Presidential transition of Bill Clinton

Clinton's presidential campaign launched an effort to plan for a prospective presidential transition in August of 1992.[1] The effort was known as the "Clinton-Gore Pre-TRansition Planning Foundation" or the "Clinton–Gore Presidential Transition Planning Foundation".[2][3] Clinton chose to have the effort be headed by his campaign chair Mickey Kantor.[4] Businessman Gerald Stern was named as the coordinator of the planning group on September 24, 1992, heading its day-to-day operations.[3][5] Assisting him was lawyer John Hart.[5] Other members of the team included Warren Christopher, Henry Cisneros, Vernon Jordan, and Madeleine Kunin.[2] The team was headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, in an office building only blocks away from the campaign's headquarters.[2][5] Barry Carter oversaw the national security aspects of the transition planning.[5] The team collected vast amounts of research on past presidential transitions, and compiled a large briefing books outlining a strategy for a potential transition.[2][5][1] By late-October, the transition effort had a full-time staff of between ten and fifteen people.[5] Despite the early start, few decisions about hires for Clinton's administration were outlined until after the election.[4]

On October 6, 1992, President George H. W. Bush signed an appropriation that would provide $5 million to a prospective transition. If Clinton were to win, the appropriation would give his transition team $3.5 million, and give $1.5 million to Bush's administration to aid them in the transition. This was in accordance with a 1988 increase in funding for presidential transitions to these amounts.[6]

After Clinton defeated Bush in the election, both Bush and Clinton publicly proclaimed their desire for a smooth transition between their administrations.[7]

After the election, after tensions between Kantor and Clinton's top campaign staff had arisen, Kantor was dismissed as head of the transition effort.[4] On November 6, Warren Christopher was named as the transition director and Vernon Jordan was named to serve as the chairman of the transition's board, making them co-leaders of the transition.[4][2][8][9] Bush named Andrew Card to head the Bush administration's role in the transition.[2][10]

On November 13, Clinton named several dozen other members of his transition team. The members he named were noted by The New York Times to have, "diversity in age, sex and ethnic background".[9] Robert Reich was named to lead the economic policy team, and Sandy Berger was named to lead the foreign policy team.[9] Clinton's transition team largely consisted of individuals that had worked on his presidential campaign.[11]

On November 13, Clinton outlined ethics guidelines for his transition staff. These guidelines would forbid any staff or volunteers from, in the first fix months of the Clinton administration, lobbying the government in areas they had worked on during the transition. The ethics guidelines also required transition workers to file detailed financial disclosure forms, and forbid them from doing any work on the transition that appeared to be a conflict of interest.[9][12] These ethics guidelines received praise from the groups Common Cause and Public Citizen.[12]

On November 18, President Bush hosted President-elect Clinton at the White House.[13]

In the early weeks of the transition, the president-elect's communications director, George Stephanopoulos, said the president-elect was receiving roughly 30,000 items of mail per day.[12]

In addition to the $3.5 million the government provided the Clinton transition team, $5.3 million was raised through private contributions to fund their effort.[14]

The transition was considered chaotic, in some respects.[4][15] In late January 1993, shortly after the transition ended, historian Carl Brauer described his assessment of performance of Clinton's transition as, "mixed".[16] The transition was headquartered both in Little Rock, Arkansas and Washington, D.C., with this geographic split of the operation creating some problems.[4] The main decisions tended to be made from the Little Rock headquarters, where Clinton largely remained during the transition.[4][2] The transition's policy advisors were ideologically split between centrists and liberals.[4] Clinton's transition took longer than his predecessor to designate appointees to top positions.[4][17] The transition began publicly announcing the first his designees to be appointed to major executive branch offices six weeks after winning the election. It finished announcing them in the eleventh week following his election victory.[17] It also took Clinton particularly long to name a White House Chief of Staff, with him waiting until mid-December before naming Mack McLarty.[15]

Clinton spent great amounts of time during the transition devising plans with a intimate group of confidantes, including his wife Hillary, Vice-President-elect Al Gore, and transition director Christopher Warren.[4] Clinton deeply involved himself with the details of his new presidential administration, especially the selection of members of his Cabinet.[4] Clinton's wife was also heavily involved in making staffing decisions for his Cabinet.[4] Both Clinton and his wife had interest in making his cabinet have increased racial diversity and more women members than past cabinets.[4] The Clintons' decision to be so deeply involved in personnel decisions contributed to the delay in naming individuals to the positions.[4]

In contrast to his deep involvement Cabinet staffing decisions, Clinton paid comparatively little attention to many staffing decisions for his White House staff.[4][15] He also avoided appointing White House insiders to his administrations, making few hires of individuals that had served in the administration of the last Democratic president, Jimmy Carter.[4] Clinton appeared to demonstrate possible hostility towards hiring Washington insiders.[4] Consequentially, many of his White House hires were of individuals that had worked on his campaign, but who were largely young and lacked government experience.[4] The transition also failed to heed the advice of the outgoing Bush administration to name members of his White House staff early into his transition.[4] While Clinton refrained from hiring many veterans of past administrations, his transition team did meet for advice with members of past Democratic administrations, particularly those of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter.[8]

Clinton had roughly 4,000 executive branch positions to make appointments to, in addition to setting a budget and political agenda.[1]

Officially heading personnel selection was Richard Riley.[4] However, after Riley was named to be Clinton's choice for Secretary of Education, he found his attention divided between his role in the transition and preparing for his pending position in the presidential administration.[4]

Clinton throughout his transition, made clear that he understood that, until January 20, the country had a singular president, George H. W. Bush.[18] As the inauguration came close, Bush's advisers had begun working with Clinton's advisors, particularly on foreign policy, to ensure that there would be a smooth transfer of power. For instance, for weeks before the inauguration, Brent Scowcroft, Bush's National Security Advisor, would meet daily with Anthony Lake, who Clinton had designated to be his National Security Advisor.[18]

In December, Clinton was a participant in a televised economic summit in Little Rock. While his provided an opportunity for the president-elect to display his policy knowledge, the summit also took up valuable time during a crucial stage of his transition.[4][19]

• Clinton Adminstration Transition Interviews –National Archives and Records Administration
• Transition Team – Collection Finding Aid –Bill Clinton Presidential Library & Museum