Talk:United States presidential transition

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Hmm…[edit]

From the intro paragraph --

A presidential transition or presidential interregnum refers to the period of time between the end of a presidential election and the inauguration of a new President of a country. During this time the incoming President usually appoints new government personnel, including selecting new Cabinet positions and government department or agency heads.

First of all, I have a problem with the term "presidential interregnum", as it implies that there's NO President during the time between Election Day and Inauguration Day (in the same vein as sede vacante). Indeed, even though we've had Presidents assassinated (or in one case, resigned), there was never even a single moment in which there was NO President "holding the reigns." The 25th Amendment all but guarantees that someone will be there to take the oath of office should the sitting POTUS die in office, be impeached, or resign for whatever reason. And I think the phrase "appoints new government personnel, including selecting new Cabinet positions and government department or agency heads." is overstating it a bit. We can say that the incoming President and First Lady hires White House staff; but as far as "appointing cabinet positions and department and agency heads", well, last I checked, the incoming President can't do that until he takes the oath of office and submits their names to the Senate for confirmation.

Hence, I recommend reworking this entire article to reflect the above issues I have. —MicahBrwn (talk) 08:12, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you do a google on presidential interregnum, you'll find that it's a commonly used term. It's standard practice to include commonly used synonyms at the beginning of the article, it's not up to us to judge if the synonyms are correct or not. The president-elect doesn't actually appoint anyone until he becomes president, but it's quite common to announce and vet appointees during the transition. LK (talk) 13:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did Google "presidential interregnum", as per your suggestion. The majority of relevant hits I got (the first 20 or so, out of 32,000) dealt with the Presidency as it existed prior to the 20th (and to some extent, the 25th) Amendment. Specifically, when we would hold an election in November but the inauguration was held in March (and when the Order of Succession if POTUS and VPOTUS are both incapacitated was, to say the least, unclear). Hence, I suggest the term is, to say the least, outdated. — MicahBrwn (talk) 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Quite possibly the most dangerous period in modern American history"[edit]

This is speculation, even if it does have some substantial facts. But there are many authors who will put forward differing opinions (April 1865, for example) so this should probably be toned down. ---Ransom (--68.122.190.98 (talk) 02:28, 9 November 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Who runs the executive departments pending the Senate confirmations?[edit]

Obama will take office at Noon, January 20. I expect that one of his first official acts will be to officially nominate all the officers that he has designated for the Cabinet and other positions. I'm assuming that designations he's made to date have no legal effect; that the President-elect cannot nominate, right?

And even once nominated, the nominated officials don't take their office until Senate confirmation, in many cases.

So on day one, who's running the departments? Are the various designees/nominees installed as "Acting Secretary," etc.?

A small section on this transition, if anyone knows the answers, would be an improvement to the article. I've cast about a bit, but can't find anything on this. TJRC (talk) 02:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Buchanan-Lincoln transition and secession[edit]

The placement of the lines about the Buchanan-Lincoln transition and the first Southern secessions seems to imply that the "leaderless" and "lame duck" character of the federal government during that time contributed to the secession crisis. Of course the timing of secession was the result of Lincoln's election, not Buchanan's impotence. The crisis deepened after Lincoln's inauguration.

So while it is correct to describe the time period of the Buchanan-Lincoln transition as disastrous, this discussion does not belong in a paragraph which is really about "ambiguity in the roles" of outgoing and incoming officeholders. Spark240 (talk) 16:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed move: "United States presidential transition"[edit]

Would this article be better titled "United States presidential transition"? Apart from the generic first sentence, the entire article is about the U.S. presidential transition. All references are with respect to the U.S. presidential transition, and all three WikiProjects that "own" the article -- WP:WikiProject United States presidential elections, WP:WikiProject United States Government, and WP:WikiProject U.S. Presidents -- are U.S.- specific TJRC (talk) 02:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I fully agree with this suggestion -- which perhaps isn't terribly surprising seeing as I placed a request at WikiProject Politics for an article under that title back in July 2007. I'm delighted to see that it now exists, and given that it is focused entirely on the United States, I really don't think it should have a name that suggests otherwise. I imagine that a broader article dealing with presidential transitions in other countries could be written, but I don't necessarily expect that to happen any time soon. So I would like to make this name change a formal proposal. If there are no serious objections, I'd like to implement the change by Saturday (January 31). PS - My thanks to the folks who have worked on the article! Cgingold (talk) 15:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was the one who originally started this article. I had in mind a more international viewpoint. However, it's evolved to cover the US transition almost exclusively, as such it should be moved. Since there seems to be consensus on this issue, I'll go ahead and make a move and redirect. LK (talk) 08:36, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notable transitions (Hoover and Roosevelt: not in citation given, etc.)[edit]

The Time article cited in the "Notable transitions" section does not specifically say that

"Roosevelt refused Hoover's requests for a meeting to come up with a joint program to stop the downward spiral and calm investors, claiming it would tie his hands," (emphasis added)

but rather only that

"Hoover's efforts to reach out to Roosevelt in the name of bipartisan cooperation were dismissed by critics [not necessarily Roosevelt himself] as his trying to reverse the election results and force Roosevelt to agree to an agenda that would have effectively gutted the New Deal," (emphasis added).


Also, in the Wikipedia article it says

"After the election, Roosevelt refused Hoover's requests for a meeting to come up with a joint program to stop the downward spiral and calm investors, claiming it would tie his hands, and as it ["and as it" should probably be changed to "and because it" for the purpose of clarity, by the way] guaranteed that Roosevelt took the oath of office amid such an atmosphere of crisis that Hoover had become the most hated man in America." (emphasis added)

but it was unclear in the Time article whether or not

"[the guarantee] that Roosevelt took the oath of office amid such an atmosphere of crisis that Hoover had become the most hated man in America"

was the reason why "Roosevelt refused Hoover's requests" (if, in fact, he did), which is what is indicated by the phrase "and as is" in the above excerpt from the Wikipedia article. So perhaps the clause "and as this 'guaranteed that Roosevelt took the oath of office amid such an atmosphere of crisis that Hoover had become the most hated man in America'" should be removed. SoccerMan2009 (talk) 03:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


While the presidential campaign was highly contentious, the "Notable Transitions" article misses the underlying philosophical debate that was unfolding during the transition. And that debate has a legacy even today. Namely, the core dispute between Hoover and Roosevelt was that of Classical vs. Keynesian economics. The question at hand being how best to stimulate the devastated American economy. Hoover, had promoted some programs, but opposed direct assistance to the unemployed. He believed that direct government assistance would take the country down a course of reliance on public assistance. Roosevelt believede the opposite, and that particularly under dire circumstances, myriad public sector investments boost economies. Roosevelt also maintained that the American people had renounced the Hoover doctrine, in his overwhelming defeat. Other Wikipedia articles address Classical vs. Keynesian economics. Hence, integration would help the article. A number of sources discuss this. A US State Dept manual "More Than Elections: How Democracies Transfer Power" contains an article "Herbert-Hoover-to-Franklin D Roosevelt Transition in a Time of Crisis"; see http://www.scribd.com/doc/62590725/6/Herbert-Hoover-to-Franklin-D-Roosevelt-Transition-in-a-Time-of-Crisis</ref> bloggerken (talk) 03:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Lists[edit]

The list needs to link to the articles on individual transitions, where they exist.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Legend on "List of US presidential transitions" would be helpful[edit]

This section has incoming and outgoing presidents color-coded but there is no legend to explain what the colors mean. Checking the source for the section makes it clear that the colors represent the party of each president but this is not obvious from the article. I tried making a legend but I no wikipedia good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Can someone create a legend to clarify this? — Rabid9797 (talk) 13:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reformatting edit summary[edit]

I've made several formatting changes to the transitions table: moved the incoming POTUS column next to the outgoing POTIUS column; changed order of entries from reverse-chronological to chronological (PER WP:STANDALONE); separated shaded cells from text cells, plus added political party names and a legend to further explain what the colors mean (per MOS:COLOR); linked the cells in the Transition began column with the appropriate presidential election article and those in the Transition concluded column with the appropriate presidential inauguration article, both to enhance the table’s usefulness; added the 9 non-scheduled (extraordinary) transitions, because they need to be included; and also added a brief introduction to the table. Drdpw (talk) 17:24, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why no mention of 1877, 1974, and 2000 transitions?[edit]

Just wondering why there are no mentions of the abbreviated transitions of 1877, 1974, and 2000. They were extremely notable. Arglebargle79 (talk) 02:51, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The reason is that no one has written about them yet. It would be great if sections would be written on those translations, and I'd add 1800 & 1828. Drdpw (talk) 04:02, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, Rutherford B. Hayes WASN'T inaugurated eight months before he was elected, or, Preventing an incipiant edit war[edit]

A presidential transition begins when the identity of the President- and Vice President-elects become known. This usually happens when the election occurs. Donald Trump became President-elect when Hillary Clinton conceded the race at two in the morning on November the ninth of this year. HOWEVER, several transitions were much shorter than that, which is why I made the changes I did.

The crisis of 1876-77 was over who won the election. It seemed, at the beginning, that Samuel Tilden was president-elect, but that was cut short when various newspapers decided to contest it. It nearly caused a second civil war, remember, and near the end, there were plans to extend the Grant administration for a while. Hayes was sworn in on March 3, 1877, not March 5, 1876. I understand it was a typo, but one should read what one is reverting before doing it, because it makes the reverter (whom I figure is an administrator acting in good faith and was just lazy) look bad.

During the Florida recount of 2000, there was NO president-elect. Gov. Bush wasn't declared that until the Supreme Court ruled in December of that year, thus there was no transition until that date.

Nixon resigned on August 8th, 1974, effective the following day. True there was no official "president-elect" Vice president Ford was "President-Designate", and most books on the subject note that Chief-of-Staff Alexander Haig had set up a transition team in Mid-July, only informing the Vice President on August 5th.

The presidential election was thrown into the House of representatives TWICE, and while in both cases the incumbent knew he was leaving office, the identity of his successor was unknown. You can't have a transition until you know who the next guy is. Which brings us to the 22nd Amendment...

With the president term limited, every second-term president is a lame duck (this doesn't count LBJ, who had a first term that only lasted a year and two months), so how long is a transition then? Both Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton had formal Transition teams set up, as did Trump, who famously fired it soon after his election causing all sorts of problems in November and early December. Should these aborted transitions be included?

If you're going to get it right, get it right. There were no transitions when presidents died in office, not even in 1881 and 1901, where the president hung on for days or weeks after being shot. Vice-President Arthur was hiding in his townhouse in New York, and Teddy Roosevelt went on a hiking trip in the Catskills and was incummunecado when President McKinley died. How is THAT a transition?

Please don't revert to the typos again, okay? Arglebargle79 (talk) 13:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

the case of "President Romney" and why it's important.[edit]

The Obama-Romney "transition" was notable because it was the first to be authorized under the 2010 transition act, and the existence of the website and logo was fun. Also, it was the basis of congressional actions regarding the subject. It belongs there.Arglebargle79 (talk) 13:38, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, the Obama-Romney "transition" does not belong among the notable actual presidential translations. However, the article's Process section does contain a sentence about the planned Romney 2012 transition, and an additional few words about the team's plan would work there. Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 19:27, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion of section discussing the very term "presidential transition" and alternate terminology[edit]

@Drdpw: You removed a section I had created of the article discussing this matter. I reverted this, giving rationale for its inclusion. Rather than then taking a discussion of your preference for its exclusion to the discussion page, you again removed that content. This approaches the initiation of an edit war. The content I added does not induce harm to the article, so there was no urgency for you to again remove it without discussion. Please immediately restore that content, pending discussion here.

The content I added was a section discussing the use of the term "presidential", which is now widely accepted for the concept discussed in the article, but was not always. This is an important and relevant point to make clear, especially as it can inform a reader if they desire to delve into greater independent research on the topic. If someone wanted to find contemporary resources on pre-1948 transitions, but were not informed that the term "presidential transition" was not in use back then, their efforts would be greatly debilitated.

You seem to object that the section I created is small. A small section on important information is worth including. The length of content does not determine its importance. SecretName101 (talk) 15:34, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@SecretName101: My error for giving too brief of an edit summary. No need for a separate 2 sentence section. The sentence taken from the Process section was better placed where it was. Usage of the term "presidential transition" is discussed in the 1st two paragraphs of the Process section. In retrospect, I was a bit hasty in my reaction to your change. In thinking about it, those 1st two paragraphs probably belong in a separate Background section right after the lead. How does that sound to you? Drdpw (talk) 01:17, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Do we need dedicated Wikipedia articles for all presidential transitions?[edit]

Unnoteworthy ones (ex- 2008-2009, 1992-1993, 1980-1981) could be incorporated into the main page of the president in question. For noteworthy ones such as 1860-1861, 2000-2001, and 2020-2021 they could remain having a dedicated page.

Dedicated Page for Planned Hillary Clinton Transition[edit]

Should there be a dedicated page for the planned Hillary Clinton 2016 transition? There is a lot of information out there for what she was planning, personnel, that sort of thing; enough for an article. It could be useful either on its own or in regards to a series of "planned" transitions that never were (i.e. Romney '12, Gore '00). Perhaps as a comparison to what occurred with the Trump transition? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bookworm2490 (talk • contribs) 07:16, 16 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You might consider asking that question on the Hillary Clinton talk page for greater input from other editors. Drdpw (talk) 08:28, 16 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I shall do, thank you. Bookworm2490 (talk) 08:39, 16 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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