Office of the President-Elect; Not Just a Fabrication
So, it turns out that the idea of the Office of the President-Elect isn’t completely a fabrication by the Obama-Biden -Elect administration. It’s a term that’s been used for many years, but never as publicly as Obama and Biden are using it. It’s root comes from the Presidential Transition act of 1963. In that act (read the text at the GSA site), the GSA is given authorization to fund and supply the President-Elect and his Vice President-elect with office space and to pay their transition team employees. It does not, however, outline any details about the creation of an official government entity entitled “The Office of the President-Elect”.
So, while Obama and Biden are doing their very best to make it look like it’s an official government entity, it is not. But it isn’t just a fabrication either. Technically, if I had a secretary, I could have said secretary answer the phone “Office of Donkephant”. Much like Obama can have his secretary at his government funded office answer his phone as “Office of the President-Elect”. He is the President-Elect. And it is his office.
That aside, I think the way that Obama and Biden are using the name and unofficial seal as well as the website is horribly misleading. As further evidence of the office not being an official office of the U.S. Governement, the bottom of the website for the “Office of the President-Elect” has the following:
Content copyright © 2008 by Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501c(4) organization. All rights reserved.
I’m no lawyer, and I would have to be to fully research and understand the law, but I believe if it were an official office of the U.S. Government, it would not have that and would instead say something about it being property of the U.S. Governement. Or it would have nothing in the footer, much like the whitehouse.gov and the usa.gov sites.
Finally, while it isn’t an official government website, it does appear to have the approval of the government. As far as I can tell, you can’t just go and register a .gov domain like you can a .com or .net. You’ve got to get approval. It might be noted that there are those who don’t think this was a legal use of the .gov domain, but I haven’t researched that at all. Also, there hasn’t been much of anything from the established administration about it. At least not that I’ve read or heard.
My guess is that the current administration is content to let Obama get away with it. It creats a distraction. The longer the buzz last from the election, the longer the people don’t feel the full effects of what is going on around them with the economy, job market, and the world.
November 11th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Quite frankly, in comparison to some of the soon-to-be-previous administration’s “re-inventions” and “re-interpretations”, (unitary executive, the vice president is not in the executive branch, the explosion of signing statements, etc), this is is fairly benign spin, and hardly worth the brain cells expended trying to parse over the meaning of “office” as a place or a position.
For all intents and purposes, the Office of the President-Elect is the transition team, which is not merely GSA staffers, and though is funded by the executive branch, it is not part of it/controlled by it:
http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_IX_4/ix_4page2.htm
November 11th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
No argument there fredmdud.