Now that the people have voted, the country has entered the transition phase – the two months after election day and before the new Congress is sworn in (Jan. 3) and presidential inauguration day (Jan. 20). Four years after a norm-defying Trump transition, the 2020 transition is also shaping up to be unusual: pandemic disease and the economic crisis demand urgent action, while meanwhile control of the U.S. Senate will be decided by two run-off elections, and the incumbent President refuses to concede.
Led by top national experts and current practitioners, this remarkable public discussion is a primer on the just-started hand-off of power at the federal level, and what to expect.
Confirmed speakers – and what they will address – include:
- Prof. Dakota Rudesill, Moritz College of Law, and former member of the Obama-Biden Transition Team – moderator
- Prof. Ned Foley, Moritz College of Law, and Director of Election Law at Ohio State – status of the presidential election and key legal process steps ahead
- Martha Joynt Kumar, Director, White House Transition Project – how presidential transitions work
- Megan Cassella, Politico reporter- how current transition is going
- David Priess, former CIA officer – intelligence briefings for new spymasters
- Petra Smeltzer, member of the Biden-Harris Transition Team, and former Obama White House Associate Counsel – ethics and avoiding conflicts of interest
- Bill Dauster, former Counsel to the Senate Majority Leader – the transition in Congress, and resolving election disputes
For more information, contact Prof. Rudesill at Rudesill.2@osu.edu or Kyle McCray of Mershon Center at McCray.44@osu.edu
If you require an accommodation such as live captioning or interpretation to participate in this event, please contact Kyle McCray, mccray.44@osu.edu. Requests made two weeks before the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date. This event may be recorded and distributed or reposted to the Mershon website and social media platforms, if you wish to not be recorded, please reach out to Kyle McCray.
Event Host
The Security and Governance Research Cluster: Good governance, democratic decision-making, rule of law, and stability and viability of international institutions and organizations have all become highly contested dimensions of international, national, and human security with the rise of hybrid and cyber-warfare, grey zone conflict, and information operations. This contestation is driven by a range of historical, political, economic, cultural, social, and technological forces that have created new avenues for state and non-state actors to attack international and democratic governance in service of their agendas.
Leading this research cluster are Dakota Rudesill, associate professor of law; Alexander Thompson, associate professor of political science; and Thomas Wood, assistant professor of political science.