[ad_1]
Ted Kaufman leads Joe Biden’s transition team. He himself wrote the laws for this. This is an important detail that worries the Trump administration.
He should keep Biden’s promise and approach political opponents with an outstretched hand: former Senator Ted Kaufman (81).
Photo: Jonathan Ernst (Reuters)
It’s always good to have someone on the team who knows what he’s doing. And Joe Biden has one of those on the team. It’s former Senator Ted Kaufmann. He is now in charge of the president-elect’s transition team. And, conveniently, he is the one who co-wrote the law that regulates this transition from one presidency to another since 2016.
Handover is already a difficult matter. With a sitting president who just doesn’t want to acknowledge Biden’s victory. And at the same time, the need to get the Biden presidency on track.
Thousands of positions have to be filled
Until he takes office on January 20, Biden must start an entirely new administration. Several thousand positions need to be filled. And of course, everything has to be funded in some way. 81-year-old engineer and short-term senator Ted Kaufmann is now taking care of all this. For the next two and a half months he will be the most powerful man on Biden’s team, after Biden, of course.
Kaufman’s task will also be to implement Biden’s promise to reach out to political opponents with an outstretched hand already in recruiting. Which also means that not all Republicans need fear for office as long as they have something in the box. Many former administration employees should have fond memories of Kaufmann. As a senator, he had a good habit of delivering a speech once a week in which he paid tribute to a well-deserved clerical worker for a job.
Kaufmann and Biden are as familiar as only the closest of friends are. He joined Biden in early 1972, who at the time was preparing to become a senator from the state of Delaware. Kaufman would become one of Biden’s most loyal companions. Young Biden surprisingly won the primaries against an experienced starter that year. And then, unsurprisingly, the main choice. Biden initially made Kaufmann head of his Delaware office. And then, in 1976, to his chief of staff in Washington. Kaufman held the position for nearly 20 years before leaving in 1995.
Kaufman earned a reputation for eternity with the law governing the transition period between two presidencies.
In January 2009, shortly after the financial crisis, Kaufman began a short but effective political career. Barack Obama had won the presidency the previous fall with Joe Biden at his side. Biden had to resign his tenure as a senator. And certainly not without the help of Biden, Ted Kaufmann was appointed to serve the remaining two years of Biden’s term in the Senate.
Kaufmann has friends in almost every political field. The leftists show him respect because after the financial market crisis he introduced some tough laws against the money industry. He is also seen as a moderate and institutionalist Democrat who firmly believes that a functioning state apparatus is a blessing to the people.
Kaufman earned a reputation for eternity with the law governing the transition phase between two presidencies. He negotiated it with his Republican colleague Michael Leavitt. It bears both names: “Edward ‘Ted’ Kaufman and Michael Leavitt Presidential Transition Improvement Act.”
Republicans disagree
Among other things, the law regulates that a defeated starter does not have to admit defeat before the transition team of his chosen successor can begin. The Biden people have already received rooms, computers and telephones.
At least that’s how it was announced. However, the White House has apparently given the order not to work with Biden’s team. That’s why the head of federal property in charge, Emily Murphy, is now refusing to sign documents that would release $ 6.3 million in support of the transition process and guarantee Biden’s team access to administrative information. Ted Kaufmann should be prepared for such tricks. Like I said: he wrote the law.
