Ken Salazar, former Senator and Secretary of the Interior, will chair
the transition team with Tom Donilon and Jennifer Granholm.
- U.S.
President Barack Obama participates in a cabinet meeting at the White
House in Washington, August 3, 2011. With Obama are Secretary of the
Interior Ken Salazar (L) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS)
- From
left to right, Secretaty of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of
Defense Leon Panetta and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, watch
from the back of the room during President Barack Obama's meeting, with
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the NATO Summit in
Chicago, Sunday, May 20, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Former Interior Secretary Salazar To Serve as Chair; Donilon, Granholm, Tanden and Williams To Serve as Co-Chairs
Two
weeks after paperwork was filed to formally establish the Clinton-Kaine
Transition Project, John Podesta – the Chair of Hillary for America and
the President of the Transition project – announced several top
officials who will lead the transition planning over the coming months.
This senior leadership team will oversee a Washington-based operation
that is dedicated to preparing for a potential Clinton-Kaine
administration, enabling the Brooklyn-based campaign organization to
stay exclusively focused on the task of electing Hillary Clinton as the
nation’s 45th President of the United States. Ken Salazar,
former Secretary of the Interior and United States senator from
Colorado, will serve as Chair of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project.
Salazar will serve alongside four co-chairs – former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, President of the Center for American Progress Neera Tanden, and Maggie Williams, Director of the Institute of Politics, Harvard University. Ed Meier and Ann O’Leary,
two top campaign policy advisers, will shift full-time to the
Transition team to serve as co-executive directors and manage the
project’s day-to-day operations. Heather Boushey, the Executive Director of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, will serve as Chief Economist.
“We
are extremely pleased that such an accomplished group of public
servants has agreed to lead the transition planning for a potential
Clinton-Kaine administration,” Podesta said. “While our campaign
remains focused on the task at hand of winning in November, Hillary
Clinton wants to be able to get to work right away as President-elect on
building an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.
These individuals, who bring a deep level of experience in the work of
presidential transitions, will help us build a team that is ready to
govern after the general election.”
“Once Hillary Clinton makes
history by being elected as the nation’s first woman President, we want
to have a turnkey operation in place so she can hit the ground running
right away,” Salazar said. “A Clinton-Kaine administration will
build on the progress we’ve made under President Obama, and tackle a new
set of challenges both at home and abroad. This transition team will
undertake the preparations necessary to ensure our next President has
the resources and staff to carry out this all-important work.”
The
Clinton-Kaine Transition Project is a 501(c)(4) organization. It was
officially established through the filing of paperwork two weeks ago in
the District of Columbia, with Podesta named as the entity’s President
and Hillary for America senior adviser Minyon Moore as Secretary.
A
2010 law, known as the Pre-Election Transition Act, formalized the
process for the transfer of powers from one administration to the next,
and provided new resources to both party nominees so they each could
take steps ahead of the general election to ensure a seamless
transition. In keeping with the law, the Obama administration will host
initial, transition planning meetings with representatives of both the
Trump and Clinton campaigns. After the two parties’ conventions, White
House chief of staff Denis McDonough phoned both campaigns to indicate
that, among other steps, workspace administered by the General Services
Administration in Washington, D.C., was officially available to both
campaigns to use for their respective transition planning.
Biographies for the leadership of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project appear below.
Ken Salazar,
Chair of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project, served under President
Obama as the 50th Secretary of the Interior from 2009-2013. Prior to
that, he was U.S. Senator from Colorado from 2005-2009. From 1999 until
his election to the U.S. Senate, Salazar served as Attorney General for
Colorado. He currently works as a partner at the international law firm
WilmerHale.
Tom Donilon, Co-Chair of the Clinton-Kaine
Transition Project, served as National Security Advisor to President
Obama from 2010-2013. Donilon had leadership roles in the State
Department and NSC transitions in 2008. He served as Deputy National
Security Advisor before becoming President Obama’s top national security
aide. Donilon served during the Clinton Administration as Chief of
Staff at the Department of State. Donilon is currently Vice Chair at the
law firm of O’Melveny & Myers. Jennifer Granholm, Co-Chair
of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project, was the 47th Governor of the
State of Michigan. Prior to her two terms as Governor, she served as
Michigan’s Attorney General from 1999-2003. She was the first woman in
state history to be elected to either position. During her tenure as
Governor, she led Michigan through a severe economic downturn by
diversifying the state’s economy, strengthening its automotive industry
and investing in new sectors such as clean energy. After leaving office,
Granholm served as an advisor to Pew Charitable Trusts’ Clean Energy
Program. She is also a Senior Research Fellow with the Berkeley Energy
and Climate Institute.
Neera Tanden, Co-Chair of the
Clinton-Kaine Transition Project, currently serves as President of the
Center for American Progress. Prior to that, she served as a senior
adviser for health reform at the Department of Health and Human
Services, working to help enact President Obama’s landmark health reform
law. During the 2008 campaign, Tanden served as policy director for the
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, then became the director of
domestic policy for the Obama-Biden campaign during the general
election. Earlier in her career, she was Legislative Director for
Clinton in her Senate office, and deputy campaign manager on Clinton’s
2000 Senate campaign.
Maggie Williams, Co-Chair of the
Clinton-Kaine Transition Project, is the Director of the Institute of
Politics (IOP) at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University. She is the former Communications Director for the Children’s
Defense Fund; served as the 1992 transition director for First Lady
Hillary Clinton, and as Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to
First Lady Hillary Clinton. Maggie is founding partner of management
consulting firm, Griffin Williams CPM, from which she took a leave of
absence in 2008 to manage the presidential primary campaign of
then-Senator Clinton. Maggie is Vice Chair of the Trustee Board of the
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and serves on the Board of the
Scholastic Corporation.
Ed Meier, Co-Executive Director of
the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project, most recently served as the
Director of Policy Outreach at Hillary for America. Prior to his work on
the campaign, Meier served as Senior Adviser to the Deputy Secretary of
State during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department. In addition to
his service in government, Meier has worked as a management consultant
at McKinsey & Company and served as Chief Operating Officer at Big
Thought, an education nonprofit in Dallas.
Ann O’Leary,
Co-Executive Director of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project, most
recently served as Senior Policy Adviser at Hillary for America,
handling issues including college affordability, health care and family
economic security. Prior to joining the campaign, O’Leary was senior
vice president and director of the Children and Families Program at Next
Generation. O’Leary was also founding executive director of the
University of California, Berkeley, Law School’s Center on Health,
Economic & Family Security, and a Deputy City Attorney for the City
of San Francisco. She held a number of roles during the Clinton
administration, including policy adviser to the First Lady and assistant
to the President on the Domestic Policy Council. She was also
Legislative Director in Clinton’s Senate office from 2001-2003.
Heather Boushey, Chief
Economist of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project, is the Executive
Director and Chief Economist at the Washington Center for Equitable
Growth and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Dr.
Boushy previously served as as an economist for the Joint Economic
Committee of the U.S. Congress, the Center for Economic and Policy
Research, and the Economic Policy Institute. She is a leading researcher
on the issue of income inequality and author of “Finding Time: The
Economics of Work-Life Conflict” from Harvard University Press.
