Presidential Transition

For nearly 250 years, the peaceful transfer of power has been a hallmark of American democracy and central to the continuity of government. The United States’ ability to address its most critical challenges rely on this tradition to continue.

Yet executing a successful presidential transition, or the start of a second term, requires serious planning and requires extensive knowledge of federal personnel, policy and budgeting issues. Handled poorly, both first- and second-term presidents can struggle to implement campaign promises and respond to serious national security and domestic challenges.

Since 2008, the Partnership has been the nation’s leading nonpartisan organization that works with federal agency leaders, presidential candidate transition teams, outgoing presidents and those seeking a second term to ensure our next president is fully prepared to govern.

Center for Presidential Transition^®

The Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition® is the nation’s premier nonpartisan source of expertise designed to help presidential candidates, their teams and incumbent administrations lay the groundwork for a first or second term.

The Center provides critical assistance on how to organize and execute a transition, helps agencies prepare for new political leadership, offers guidance to political appointees on the unique aspects of government leadership, promotes legislative reform and shapes the national conversation on transition issues.  

Ready to Govern^®

Ready to Govern^® is a series of 90-minute onboarding sessions designed to help incoming political appointees and federal leaders navigate the government and succeed in their new roles.

Appointees can participate in up to 11 modules that feature content developed from hundreds of conversations with federal leaders. These sessions are led by bipartisan faculty composed of current or former political appointees and career executives.

Ready to Serve

Our Ready to Serve resources help aspiring political appointees navigate the federal appointments process. We help prospective appointees learn about possible roles, background checks, ethics requirements and, for the most senior-level positions, the Senate confirmation process.

Ready to Act

Agency personnel and dynamics typically change before and after a presidential election. Career civil servants must work to support the continuity of government, and some senior career executives will be called on to serve temporarily in key positions previously held by political appointees to ensure that agency priorities are met.

Ready to Act is a 90-minute seminar to help senior career executives who serve as acting officials during a transition of leadership or administration prepare for their temporary new roles.

Political Appointee Tracker

Presidents are required to fill roughly 4,000 politically appointed government positions, including more than 1,300 that require Senate confirmation. Despite the importance of these jobs, there is no up-to-date source of information about who holds these positions, which positions are vacant or the status of Senate confirmations.

The Political Appointee tracker, run by the Partnership and The Washington Post, addresses this problem, shedding light on our government’s struggle—regardless of which party controls Congress and the White House—to fill key Senate-confirmed positions.

Transition Lab

Our “Transition Lab” podcast offers listeners an in-depth look at presidential transitions, exploring how transfers of power occur, current and past transition cycles, and the relationship between the handoff of presidential power and our democracy.

Resources

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