member of congress. We asked this years competitors, what is your top priority and why . Make a 5 to 6 minute video that shows the importance of your issue from opposing and supporting perspectives. Dont be afraid to take risks with your documentary. Be bold. Amongst the 100,000 in cash prizes is a 5000dollar grand prize. Videos must be bmitted by january 20th, 2023. Visit our website at student cam. Org for competition rules, tips, resources and a stepbystep guide. Cspan now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington, live and on demand. Keep up with the days events in advance with live streams of floor proceedings in congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics. All at your fingertips. You can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for cspan tv networks and cspan radio. Plus, a variety of compelling podcasts. Cspan now is available at the apple store and google play, download for free today. Cspan now, your front row seat to washington. Anytime, anywhere. Weekends on cspan two are an intellectual feast. Every saturday, american documents america story. And on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction