directly proportional to the size of government. preparing for this debate i was looking for texts about principle nonvoteing. the ones i found were on christian texts. they were all jehova witnesses, writing about why they don't vote and common one is it makes me hate my fellow man and i do not follow jesus' commandment to love thy enemy when i'm involved in a political system trying to control each other's lives. i think we have the better argument. >> actually i think that argument that you just made argues against your position. and here is why. what divides is not the act of voting or the act that -- the fact that we have different preferences when we go into the ballot box about that hair cat or this haircut or creation versus evolution is the

government is trying to impose one answer on everybody. that's what divides us. it's not the act of voting itself. if the government weren't doing this we are coming with a one-size-fits-all rule for everybody. we should shave our heads and you could not. [laughter] >> and we could look better than you. [laughter] >> and we would get along just fine. we would be neighbors, different, civil with each other, no reason to fight because to each his own. but when you say that the problem is voting and voting is what divides us and we as libertarians are not going to vote and it's hard to get to get rid of things that divide us. >> one quick response and i would like to move on. >> you're sliding back to voting in the aggregate than individual.

my individual will not move into a more libertarian direction. from the signaling thing, our argument is the weight that people have that they place on voting and that they think voting is how we participate and that we ought to participate and it's exactly what we are pushing against with. by voting and telling people that we voting and signaling that voting is okay, we are reinforcing these false beliefs about scope of government. it would be one thing i'm not going to vote because i'm lazy and libertarians shouldn't vote because it's easier at home and play video games. that would look bad but responding for the principle argument why i'm abstaining from this particular system seems arguably as persuasive in the right direction or at least as a ray of hope that we will move in a direction where people don't think that this is a legitimate way to choose how we run our lives. >> i have a question from the affirmative sides.

some have shown that less than a quarter of voters know who their senators are. half of voters know that the states get two of them. voters often cannot name onen candidate for the house of representatives in their district, they can't say what the first amendment does, they are routinely ignorant about public policy. these are embarrassing and presumably not limited to the political mainstream. how do you recommend that anyone vote in light of pervasive voter ignorance? >> like michael, i think that nonlibertarians should not vote, if you know about yourself to be libertarian, you probably know the structure of the government, you probably know that there's one representative in your district and two senators for your state. you probably know how you come out on most issues. so that doesn't affect our thesis i don't think that libertarians should vote. >> i want to be clear about what

we are for, connecting actually all three questions because what michael said about the intrusiveness of the government, it is the thing that the government is doing we think are outside of legitimate boundaries of government and that's the problem, that's part point one. secondly, for the question of ignorant voters, we know why there are ignorant voters, because your vote doesn't matter. we have an entire system that explains when you actually own the benefits or the cause of decisions you make, you will make better decisions and because vote asking a matter that's why there's significant voters. it is true and jim would endorse this, i'm not sure about mike but it is true that if you are very, very ignorant on the stuff that jason talked about, it is probably your duty not to vote. it's your duty not to vote because the point of voting is

to use -- is to affect the coercive power of government and if you use the position where you don't know how many representatives there are and you don't know who is running for office, you have no idea, your ignorance could do a bad thing to people if you were the deciding vote. >> and this is, i think, a reason to advance our principal objection to voting because one of the reasons that lots of ignorant people vote is because we as a culture have convinced ourselves that voting is this enormously important thing that everyone ought to do. it doesn't matter how you vote, who you vote for but the way that you vote or the way you discharge your civic duty. you do that every four years or two years, then you've done what you need to do as a citizen and you're done. we push back against that, no, voting is like one of the more minor things you can do, that would seem cut out some of the ignorant voters.

>> real movements that actually rise to being major parties put a good deal of effort into activating voters and deactivating the other side's voters, making the other side's voters feel demoralized. >> the only movement that does that for all the other movements. >> this week a poll was conducted, a poll was conducted of the cato institute's policy staff, it showed that some 70% of respondents described themselves as regular voters and another 17 and a half percent were occasional voters. the figures are comparable to figures to all american that is have a college degree or higher. i ask the negative side, why are the libertarians of the cato institute not taking your advice? [laughter] >> i start by saying that if we are going to take having lots of people disagree with us is a sign that we are perhaps wrong. [laughter]

>> we are in the wrong building. >> that is how voting works, isn't it? >> my colleagues haven't listened to us enough. >> we don't have a problem with libertarians voting. the best reason to vote is because you feel -- it feels good. i mean, because it doesn't matter is part of the reason that we don't have a problem with it. if you feel like you have important duty, then you should vote. we are not arguing for a principle duty to not vote. >> i think we have in the libertarian community a lot of sensible people who understand these dynamics pretty well that statistic you shared that jason suggests so. we also have folks that really enjoy signaling how much they dislike democracy. i dislike the results that democracy produces and my preference is for liberty over democracy. by publicly expressing revulsion

i alienate so i think it's self-defeat to go talk about if you don't vote about not voting and why it is stupid to vote. >> i have a question that i would like to ask trevor and erin. i gave the thought experiment of an african american mother or latina, anyone who faces a real threat, a real threat to their liberty that is personalized for them and they're very afraid of that threat. coming to you, imagine someone like that coming to you and saying, will you vote for a candidate x in this election and -- and what would you say to that person that includes i don't vote? what would you say to that person, include the statement i don't vote and how would that advance the cause of liberty? >> let me flip that on you

because as you said in your introductory remark what is you're signaling is caring and these people by not voting is saying, i don't care about your problem and you work in healthcare policy and you argue that we should turn health care over to free markets. lots of people, it's one of the reason that is we have a hard time convincing people that argument believe that saying turn this over to the market as opposed to saying i'm going to vote for a law that will help you that will cause for someone to give you medical care is signaling not caring. so the objection is we need to convince the people that this is a poor signal of caring and that by not doing it or tushing health care over to markets or other policies that we advance in cato institute we are in fact, doing it out of a sense of caring. >> but one of these is libertarian objective and one is not. turning health care over to markets, not voting is not --

does not reduce coercion in society. turning health care over to the government, reducing coercion. that is a principle that the inaccurate beliefs that i'm trying to overcome. but as far as voting, it's sort of, you know, it's not something we have to take on. this belief that people have that voting is caring, even if it's false, even if it's as false as the idea that government -- that markets will lead to worse health care, even if it's that false it's not an argument that we have to take on because it does not involve coercion. i again, i asking you instead of dodging the question, what do you say to that voter who is very afraid of the outcome of an election? >> i will tell you exactly what i would say to them, first of all, it's kind of -- when people

ask about voting on initiatives and things like this and i am not -- there are times i can imagine myself voting under certain circumstances that things are small and if the government is limited, now, this is important point because jim's style is against democracy. we are not against democracy, we are against ramping, overpowering and off the rails dem -- which libertarians are too. if we are voting on courts and stoplights and whether or not there's going to be a road here when we have a diagram that has broad overlap, that's a question that we are going to vote on.

i want to get to mike's question. first of all, i say, i don't vote ignorantly, if i will vote, i will research what you're talking about and make a decision on whether or not i'm going vote on it. walk away. i didn't call this debate. i don't go around telling people not to vote like usually -- [laughter] >> making a big deal out of it. i don't do that. if people ask me, i will tell them and i will say, i'm okay. >> i would say that -- >> can we wrap up this comment? >> i would say too for the person who is squared of their liberty being undermined by a person winning that first me voting for your side is not likely to impact your liberty one way or another and second that me living out principles justice, living out the

principles of liberty that led me to believe in libertarianism by not legitimizing what i see as largely illlegitamate and so if that's what matters, then, i think i'm doing okay. >> with that, i would like to open the floor with questions from the audience. i see one question here, please wait for the microphone and identify yourself and make certain that your question is in the form of a question. >> we will do. my name is drew clark, i'm a columnist for the news in salt lake city and working with the gary johnson campaign for president and vice president. i'm probably in the camp that why are you even having this

debate five days, six days before an election, but i'm glad i came because i want to be able to ask a question of the -- those who are not in favor of voting themselves permy and i just want to preface this by saying, that i used to believe that you all did on this side of the table. i didn't vote the first time i was eligible to vote and i had what i might regard as crisis thinking, oh, my gosh, i can't believe i through -- threw away that opportunity. i think you two have made two good points. we probably overemphasize the importance of voting but by in large, i think you have to come down on the side of voting unless you are anarchist and i'm not sure if you are, i'm not asking you if you are -- >> what are you asking? >> the reason -- the reason the question is -- is as a form of

rights, if i am a believer that my rights need to be compatible with the rights of all the other people, you act in a way such that everyone engaging in the same behavior as you would if you're arguing not voting result in a system where there was, in fact, no legitimacy to the state. so the question is, can you believe in a limited state and still abstain from voting or, i guess, i should ask the reverse, isn't it the case that your stance only holds value if you believe that the government as a whole is illigetimate. >> i would push back. in fact, i think that there are quite air-tight and compelling

arguments that voting does not legitimize federal government and if we are going to legitimize it we have to do it some other way and i would question the very premise of your objection. >> and i agree that as i said our argument depends on what this thing that you're affecting, like a flea landing on the back of an elephant or affecting theoretically what it's doing. it's entirely dependent upon that we on whether or not i want to participate in something deeply immoral and there are things like the drug war, locking people in cages for smoking drug that the majority of people 80 year's ago didn't like, that's deeply immoral and i don't want to sign my name to anyone who is for that. even if there are for peer political purposes. even if they are against the drug war but for still, they're

still immoral. voting -- first of all, i've never met the politician who was for all my positions. there's another noise in the system about politicians. we have oversold. there's another noise in the system about expected value calculation. we need to -- we need to understand that so in 24006 when the democrats took the house and the senate it was all styled as a referendum on the iraq war and it was time for exit polls showed massive voter interest in iraq war and time for the government to rethink iraq war. that did not happen. candidates are like mirrors, they will change entirely when they get into office and huge amount of doubt and including someone who are by my positions, i'm not doubtful that they do anything immoral and i will abstain because of that ignorance. >> another question.

let's see. yes. >> my name is cristina, i would just had a question about the way you're addressing voting, i guess, in general but when you're talking about it more a presidential side and when i'm listening, i'm taking more of a local government, i'm from a small town of 800, i'm wondering when you talk about lit mate like aspect of government, what would you say to people that were one or two votes matter and you're talking about making an impact of a smaller more social level that seems to be the most important, you know n your community your kids are learning and different things from everything from their local economy or whatever, but -- and then, that's my only question, i won't go on anymore. >> so the position trevor and i were taking out that there are multiple consideration in play

and one of them is how likely your vote is to influence things, decide the election, to move margins in a way that's going to change things and then the moral versions and that you need to weigh them against each other and so the smaller the election is the fewer people who vote, the more chance there is that your vote will matter and so it may be that you flip to a point where that outweighs our moral concerns. but also there's the weird thing that happens in this country when we talk about elections, which is the indignation that we express for people who say that they are not going to vote only really comes out when we are talking about the presidential elections. lots and lots of -- far few of us vote in small elections as percentage vote in national elections. we don't get mad when people say i didn't vote in the mid-term, i didn't vote in the school board election even though they have a greater chance of affecting things in those. so we are in this situation where rhetorically where the rage that people feel of nonvoters is proportional to how much the vote matters.

>> let me endorse the question because a lot of people come to this based on a model and it's the model you're going to have one vote in the presidential election and that's the only thing going on. down ballot gives you lots and lots of opportunity to affect things, you're more likely to affect outcomes by -- it's all in small margins but participating in these elections is a big deal in the small town. this is a related story, my mother use to rant against a variety of things but in the political sphere, she turned that ranting into action. it wasn't a vote per say but she ran for office. she ran for a hospital board in san mateo county, california, purported a government a hospital that no longer existed in the platform that she do away with the board.

she wasn't going to get elected but said a lot of people and maybe hooked up with some minds that thought whether the san mato county hospital should exist. think about the down ballot and not the pure economic model that we are all talking about. >> i have seen a lot of questions in the audience and i have promised both sides a closing statement although if you want to wave that in favor of more questions, i would be okay with that too. >> i have a killer close. [laughter] >> okay. >> we will take one more question and then close. yes. you. in the front. yes. [laughter] >> my name is sage, i would like to ask something in regard to not voting because of ignorance. so what i'm wondering is why would you promote not voting instead of promoting being

informed, educating yourself and being ongoing learner? how is that better? >> being educated on all of the issues, so not just the presidential election but the down ballot stuff that jim is big on is extraordinarily time consuming. it has a lot of opportunity costs. there are plenty of issues that i don't have enough knowledge onto say that i could vote in an informed way one way or another and i spend 40 hours a week doing this stuff. i think that the cost -- the problem with saying to the ignorant voter become informed is that it means giving up a lot of things in their lives that they could be doing otherwise, they are probably important to them and probably more important to them than the fact of the single vote.

>> and the ignorant question relates to the local government question, there are concerns i have in local government that i might vote but i don't know enough about it to vote and i have other things to do with my time that i consider okay. i mean, erin is taking care of his kids, he's going to take them to school. those are the kind of trade-offs that matter so people make those trade-offs in different ways which is why they are ignorant voters. >> all right, i think we should move to closing statements, jim, you have promised a killer close so deliver. >> oops, i played the expectations' games badly. i do not like the results of democracy and when i say that i'm talking about the war of drugs and particularly impact on minority communities, the war-making that's a constant featured united states policy,

mass surveillance, the list goes on and on, but that's not a reason not to vote. i think you've got to live in the world. persuasion is the game -- name of the game the other 95% of the problem is getting people to come along with us. let me also say that the people who have the power now and the people to use this power of democracy in ways we don't like,

they have the power because they solved the collection action problem on facebook, on tv, individually. they are all sink it out and vote. get out and vote. they are not doing these precise calculations about whether it's rational or efficient. they are all voting. they will turn around next year start telling us something they want to do in another realm that i'm not going to like. so join me in solving this collective action problem, join me in voting for the candidate of your choice. that was a killer close. [laughter] [applause] >> i think we have about a little must then a closing statement i want to answer two questions. the first one is come is only wrong? i think the answer is no. voting badly is wrong but voting itself is not wrong. is not voting wrong? i don't think it's so wrong that we should be, that we should be

publicly shaming people if they choose not to vote, especially if you're likely to vote badly. that if you're a libertarian who wants to influence people come if you want to influence policy outcomes, then yeah, i think not voting is wrong because you are reducing your influence. your reducing your ability to affect policy outcomes. i think erin's answer to a hypothetical question about that, that woman plans and appliances would you vote for me? illustrates why. because that was a cogent answer. i think it actually correct that you are devoting your coverage of trying to expand human liberty. but i think she moved onto the next three voters in the time it took to give that answer. whereas a simple yes, i vote and i care about what you care about would have gotten you a lot

farther. >> we are going to ask you now to deliver your closing statements, and then after that we will close. >> this has been a lot of fun. i want to put out a few closing ideas. first, mike's argument is only for lying about voting and nonvoting. so you combined both of us together and lie and say you did. second, jim harper's argument of being a rational calculator, i asked them how many times in the last 10 years they've written of the rick ogston, contrary local school board meeting, voted in a primary, voted in a local election. all of these things that can matter on jim's calculus, writing your cargo to manage the law. we are having this debate about what effectiveness is, should be saying why didn't you do that? one reason is he calculated it wasn't worth the cost and this

whole voting things come up always been this whole debate on this. we should be talking other things. we are not talking voting en masse. kept sliding over to this fact that voting matters. trivial true it would be crazy for us to come appearance a dozen. your vote doesn't matter, because the issue conscious and to talk to vote. it's not wrong for a libertarian to abstain from voting. it's also a kit for libertarians to vote. don't vote, to vote, makes no difference but if you vote vote with your wits about you and vote for someone or something that doesn't cover much what you stand for. it matters deeply to you and it should if you want to principles that matter. if you don't vote, don't sweat it. take your kid to the park, write your congressman, stick it to the man and become an uber driver. circumvent the state. we don't have to preach the gospel about nonvoting. the powers and limitations of voting has always been official and in many ways is long overdue. principles are different enough

in politics, in many ways politics is the art of the possible, compromise, which means a principled politician is usually an unemployed one. >> if you're a libertarian please don't forget what you stand for. that's liberty, democracy. voting is not the same thing as liberty. yes, democracies look like they promote liberty more than some of the alternatives but they can also easily go astray. when they do those in government usually cite the people as justification. maybe by consciously not voting, by being able to explain why we are not voting we can change not just the policies for existing tablet but peoples beliefs about government. we can say there are better, more meaningful ways to achieve prosperity and peace and justice. we don't need to resort to the state every time we see a problem. we can convince them that state is heard often the wrong way to solve those problems.

in this sense the problem with voting is people take it too seriously as a means for achieving good governance. they invested with too much meaning. went abstaining doesn't make things worse and voting doesn't make things better, by making the principled choice not to participate in a false show of public spiritedness we can take some of the air out of big government balloon. just because everyone is praising the emperor's clothes does it mean that you have to. thank you. [applause] >> i am not unaware of the irony of asking who won this debate and asking you all to vote on that question your however if i might have a show of hands for the affirmative. for the affirmative.

and for the negative. i think i'm going to call it for the affirmative. [inaudible] speed and how many here changed their minds? okay, and which direction did you change your minds toward? i saw one hand go this way on one hand go that way and one hand not move. [inaudible] >> well, maybe you one more than he realized. in any event, we can continue to discuss this at the reception, which i believe is one floor down in the lobby, is that correct? okay great. thank you all for attending. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> of course today is election day and hillary clinton voted earlier today accompanied by her husband and surrounded by crowds. she voted in chappaqua new york and went outside to greet supporters. donald trump also plans to vote today in midtown new york. this afternoon he is hosting a party with friends, supporters and the eyepiece. vice president joe biden also voted this money. he hugged kids and joked with poll workers. he was quoted as saying the bad news is i'm not going away. we have results in from one area of the country. three new hampshire districts traditional have the first vote in the country just after midnight and they released the results are donald trump one mills field, 16 before anyone gets field i-4 votes.

and new york congressman charlie rangel is retiring. he cast his last full as a congressman today. he says he will proudly wear his i voted sticker. >> election night on c-span and watch the results every part of a national conversation about the outcome. beyond location of hillary clinton and donald trump election night headquarters and watch a victory and concession speeches in key senate house and governors races starting live at 8 p.m. eastern and throughout the following 24 hours. watch live on c-span, on demand at c-span.org or listen to live coverage using the free c-span radio app. >> former white house advisers and transition staff members talked about the history of presidential transitions and challenges for the new administration. speakers include former policy buys it to president clinton and a former chief of staff to first

lady laura bush. this discussion is hosted by the national press foundation. >> i'm chris adams, the director of the foundation of introducing our panel here in a second. said sandy told you her transition store or give you my one brief transition story. 2000, the most interesting transition in my lifetime. i was working at "the wall street journal," in the midst of a long-term project. had nothing to do with politics and for everybody in my newsrooms work on the transition but me. we are going to talk today about transition. we have three panels, a panel of experts to a panel of reporters and to experts who will talk about the revolving door issue. basically what we are trying to help you figure out is what actually happened when you wake up on a cold day in january and all of your sources are gone. for reporters that's what it is about the strategies on how you can prepare for it, what stories

you should be looking for, how you actually build new source of into the new administration, and the story you want to do like the old standby stories. for the politicians and the administration it's a matter of efficiency and speed in getting the president's new agenda enacted. these are some numbers from david eagles center for presidential transition. a new administration is likely to get its appointees confirmed fastest in first year of its administration. it has only 73 days to do so if wants to get them replaced by the start of administration, and there's 4000 presidential appointee to try to get to the process. that's what we'll be talking about today. our three experts, david eagles, the director for the center for presidential transition with a partnership for public service will tell you what pivotal role they're playing in the transition this year for both potential administrations.

anita mcbride, executive and president of the center for congressional and presidential studies at the school of public affairs at american university and a veteran of incoming and outgoing transition with the reagan, george h. w. bush and george w. bush administrations, and bill galston, senior fellow out for the governors of study program at the brookings institution and a veteran of bill clinton's transition process. this first session is 75 minutes. we are going to come each will give a brief view of some of the most important things they see that they've experienced in their transition, and then we will aim for a 35 minutes of q&a because i think that what most of you want to do. we will start with david. david eagles. >> appreciate your time. thanks for talking about presidential transition. what i wanted to take a quick step back and understand the sheer scope and magnitude of what we are talking about. these transitions are massive.

this is part of a message to the incoming games. they are inheriting a fortune dollars apparatus. there are hundreds of federal agencies. as chris mentioned there's 4000 political appointments, 1100 have to go to the senate. there's only 73 days to your plan. there's not a lot of experience in this process. there are not a lot of folks coming in. what's happened historically has visited a reinvented the wheel exercise, a groundhog day exercise and of incoming team is going through. so not all is a big and complicated, it's also a third of all of the for the country as well. so by and large the white house is virtually empty. the original files are virtually gone. there are no hard drives and wiped the hard drive for the incoming team and they haven't construction management is coming. there's an interesting period right around the inauguration where is vulnerable for the country as well.

also say that no incoming president really has done this very well. because it is a reinvented the wheel exercise this is the first time using both teams planning to separate early with now because of the new legislation that's passed they have space for logistics provided by the government. this is only the second time in history we've seen the. governor romney did it for years ago and went to town on it. he had several hundred people predilection focused on this. i go back to this whole thing is one big epic corporate takeover except a big difference is 4005 your top people all quit and execs empower. you get virtually no due diligence so you don't know what you about until you bought it effectively after the election. >> if you were to buy a small business, a coffee shop, it's a six to 12 month process. unit ceo succession plans, reviewed all the financial statements. there's virtually nothing and there's opportunity to do so much better.

what do we mean by that? every president time in nearly a year at the event elected are getting less than one-third of the people in office. they are not getting the top people in place. even today in the federal government this is not on president obama, this is every modern president, one in five senior positions are vacant. about 20%. compared to the private sector where it's about 4% or 5%. we asked ourselves why is this issue, what happened, why are there these senior vacancy rates with we found a couple things. one is out for some of these teams are now starting early enough. they are not managing this process strategically. that's why we feel if these teams take a step back this is what the greatest opportunities to make government more effective. it's the only time these teams can basically understand how to want the government to work. it's difficult once you in office. all our research and interview show, once you in the presidency you hit with unforeseen occurrences all the time.

it's difficult to step back and this is that time they have to maximize. they historically have not gotten the people through and once you're in office you can't catch a. that's why you're seeing these vacancy rates that we see out there now. secondly, from the campaign promise perspective, we are still in the midst of a few days left, 20 some odd days left of the campaign, they are making campaign promises. transition is what connects those promises into the government. understand how to execute him. they will develop the teams now or develop 100 a glance or 200 they plans thinking about their campaign promises, how to execute them. this is an extremely complicated business, the largest most complex and powerful entity on earth. if you want to keep this country safe and prosperous, these teams have to start now. we cannot afford it, particularly in the post-9/11 environment. this is why the bush administration started early. that's pretty much what i want to leave you with. i'm part of the center for

presidential transition, we are part of the partnership of public service and committed to making government more effective. we are also nonpartisan and nonprofit. we've been working with the teams since the spring. in april we can be all five senior campaign officials of the time, the candidates who are still in office. we pulled them off site to talk about governing the country. it's the first time in history we've seen that this early. as an american super proud to see a safe nonpartisan if i did where he seemed to talk about governing this entity which is the u.s. federal government. since then we've been working closely with the teams. both teams are committed to an effective transition which is exciting. they understand the importance of governing this country. i'll leave you with that. >> really well done. thank you. thank you, david. that really helped to frame things. perfectly, i will talk more from the practitioner point of view, having been in a number of transitions. i want to pick up on something

that sandy mentioned. you never know who you're sources are going to be for information. i think that was very illustrative, if i can just speabetoo that for a minute, in4 when congress flipped from democrat to republican after almost 50 years, that there are people who are in the royal opposition working behind the scenes that could be in leadership at some point. it's really important to be cultivating those relationships, and particularly when it comes to transitions on the senate side, who's going to be in the position of overseeing the nomination process for any senate confirmed appointments? because they could be a stumbling block to the nominations of a president elect, or they could be a real help. so that was a good example of knowing who's on the hill. chris, thank you for inviting me to participate in this.

i want to focus on a couple of key areas. really what role does the outgoing administration play in ensuring that there is a smooth transfer of power? my answer to that is in place the most important role. because they set the tone. the outgoing president and his team will set the tone on how the transition is viewed by the american public, how the transition is handled by the incoming team as well. and i think it will take a lot from the first encounter that the president-elect and the outgoing president have, particularly if it is a dramatic change. if donald trump wins, given all the rhetoric that has happened in this campaign, that would be a moment that everyone will have eyes on and will set the tone

for what may happen. because it has been such a visceral election. obviously, if it's mrs. clinton, these are two people that know each other. he is campaigning for her. my assumption is all of the assets and resources that an outgoing team can provide will be there, and that the tone will be set very early as a positive one. so the role of an outgoing administration in ensuring a smooth transfer of power is setting the tone. it's really important the president do that and do that will. and by extension that they give direction to all of their staff, not only in the white house but to the departments and agencies as well, to be open and transparent in providing all the information that an incoming team would now. what are the greatest obstacle for incoming team? greatest obstacle is they don't

know what they don't know. and particularly if i if it is a trump presidency, a lot of the people who may be, because this has been an election based on dramatic change, and overhauling of the government, from top to bottom, the anticipation that these people want to come in and just blow the whole thing up is hardly pretty highly likely. so who are, you know, what tone is going to be set by the incoming team? out open a day children have become it does work? as david said, extremely complex, trillions of dollars, thousands and thousands of people work, hundreds of thousands of people work in these federal bureaucracies, and then you have 4000 pivotal positions to put in there to run the government the way you want it to be run.

so a great obstacle for the incoming team, admitting what they don't know, having good people on their transition teams which are in place now to really understand what is happening in the agencies. what are some of the things that are on the table? what are some other things in the hopper that agencies, through regulation of policies, are getting ready to do? how is that differ from what you have campaigned on, what you promised to do? and the personnel that you need to select and be ready to go in at the end of that 73 day period, to actually execute a what the electorate has asked you to do. how has the transition process improved or changed? you wordpress mentioned about the transition of 2000. really that is one no future president should ever experienced. in a post 9/11 world it would certainly put any white house and the american people by extension at great risk.

think about the number of days we didn't know who is going to be president of the united states. the decision was not made until december 122000. there could be no official transition process. there could be no official conversation between the outgoing administration and the incoming team. so george w. bush, the president-elect, actually i can't even say that. the george w. bush campaign team was operating in arlington, virginia, in offices that were acquired by then, well, dick cheney the candidate, acquired by hip and paid for privately. there were no government resources. people like me who would work in the previous transitions were called up, i was never expecting to go back into the governed. i had my time working for ronald reagan and george h. w. bush but

i'vi had been in personal and management administration. i had been director of white house personnel. i edited out the process work. i know how to on board people and the critical thing connection between security and personnel management,,, administration. so i was asked to come up and it was a dramatically different experience because you were kind of operating in the shadows. you were trying to be ready and have things ready to go if the decision was going to be that it was george w. bush to become president of the united states. but if he didn't then all of those resources just collapse. of private money have to be razed to make the office is available. once the decision was made by the supreme court, in all of these assets and resources through the general services administration, things that are provided by the government, could kick in and you had a very quick turnaround to move into

transition space which was downtown close to the white house. you could begin to have conversations hear the conversations you can imagine were not all that easy. that was a very tense period of time because there was called into question particularly by vice president gore that this was really the right decision. there were personal tensions of course, but nonetheless the process worked and there was a smooth transfer of power that all of us expect and americans are entitled to have, once the campaign rhetoric is over in the business of governing begins. but that was a very illustrative experience for george w. bush and for a lot of us on the team, basically with the underlying premise for him for any future president, president-elect should not face transition like

that. it was not the way we should be doing business, but we learned from that. and then, of course, came 9/11, and so the stakes were even so much higher any transfer of power. what it lets you in late 2007, early 2008 president george w. bush really executed an executive order creating a transition coordinating council, and began to put a framework around, and early framework around having conversations between the outgoing administration and the over the incoming team may be. so what did that look like? that meant every department and agency in every white house office was charged with putting together a documentation. we put it all in binders, all well documented, provided tabs with what you can expect on day one. what are some of the things a

particular office -- then i was chief of staff to laura bush, to the first lady. so what are some of the things in a calendar year you can anticipate? that was done for every single office so that there was a handoff of really absolutely documented information that provided a template and a framework that we still are using tilted a. but it also opened up an opportunity for once there was the decision november 6 i think it was in 2000, an early meeting between barack obama and george w. bush. we began to have conversations with incoming teams that had been named by president elect obama that came and met with us in our offices in the white house. again, to have an exchange. it really was a very dramatically different experience than 2000 was where we couldn't talk to anybody. or certainly couldn't talk to

anybody openly. so despite how the outgoing team may have felt emotionally about losing their jobs, not what they were going to do, this was what they were charged to do, to make sure that there was a smooth transfer of power, that they gave confidence to the american people that despite the rhetoric of the campaign, which was pretty visceral back then as well, things are going to move on and move on well. so that allow the president, the new present when he came in on day one to know what would be on his desk, particularly from a national security point of view. they were tabletop exercises that had taken place between the national security team of george w. bush and the incoming national security team of barack obama. that was really important. again post 9/11 world the stakes were very different. the fact that we were a nation at war, in two theaters of war, really underscore the fact that

serious deliberations and conversations had to take place. the other last thing i will leave you with before my time is up is, not only is the business of government being transferred and the personal that has to be put in place to execute the policy of any president but there's also a change in the residence of the white house. a new first family coming in. the first family going out. there's a lot that goes on to make that happen smoothly. and to make it comfortable for a new first family. and not to be diminished because the white house in its setting is the stage for our diplomacy, and it is the stage for the basis of our government on a day-to-day basis. so that has to be a smooth transfer as well. and thankfully there are 90 for people on the white house staff that serve administration to administration that make that happen.

>> bill galston, if you could go next. i should note we are in the university of maryland and george professor at college park, so both at brookings and that college park. if you could talk about your experience and research done on transitions since you were in one yourself. >> sure. i'm going to adopt the perspective that i know best, which is of an incoming administration. you just heard i think a very full explanation of what things look like from the standpoint of an outgoings administration to a from the standpoint of an incoming administration, a transition as a discrete series of tasks, and each of those tasks can be executed well or badly. and people like you will be watching and making judgments every single day about the competence or lack of competence

of the incoming team. job one is the selection of the white house staff, and i would want to underscore this point your for the first six months of a new administration the white house is the locus of action. the white house staff is the locus of action, because however well organized and nomination and confirmation process is, it is in the nature of things slow. the department and agencies are not going to be up to full strength and will not be operating at full speed. so the white house is more important in the first six months that it ever is again. the white house staff has to be appointed first and it has to be appointed quickly. here's a roll of film for covering -- rule of thumb for covering a transition. if the transition is doing its job well, almost all the white house staff will have been named

by thanksgiving. and the transition that i was involved in, the clinton transition, got it backwards. spent almost two months focused on the cabinet, and the white house was almost an afterthoug afterthought. and i speak from personal experience because i got a call to come down to little rock on january 10. i was a professor at the university of maryland, and my syllabi were typed in the students had registered for my courses. the books had been ordered, and a funny thing happened on the way to the spring semester. it was an interesting experience for me and totally unexpected but i would not recommend as standard operating procedure for a presidential transition. of the people who are going to be selected for the white house

staff, keep your eyes focused first of all on the chief of staff. who will the chief of staff of the? secondly, the personnel director, that is going to be a huge locus of action early on. if the personnel director is someone with experience and if the presidential transition gives it the incoming personnel director the human power and the resources to do that job on multiple fronts, then you are setting the stage for a reasonably well organized and orderly process. if the personnel director is not give enough help and he or she has to function as what an old boss of mine walter mondale once called a one armed paper hanger, then disaster is around the corner. and, finally, the person who's in charge of organizing directing scheduling for the incoming president, get those three things right and the odds

are that the transition is going to go reasonably smoothly. then, of course, common the senate confirmable positions. you for the number 4000. that's true, but there are a handful that are incomparably more important than all the rest. and focusing on the cabinet and key sub cabinet posts, your counted on to be named before christmas. and interesting, and interesting story to follow is the perennial question of who gets to choose the subcabinet. you can tell a lot about an incoming administration from the degrees of freedom and discretion of the nominated cabinet officials are being given to help select their immediate subordinates. highly centralized white house is with loss of political desks to fill. frequently tried to take as many of those decisions into the

white house as possible and not disperse them to cabinet, the incoming cabinet officers. there are various points in between. jimmy carter no toys leak gave his cabinet officials carte blanche to select there any subordinates. that did not work out so well. so there are various ways of trying to split the difference and that's a big story. is a third interesting story. has the president-elect and has the chief of staff and his senior advisers to the president given any thought to the way teams the people who will be working on similar or overlapping issues will work together? because it you are treasury secretary doesn't get along with the director of the national economic council, and the director of omb, or if the secretary of defense and the secretary of state can't stand each other, which happened

during the reagan administration, a few other places i could name, et cetera, et cetera. under bush. third job, the substantive beginning of the administration. you have made hundreds of promises. and in the nature of things, the bandwidth of the white house is near. the bandwidth of the congress is near. what are the two or three legislative agenda items that you can focus on in the first six months? you must make that decision early. and then you must organize the issue teams and the political teams from the transition to begin to execute those top priorities. that is a very interesting political story during the transition because especially if you have made promises on many

fronts, you have a focused her campaign on just a handful of issues but have an effect entered into transactions with a number of different groups that make up your base, lots of people are going to be disappointed. how are you going to handle that, right? that's both an agenda issue and a political question. off course it's not all legislative your during the transition a separate team will be going to one executive order that a president can sign on day one because that's something under the president's control. you can set a tone by determining which executive orders are going to be signed and made public on the first day of the administration. makes a difference. are you going to dump them all at once or are you going to release them like little time release capsules may guide -- day by day some people like you have something to write about everybody.

there's an art to give out decisions such that the ones that matter get their day in the sun. as part of a -- how am i doing on time? as part of the substantive preparation for the administration, and keep your eye on this one, there needs to be coordination to an issues agenda and budget development. because many of the incoming presidents key legislative proposals will have fiscal consequences. believe me, if those consequences are not factored into budget, and nobody on capitol hill is going to taken seriously. let me tell you a war story from the first month of the clinton administration. one of bill clinton's key domestic promises, as of medevac probably the most important one, was to end welfare as we now know it.

ended up going to be substantial ongoing transition expenses connected to the fulfillment of that promise. there was a humongous fight as to whether that money was going to be swatted into a budget, which was my presidential decision early on when to be an austere budget to bring down the deficit, reduce long-term interest rates, encourage business confidence, et cetera. not a typical decision for incoming president and not a universally popular decision. and it was a big fight, is there going to be provision made within that austere framework for the $5 billion annually that will be needed to fund welfare reform? the answer eventually was no. everybody who understood the process understood that whatever was going to happen in the year number one, welfare reform was not going to be part of the agenda. you demonstrate your cities is

on the substantive, by creatingg your budget development with the issues development. if you don't, then the president, the president-elect can deliver all sorts of ringing speeches about the agenda once the inauguration occurs. speaking of inaugurations, there is an inaugural date to be planned. there is an inaugural address to be drafted, and two other key tasks. first of all congressional engagement, and secondly, press relations. and especially of an incoming president is facing divided government, which will almost certainly be the case the next president of the united states will not enjoy the luxury that barack obama had on day one, and for the next 13 months, control

of the white house, and ample majority in the house back, and a 60-vote majority -- house of representatives, whatever the outcome of this election the next president will not have that kind of freedom for maneuver. so the ability to establish good relations with the leaders of both political parties in the congress will be a central to the agenda, whatever it turns out to be. and, finally, you. any smart transition will pay attention to the fact that you have stories to write. many of you will have stories to write everyday. what are you going to be writing about? trust me, if the transition doesn't think through the answer to that question, you will try to come up with answers of your own to the answers that you come up with our not to be as simple

to the incoming president has the answers that the transition team might come up with. the transition team, if it's smart, can give you something on the issue front, the personnel front or the scheduling front to write about every day and preferably some cocktail. and so those are some of the inch marks that you can use to gauge the competence of an incoming, incoming administration. i could spend a lot of time giving this template i just issued, key tasks, talking about what the clinton transition got right and got wrong, but rather than telling war stories, let me stop now i'm and if you're interested any of them, that's what the q&a session is for. >> thank you very much. i do love for stories. i want you all to think of your best war story. i'm going to ask a couple of questions and then i got to turn

it over to full q&a. david, i was hoping you could give us a little sense of your center, when you actually got started -- [inaudible] there was some legislation that passed in the last six years that has released money towards the transition effort. may be explained that. >> you have to know that modern translations are completely different and even were eight years ago. it's a totally new, legislative five and meditated. these teams have been constantly early. there's three pieces to be aware of. one of them was passed in 2010. this was the love of booty camp support earlier. historically it was election day. you looked around, try to acquire resources from the government. now that kicks in at the convention thing. this is only the second time in history we've seen early support, logistical support provided by the gsa that kicks in at convention.

this provides and and and safe space for these teams to plan out and think of these transitions are done. having just looked at these, have served on mitt romney's transition for years ago they're completely different and they are slating larger number of candidates than we've ever seen before and they're thinking they're very creatively their campaign promises and how to execute them. they will have in place on election day potential options for candidates and also very progressing very nice on the developer under 100 or 200 day plan to the second piece is the reduction of the number of senator from position. this number was closer to 1400, ages ago. now it's a little above 1100. reduced by about 169 or so. that helps from the processing standpoint to get your folks do not as relevant but just other lower numbers of folks, nonpolitical jobs have been taken off. 1100 is still way too many. is above policymaking jobs but also good management jobs as well that we would argue you

could consider taking off the list. the third, recently signed this year, by executive order that president obama to comply with the law, this is the first time the outgoing administration distorted the coordinating functions this early. they are required by law this year six-month before the election to start the coordinating functions. think about it eight years ago. your incoming teams did virtually nothing if they did it was in a cover of darkness prior to the election. very small quiet teams focused by brought on just the top cabinet. you have seen for president obama he got seven people in by inauguration. seven of 1100. think about the outgoing, either coming in, leaving or staying through the process. the outgoing administration is not purchase a fully with the exception of the several examples but no formal process for planning that we've seen. this is the first time there's both a white house coordinating council, at the political level and an agency career directors

council that's been convened several times with active engagement of the incoming teams. first time in history we've seen this. the third piece of transition other folks who are staying, the career civil service. historically every agency is prepared for transition completely differently. some agencies put together, when agency put together 80,000 pages of briefing materials. that's not given a tour stop. i'm not sure what that is. some agencies do very little. some agencies start a year plus in advance, some don't start until the election time. what's been great about this cycle the administration is committed to much more consistency with the agencies. there's a standard template, a process and according function. this is the first time using coordination of outgoing, incoming and the folks are staying. that should change how these transitions happened and we should see much better results. i want to follow to bill's point. we actually think by

inauguration day all right around inauguration day instead of trickling in your cabinet officials, that you can get your top 100 cabinet and subcabinet officials in place. four years ago governor romney was on a similar trajectory. that was the intent. you may say it's not possible to set to go to the senate but all the data shows we have 70% of the time getting these people through is not destiny. is the transition team's finding these people, putting them through a paper process. this is controllable, sequence of will and they can start now. they should be the new measuring stick for modern transitions and modern presidency. get your people in. it's easier to go fast and slow. there's a halo effect from congress, from the american public to execute on your promises. why waste those for sublet at a spinning your wheels finding these people are when they can be read on the first day. this is the part of our message for the last six months. we've been working closely with the. historically, just like anita, we've been on the phone trying

to find these folks at the 20 years ago. we are going through boxes try to find how we staff that is why this. this is the ground hog exercise. we are trying to be a depository of information, best practices connecting people of done it before with experts to map this whole thing out the if you go to our website you will see the the entire process mapped out. you see what the teams ought to be doing letters today to focus on this process. at the end of the day i do think we can see much better results for incoming president of much more difficult a better athlete to execute and, frankly, much more planning around the period of inauguration so we can stay safe and prosperous. >> i'm going ask one more question and then i'll go out here. first of all of about a but he should have a booklet from the center for presidential transition that lays out a lot of what he's talking about. so that's yours to take on. so thank you for bringing that a

long. i want to ask this to all three of you. with a kind of sub questions you, david. the notion of the election being rig and the kind of poisonous political atmosphere we have right now, what sort of impact is a quite have on transition on both sides? if a huge section of the country is hostile to the outcome of the election, what kind of impact does it have in d.c.? david, i was hoping you could answer, donald trump campaign has been very hostile to the process in general, or the system. is his team working well with you all? the people who are working with you, the same folks who sent you or is it an entirely different apparatus? so will all of his rig talk heard us and i was donald trump behaving, basically?

>> i'll just very briefly say, reiterate one thing i said to you initially, the tone that is set by both the person who wins this election, and particularly the person who loses this election, half to set the tone and say they accept the decision of the american people and that there are far more important things now to be focused on. so i think that the tone, and it like to take some comfort in what governor mike pence said yesterday on the news, that if donald trump loses this election, they absolutely will accept the decision of the american people. i think that would be an important thing to keep reiterating by that campaign, editing obviously on the other side, too. i would hope that mrs. clinton's team would say the same thing. >> yes, i agree with that. just a few comments.

we've seen some very interesting debates so far in this campaign but the one i would like to see is the debate between mike pence and donald trump. [laughter] starting with syria policy and ending with the legitimacy of presidential elections. but let me stop there and say that it's not just a question of what the defeated campaign -- candidate does. it's also what the president-elect does. if the president-elect is former secretary of state hillary clinton, i think she will have a job from day one of reaching out to the responsible leaders of the republican party and

emphasizing that despite the tone and temper of the election, that there are people in washington, starting with the president-elect, who are really dedicated to the process of governing the country in the national interest, and who are prepared not to abandon artisanship, but to try to see beyond it were, ground exists and where coordinated action is possible. this election has surprisingly turned up some areas of common ground between the political parties on key issues ranging from infrastructure to assistance for families with young children who are trying to balance work and family. so the president-elect can set a tone, if it's secretary of state clinton, not only with a very explicit and continuing serious outraged to the leaders of both

political parties, but also in the selection of key topics, agenda items to lead off the new administration with. there are some that will be confrontational and others that will tend towards cooperation. never underestimate the extent to which the initiative lies in the hands of the president-elect and incoming administration. >> david, how do you -- >> a coupl couple things. one is versatile as i mentioned we've seen both teams committed to effective governance of this country that's been exciting. both teams we been working with in the timeframe. both teams also are organized around the key functions of transition. you have a head of their agencies and policy implementation of focus on the key campaign promises and cataloging them and beginning to

develop 100, 200 a place. pleasing consistency with both. i think each campaign has the issues and challenges and opportunities we been working with him on but as an american i have been extremely, extremely pleased that he seems have a narrow -- to tal talk about covg those powerful entity on the earth. job one right now is when the campaign. we do not want, they don't want distractions focus on governing the country while they're trying to run the campaign. so i will respect that, a process they want to release publicly the people involved but i was a both teams are staffed up, organize, taking his face lit up at the end of the day we will see much better results from both. >> we have plenty of time from question for the obvious. raise your hand and we'll call on you. i guess speak up. questions? >> so the only -- i can speak for everyone here but the only

administrative side seemed that i've never personal are george w. bush and barack obama, and in both of those administrations you saw congress move way up with an antenna bridges to work at them -- with him at a certain point. does that happen with every administration at what point does it usually happened and why? >> can i get a comment to that? thank you. that was really a great question. and you're right, the relations of course were difficult naturally in 2000. there were a lot of people on the hill who were not happy with the result, and it was his call into question of legitimacy. i think a lot of things changed really after 9/11. the country really did come together. the congress really did work well with the president on a number of key issues passing enormous bipartisan legislation on the emergency plan for aids relief which we really haven't

seen anything to that level up till now, $15 billion commitment to a single disease. so there were areas of cooperation that were actually very encouraging. i also think what led to some of this was with personality driven. george w. bush really would work with the other side. ted kennedy was a frequent guest to the white house. nancy pelosi was a frequent guest to the white house. despite what might have been public rhetoric, there were conversations behind the scenes over very, very key and important issues. drawing from an example of how ronald reagan handled his congressional relations as well, it's very well known. he and tip o'neill did not agree on policy, but they had a lot of frequent interaction as friends. and after hours of friends. those things go along way in being able, on key legislative

priorities, trying to move the marker and try to get something done. we know the example of course with george h. w. bush. he was a preacher of the congress. he had been a member of congress. he had relations, strong personal relationships on both sides of the aisle. in one key instance it didn't play out well for him, when he, a conversation with dan rostenkowski, powerful head of the ways and means committee and agreed to raise taxes. george bush make that decision it would cost in the election, and it did but it was the right thing for the country. there are examples of what a president again sets the tone by willing to take some political risk and develop relationships to get big things done. but i think one of the things i would say that has been disappointing about president obama, he was a member of the senate and didn't, pretty

well-known reaching across the aisle was not a strong suit of this white house. there was a lot of contention around health care reform and other issues here but building personal relationships, i think that's an important thing to watch for. what is the extension of the olive branch to the congress and particularly to the opposition. >> that said, and i agree with all of that, the job of reaching across the aisle is tougher than it used to be. because the political system is more polarized than it used to be. the divisions between the parties are deeper, more pervasive, less overlap between the political parties. when i was the age of most of the people in this room, there were lots of republicans who are

more liberal that a lot of democrats, and conversely a lot of democrats are more conservative that a lot of republicans. that's not true anymore. and so building cooperation across party lines is going against the grain of some decades of american political history. that's not to say it's mission impossible, it is mission very difficult. the second point i would like to make in response to your question, building on what anita said, is never think that campaign rhetoric is irrelevant to governance. the american people are listening, and if you make big, high profile promises, breaking those promises for whatever reason is enormously politically costly. everybody remembers the famous lines that peggy noonan wrote for george h. w. bush, you know,

read my lips, no new taxes. people not only read his lips, they heard his voice loud and clear. there are equivalent problems that an incoming president would have in 2017. if donald trump decided that maybe the wall wasn't going to be built our nights ago could be forced to pay for it, or if secretary clinton, then president clinton decided that maybe tpp was just a fine and dandy agreement after all, there would be held to pay, politically. ..

>> both can that a little bit but going back to the point, this is policy and although these may be considered lower tier departments and they are still running huge budgets and lots of services that get delivered out of these agencies so part of the process going on in the transition now is compiling potential candidates. people with experience in these issues or maybe those that would be new coming from outside the traditional framework that may have skills in huge budgets and huge departments. they will go through a vetting process which is a much higher threshold, much

higher bar now cause most campaigns don't want to bring in people with a lot of outside, private sector experience, particularly if they've been lobbyists so it is a little difficult to have added to your list of names that would pass through all these high thresholds of vetting. one place that a lot of transitions seem to have looked to in the states is the executive level, governors who do great work positions like this, really governors from farm states for the agriculture position in particular. but they are going to look for people with experience, perhaps that have had some public lives of their own.

>> i'll just add, the first question they ought to be asking is what are these roles? it's really interesting that there's not a lot of descriptions of what these roles are. it's and how do you source by people with requirements for the roles. we are working closely on defining what these positions are, what the requirements are. typically what we see now that they had time to plan these out, this is the first time we see formal efforts starting so early and to anita's point, they create half a dozen or so names per position and not just cabinet but also critical subcabinet positions and white house positions. they will not even notify candidates.

our research has shown within one hour they go to the cocktail party and let all their friends know they are looked at and it's a little sarcastic but that can create stress for the campaign so they are quietly putting together lists of names and to anita's point, the political process and maybe financial vetting so that right after the election, what we've seen isthat time after the election between inauguration has got to be extremely tight area four years ago we defined a calendar that the day after the election, the vast majority of time is with the president-elect making decisions on the cabinet you are presenting them a plate of options. you'representing them the risks associated with the options and allowing that candidateto make a decision, we will see that this cycle as well .>> i wonder if i could add , both are referred to the vetting process. it is , i speak from experience, extraordinarily complex , labor-intensive , paper intensive and especially at the cabinet and senior subcabinet level, it is a game for very high stakes. there is a tension between speed on the one hand and avoiding damaging the stakes on the other. there's no way of relieving, it just is but if you think of events that rivet press

attention early in a new administration, even during the transition and can get a good administration off on the wrong foot, coming up with a senior appointment that needs to be withdrawn because of some and there is an revelation that comes out too late. and so some people inside and outside the transition will be urging the team, put your pedal to the metal, we need to get off to a fast start. others including people who have been around washington a little longer have some experience with the amount of paint splattered over a large number of faces when a senior nomination is closed up for blows up in everybody's face will say wait a minute. i was involved after the fact in a high visibility appointment early in the

clinton administration where nobody had bothered to read what the nominee had written on some very important taxes. i was astounded because nominees with long paper trails may very well be saying things that the incoming president does not agree with. incoming president will then be held responsible for those utterances but at the very least the incoming president is expected to know about that and you know, and impression of incompetence is conveyed so you know, there's an imperative for speed and there's the imperative for action and there's no way of comparing that tension.

>> policy changes, whether or not changing political parties or not, what's the wisdom of keeping people around in the higher levels that are already there, just carry over from administration to administration. how common is that? i would imagine most people what to clean house. do you think that's a good idea that there should be a critical mass left over? >> it's not common in the whitehouse . it goes to your earlier points, watch what happens in the white house staff area there are about 460 positions in the white house office staff positions, just the white house office . it's 70 percent of those are political appointments so that will change because that is the center of the world for an administration, you are bringing in people who think like you and are going to take your direction.

but there is a functioning bureaucracy. there are career civil servants that keep the train running on time. the departments and agencies, i turn to david to some of this because there are positions that will not change. there are career positions that will not change even at the highest levels of the department. >> you touched on a fundamental difference between a same party transition and an opposite party transition area with regard to political appointments, the same party transition, the incoming president will pay less of a political price so for allowing a certain number of political appointees from previous administrations to hold on to office until their

replacement comes forward and it's also the fact that even during opposite party transitions, a president-elect can make a decision to retain a senior cabinet official from the other party. bob tejas is an excellent example of that and i think that probably president obama is pretty please that he decided to hold over the secretary of defense, even though he was certainly no democrat.and so i do think that in this respect, if former secretary clinton is elected, she will face less pressure on the cabinet front because the people who are in cabinet positions now will be reasonably well aligned with her program anyway. they certainly will not be actively destructing it so it

is at least possible that she's not going to ask for resignations, i can't that but she certainly has the option of being much more selective than an incoming president trump will be able to. >> historically, there have been many same party transitions. there's been an unfriendly takeover concept using two different playbooks for how this is done. in history, some of the most difficult transitions have been same party. it's counterintuitive. you think why is that and that's because there's been

an expectation of continuity that has never existed and you're starting to see it now. if this person wins, maybe i'll stay on. you hear a lot of that conversation. history shows generally the incoming team wants their own people. i would expect it's also interesting that there's a holdover concept that secretary clinton to be focused on. who to carry forward. there are a couple of nonpolitical, political positions that makes sense that require all sorts of jump through hoops to get this person in office. the secondary of the veterans affairs office for example. if you were to let that people go, start the process again, the way that position is set up it would take you two years to fill it if you started tomorrow. there are positions like that you may want to holdover. data shows, and this is awful data but it's based on interviews and memory. historically, you will see a significant senior-level stop at holdover. these positions may carry over into the administration but they will do so temporarily. they will not be permanent holdovers so you may see a little that you personally, my advice would be sent that letter of resignation to

everyone, ensure there's an expectation you will not have a job beyond january 30 to allow that person to put their people in office. the expectation of continuity inmy view anyway is not a seamless and smooth way to do it . >> that request from the letter of resignation needs to come from the current president. that comes from president obama as a directive to agencies so they need to submit their letters of resignation to get that maximum flexibility and fleet freedom for an incoming president. >> that's correct and my only point was that an incoming president clinton would have substantial latitude, certainly to refrain from accepting a large number of letters of resignation in the name of governmental continuity while the new team is being put in place. >> we have 10 minutes, and between sessions we do a quick transition. overhear next. >>. [laughter]

>>. [inaudible] ... talking about interviews is that the press control that transition, for example refocusing the overall issue agenda on clinton's personal character and also issues like days in the military. so i'm curious if that perception matches what you were alive then. >> i wasn't alive. >> also secretary clinton's ability to publish other items on the agenda like healthcare down the road. >> the clinton 92 transition was not a model transition. >> i agree. >> it washowever a very useful step . so what went wrong during the clinton transition? first of all, as i mentioned

earlier this enormous and lengthy focus on the cabinet. look at the white house as an afterthought. secondly, not drawing clear enough distinctions between a campaign team and the governing team. it is always a mistake to bring your senior campaign people lock stock and barrel into the white house. third and this is next to your point, the transition and the president elect did not do a good job of controlling the narrative. president elect clinton on november 16 of 1992, a day that will live in infamy was

actually asked the question based on what he said in the campaign how he intended to handle the issue of gays in the military and he made the mistake of answering the question extremely for politely and not in a very nuanced way. he didn't give himself a lot of wiggle room either substantively or chronologically and the result was a focus on that issue that was nonstop and relentlessbecause it was an issue that people could understand . welfare reform was difficult. gays in the military appeared to be easy. then of course the fact that there had been no coordination with the relevant military leaders led to enormous pushback and the white house learned that it was going to take a period of careful consultation with military services to get them comfortable even with some version of that and it was by

no means clear what version of that idea they were going to get comfortable with area they being the military. it's also the case that in a successful transition, there needs to be one locus of authority. people need to be tapped on the shoulders by the president-elect. you are my man or my woman with regard to ask . and that is more difficult to do if there's a lot of action in washington then a lot of action in the president-elect's hometown. right? that tension is going to be easier to manage if there's a president-elect whose hometown is either washington or even in hailing distance but little rock turned out to be a world apart so instead of a circlefor the center, it was inb& . i could go on but it seems to me that people,

president-elect, president elect at the time are trying to describe a desperate transition now to confirm those many othermistakes they've made . >> having been in the white house in january 1993 that morning and waiting even that morning to get with the president-elect, clinton's team of who was going to be on the white house staff before it was cleared to come into the building and i think part of that was not focusing on the right steps with the problems but i also think after 12 years of republicans in the white house was an inherent concern about who they could trust that was in the white house to be accepting this information and getting people on board and we saw some years later there was a lack of trust of the processes in the white house with the fbi security files and all these things by

the clinton team so there was some of that in addition to starting, it was inherently not understanding, not knowing, not trusting what institution the presidency provided. it was very difficult. 2000 was difficult but 1993 was pretty bad too. >> we only have time, four more minutes so if you have a question, that needs to be targeted and the answers, try to keep them targeted. we will go away in the back of the room there. >> good morning, the synergy between the transition team and the folks that will be stepping into the role that you just made a point about, trying to keep those separated, i'm wondering what the transition is thinking. >> the transition team, the transition team and then ...

>> let me distinguish quickly , the transition team is one thing. the campaign is another thing and in my judgment, there are a lot of continuities between the transition team in the white house but not so much on the campaign team. >> i'd say they are distinct but there's some coordination at this point. you want to minimize distractions for the campaign so they need to do what they need to be doing. you will see weekly calls with the campaign team and right after the election you have an interesting exercise which is the campaign and the transition merger between those individuals so this is really, this hasn't happened really ever historically where you had a large scale pre-election transition efforts with a very large in some cases campaign staff moving into that. that will be the first time that i told you both teams are focused on how they integrate and which physicians they had and how

you begin to staff that white house to build point in that period of time. >> one more question . >> the number of departments and agencies, epa, education, energy, do you foresee a situation where conditions on filled and would you agree with that if you were to be elected? >> a lot of positions are unfilled now. even though the president may disagree with the auditions in those agencies, that underscores how difficult it is to get people through the vetting process whether senate confirms are not and how much attention is paid to one of the key credentials of who is your presidential person now that's going to mobilize rings and get positions filled. this is not the first time you heard a candidate say they want the department of education or take down this, that is really hard to do. how much emphasis that agency or its mission may have, how

much attention it may get, that's a whole other question but i think this is not new this problem we have of filling positions and vacancies in departments and agencies . >> i would add to that that most cabinet departments are established by congress through statute and so they are not simply creatures, they are established by law. they are charged with administering and so an ongoing, there's a lot of controversy that will and must proceed regardless of the stance the incoming president takes, that department or agency and so i wouldn't pay much attention. ronald reagan was, i think

people since 1980 were sure the department of education was a goner. instead, not drawn under his president. they had a couple good secretaries of education. >> i think both teams recognize they have to engage the career workforce. workforce will execute their priorities whatever they are, the mission to clear the workforce, both teams recognize that they had done this before, they understand this process that's how they view it as the career workforce on their progress and i think we should be much better early conversations in workforce than we seem. >> with that, we need to draw this to a close. the press contact withcontact information directly for all three expert speakers are on the handouts, the bio packet . they always welcome contact from you and follow-up questions so i will thank you all very much, thank you for the time. [applause] and so we are going to make a quick transition to the reporters panel so we're going to add one chair and switch over very quickly.i'm the transition team.

>> c-span: where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. donald trump has voted, he took a motorcade to his voting sites, ps 59. miller greg tweeted out trump's arrival.

donald trump arrived with his wife melanie and held a party trump tower with supporters and the ideas. son eric voted this morning and voted for his father, tweeted out a picture of his ballot. it's an incredible honor to vote for my father, he will do such a great job for the us. chief of mother magazine david coren tweeted out, like to vote in philly. if the states turnout, hillary clinton will win pennsylvania and this is not a line to vote, it's a line to see susan b anthony's gravesite today. she was a leader in the women's suffrage movement to get women to fight in the us. they joined hundreds of people today, many who are putting their eye voted stickers on the susan b anthony gravestone. in the latest edition of time magazine and available online@times.com, how the media got smarter about calling elections area we are

following this story and she joined us, thank you for being with us. >> thank for having me. >> let me begin with that question, how so? >> guest: in the early 2000's, you might remember, the media messed up a lot. in calling the 2000 election for door and then bush and then for neither, catalyzing this electoral crisis so in the wake of that, they put their heads together and changed a few things area the first one was that they informed the national election pool and changed their name, hired a new pollster. they hired edison research, very well respected and they pledge to perform congress that they would not call an election based on exit poll results before they had the final, before the polls closed so that was a major defense beginning in 1980, the network would call elections before the polls have closed. and then the last thing they

did that was interesting is instead of allowing exit poll data to the two newsrooms to become available to reporters, to become available to anchors sitting at the desk and the pressure to report on that huge, they chose to put it into quarantine so the five big news outlets, abc, nbc, cbs and fox news and ap all send people data statisticians to a room with no phones, no computers, no tablets where they look at the election data all day long and analyze it, question it, poke it, product, make sure it's robust before reporting back to their individual outlets just before the polls close. >> host: as you point out in your piece, this begins at six in the morning east coast time on election day and

continues through the day. how does edison research determine where they send canvassers and what are they asking? >> that's a great question. it's an absolutely incredible army of people. edison researchers send out, it's a little more than 1000 surveyors, ap has their own army of strainers and members that have about 4000 more people reporting back from county seat so between the two of those outlets, there's an absolutely enormous number of people on the ballot. it's hired by the big media outlets as part of that national election pool and they, the national election pool comes up with the questions on this questionnaire, these exit poll questions and it's a one page questionnaire with two sides, two pages. there's about 20 questions, 15 or 20 questions. we don't know what those questions are now but they were arrived at by committee with abc, cbs, everyone else and they will go out to

randomly selected precincts, that's actually an interesting difference and in years past, they will choose he presents not necessarily in key swing areas, they are randomly selected in states and thatwill be , whatever data they get from their, the surveyors will talk to about 100,000 people leaving the polls. that information will be combined with telephone poles that edison research has been conducting over the last week with people who voted early and absentee voters. >> host: is this to learn not only who voted on election day so the networks can call it early but also why they voted the way they did? >> yes, exactly. on that questionnaire, we don't know exactly what's on there but we know generally. we know that every voter who has called ahead of time or

who's at the polls when they are leaving, they will be asked who they voted for and the state and national elections . there will be in gubernatorial spaces, they will be asked why, they will be asked their general feelings about major candidates and they will be asked about what issues are important to them so on this particular questionnaire there are questions about death, questions about tension, euthanasia, marijuana, issues like that . >> host: haley sweetland-edwards, we've come a long way since 1948 when the chicago tribune declared, do we winner overtruman . >> guest: that's right. the chicago tribune headline there which says dewey defeats truman and i think it's the specter that hangs over the media on election night. you don't want to screwed up that badly again.

there is a very robust understanding and i talked to a lot of people who will be in that quarantine room. there's a profound feeling that this time they absolutely got to get it right. if there's a question that comes down to these very close calls, most of the votes have been counted but it's a tight race and the loser could still pull it out, they're not going to call it. >> host: we will look for you reporting online@times.com, haley sweetland-edwards following this story, thank you for being with us. >> guest: thank you for having me. >> election night tonight on c-span. watch the results, be part of the national conversation about the outcome area be on location at the hillary clinton and donald trump election headquarters and watched victory and concession speech is in key house and governor races live at 8 pm eastern. watch live tonight on c-span on-demand at c-span.org or listen to our live coverage using the free c-span radio app. and here on c-span2 we bring

a look at how canadian television is covering the us election, allied simulcast of canadian broadcasting election night coverage with cedar man bridge, the host of cbcs the national program and that's tonight at easter. journalists who cover the presidential transition process now talk about the relationship between the white house and the press corps. this hour-long discussion is hosted by the national press foundation. >> i'm turning this over to rollcall who's going to be the moderator. the only thing i want to point out as i introduce the panel isthat we have a former paul miller here. we also have a university of maryland grad here, margaret . >> good morning and thank you. i'm catalina camille, a policy editor at cq rollcall and i'm happy to be our moderator on a discussion on

how to cover the transition, not only the next presidential administration but also change of power that's likely to occur on the hill. we have today on our panel on my right starting with a v-8 knox, chief washington correspondent for yahoo news. next to olivier is kimberly heflin, senior education writer for politico. next to kimberly his margaret callis, senior white house correspondent for bloomberg news and last but not least, jackie con, national correspondent to the new york times. our panel is first on the issues before us this morning. we got 21 days until election day and journalists covering politics and the federal government are probably thinking what next lesson mark we hope this panel gives you some insight and practical tips on how to navigate the transition to the next administration and also to what happens on the hill. let me just ask the panel,

what are your tips for covering the transition to the next not only 21 days before the first hundred days of the next administration, olivia? >> the principal transition coverage for me is not that different from the coverage of the white house day-to-day which is you are looking for overlap of information but not overlap in interest including eating that information private. you cover the white house, it's not over the white house, it's to congress, talk to the agencies, talk to the political operatives, talk to about all congress where you may as well have 545 press secretaries. in some ways the transition can be a little complicated. in the immediate part of the transition, and incoming administration can bottle things up a little bit. the people in congress all your things and rather than relying on the daily transition briefing, it's a good idea to talk to all these other people who have the same information or close to it but are not as guarded.

>> kimberly, you've covered various department agencies like the va and education department. what happens when all your sources, especially the political appointees may be gone? how do you go about getting ready for the next administration? >> you have to start now. this is the time to be going to key lawmakers and interest groups and saying, ask them what are you formally and informallyasking for the transition to do in the next administration ? who are the people you want to see filling these positions and then keep going back to them.what are you hearing back from the transition team? are they responding to requests mark those are the questions you need to be asking right now. from a practical perspective, the first day of the new administrationcovering the agency can be a little daunting , the communications people you've been dealing with for months or even years

are suddenly in a lot of places gone and you can't assume that the political appointees who will be handling the communications jobs will be there answering the phones and even if they are there they might not feel like they have the expertise to answer your questions yet or they might not feel the experts are in place from the political appointees to help them so the people that you are used to contacting 24 hours a day with your questions about regulations and that kind of thing are suddenly gone so you have to be prepared for that to change. >> margaret, what about you? what are good tips for the reporters out there who might be listening on how to cover the next administration? >> i think part of it is just be organized for yourself. there are some people you know about the transition team before the president elect comes the president

elect. you know what the official structure or the beginning looks like. you know there are cochairs of the transition team, there's an executive director, maybe two executive directors. you know the economic advisor, who their policy advisers are and so that can help you to become organized and there's also stories that every transition has in terms of coverage. the people who will help include the candidacy and they will help shape who the top staff is. one of the stories you want to know during the transition? is the chief of staff going to be, who are going to be your top picks for the top tier of the cabinet positions and thesecond tier of the cabinet positions if there is any top tier and second tier . these are life, you have to figure out what your priorities are, what are you going to be covering? are you going to cover everything, are you a politics reporter who's going to be looking at the incoming administration and their relationship with congress or are you going to be doing foreign policy?