Memo from Romey team reaching out to Capitol Hill relationships ahead of the confirmation process for his political appointees.
Report with recommendations for streamlining paperwork for executive nominations. It was sent to the president and the chairs and ranking members of the Senate Committe on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.
Outline of the process needed to confirm each cabinet secretary.
Outlines the structure of the Legislative Affairs Project, Romney’s effort to build an enduring relationship between the administration and Congress.
On March 22, 2012, Partnership President and CEO Max Stier testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight on employee morale at the Department of Homeland Security.
On March 2, 2011, Partnership President and CEO Max Stier testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on streamlining the nominations process. In his testimony, Stier praised the Senate and its bipartisan working group for taking steps to reduce the number of political appointees requiring Senate confirmation. Beyond that, Stier encouraged the Senate to set goals for the incoming administration to get nominees’ paperwork in to the relevant committees so the Senate can vote on top administration officials at the beginning of the Congressional session. Stier also advocated for converting select political appointments to career positions and capping the number of political appointees at each agency instead of just across government.
On April 22, 2010, Partnership President and CEO, Max Stier, testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on the Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia on the presidential transition. Stier discussed the Partnership’s tracking of the 2008 transition and provided several recommendations based on the Partnership’s Ready to Govern (provide link to report) transition report, released a year after the inauguration. Stier thanked the members of the committee for their leadership in introducing S. 3196, the Pre-Election Presidential Transition Act of 2010, and offered additional recommendations, including mandating White House and agency transition councils.
Based on our examination of presidential transitions, and in particular the 2008–2009 experience, it is time once again to revisit and amend the presidential transition law to place requirements on the White House to better facilitate transition activities, and to enable campaigns and the president-elect to be better prepared to govern.
In this Ready to Govern report, we examine the three phases of the 2008–2009 transition—the pre-election timeframe, the period from the election to the inauguration and President Obama’s first year in office. In each section, we provide a short narrative based on the experiences and reflections of some key participants in the transition, and offer a series of recommendations for each phase on a broad range of transition issues. These include:
- Starting the transition process earlier and making it more transparent so there is no longer a stigma on preparing.
- Reducing the number of Senate-confirmed politically appointed positions.
- Congress and the White House to agree on a calendar of appointments so 500 key officials are confirmed at the six-month mark, rather than the current norm of a year.
Report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) analyzing the appointment process from past political and congressional employees within 45 different agencies.