TRUMP's PERSONNEL BLINDNESS

 

[Published in Trump’s blind spot - The Sunday Guardian Live]

Republicans are rejoicing that Donald Trump says he has learned lessons from his first term and will unleash a full-scale assault on big government and the Deep State.  Democrats are raising alarms that Trump will exceed his powers to wreak vengeance and settle personal scores.  Trump’s recent musing about being a “one-day dictator” inflamed his critics and enraptured his supporters.

They will all be disappointed.

President Trump completely failed at personnel.  He never grasped the concept that “people are policy”. Unfortunately, Trump and his transition planners are already ignoring this maxim and heading for disaster.

Many of the people being discussed for Trump’s second term were ineffective in the first. Learning from one’s mistakes is a key to successful leadership.  It is not happening.

Trump and his Second-Term planners continually refuse to look to the Reagan Transition (1980-81) for inspiration and its leaders for advice.  The Reagan Transition is considered the best planned and executed transition in history.  Even liberal historians admit this. Its success was based on ideological alignment of all participants and a clear plan for how Reagan’s Revolution would become an operational reality. 

During the 2016 campaign and transition, Trump and his advisors repeatedly ignored those who led the Reagan transition.  Eventually, some of these experienced “Reaganites’ were allowed into his transition, but in minor roles.  Their detailed reports and recommendations were tossed aside.

Instead, Trump relied on former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus.  Trump felt he had to reward them for defending him at critical points in the 2016 Presidential Campaign.  However, they filled his transition and White House with their friends drawn from Bush, McCain, and Romney political circles.  These Christie/Priebus cronies never respected Trump or supported his populist, “America First” policies.  They went onto to undermine Trump at every turn.

Trump was his own worst enemy.  He shut out potential allies among the Reaganites and welcomed anti-Trump activists.  He compounded his mistakes by not filling key positions, thinking this crippled the bureaucracy.  Instead, it empowered the Deep State players, as no one was monitoring them.

The result was Trump never achieving operational control of the Executive Branch.  Obama holdovers remained astride key functions. “Washington Swamp” operatives pursued their own agendas.  Disloyal appointees, even among his senior staff, leaked sensitive information and ingratiated themselves with the opposition media.

There were attempts during Trump’s final year in office to correct these strategic mistakes.  They failed.  Biden was handed the gift of leftist programs, policies, projects, hires, and contracts that were started while Trump was still in office.  Trump’s last wave of loyalists was blindsided because there were too few placed in the wrong places.

Except for judicial appointments, Trump’s legacy was swept away.  America, and the world, are suffering the consequences.

The opportunity to bring fundamental, and lasting, change to the Executive Branch during Trump’s second term is already slipping away.

Planning for the next Republican Administration is fragmented among five competing organizations: The Heritage Foundation, the Center for Renewing America (CRA), Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), Personnel Policy Organization (PPO), and the America First Policy Initiative (AFPI).

Besides duplicating effort, these five entities are competing with each other to raise millions of dollars to finance their operations.  They conveniently ignore that volunteers prepared for the 1980 Reagan Revolution and that the Reagan Transition’s federal support was supplemented by only $2 million in private funds from his “Kitchen Cabinet”.

The Trump Transition money chase has led to leaking detailed plans to the media. News outlets have published insider accounts of private meetings and decisions. The transition planning groups hope donors will be impressed with their proposed actions and write big checks. It is like General Eisenhower leaking plans for the Normandy Invasion to promote WWII War Bonds.

Leaking details may inspire donors, but it allows opponents to develop counter measures. It violates timeless wisdom, “boast when coming from battle, not going to it”.

They are ignoring a fundamental truism: change occurs because there is a mandate.  These competing organizations, along with Republicans everywhere, need to be making the case for their revolution.  Otherwise, they may not gain traction for their plans, and even lose the 2024 election.

Trump’s key strategy is to remove merit system protections for thousands of career government employees.  His advisors dismiss the fact that this could be derailed by Congress (if in Democrat hands) and the courts.  However, retroactively removing protections is probably unconstitutional.

Trump likes “blunt instruments” to get his way.  Reagan’s appointees “sweated the details” to establish complete control of the Executive Branch.  His appointees, and their political staff, thoroughly studied each agency and methodically implemented substantive and sustainable change.

Establishing a compelling mandate for change, and effectively implementing it, can be summarized by the “SARS” strategy: Stop; Abolish; Reverse; Streamline.

Every day, until the election, a vivid case must be made to:

-       Stop Biden’s Leftist assault on America. Detailed lists of executive orders, policy memos, budget plans, regulations, court cases, hires and contracts must be compiled and exposed.  Every agency and program must be searched.

-       Abolish every entity and program started by Biden and Obama.  We must roll back big government back to at least 2009.

-       Reverse Biden/Obama decisions, especially personnel.  Most Americans don’t realize there are countless advisory boards within each department and agency that shape policy.  Their members are selected by agency heads not the President. Reagan established a special unit to select loyalists for these panels.

-       Streamline the Executive Branch. Republicans should cite hundreds of reports generated by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the 74 Inspectors General among Departments and agencies. Each one exposes waste, fraud, and abuse, which can guide revolutionary change.

These “SARS” actions are opportunities to educate and motivate voters to elect a Republican President, Senate, and House in 2024.  Ignoring them places America’s future in jeopardy.

Scot Faulkner served as Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was Director of Personnel for the 1980 Reagan Campaign, served on the Presidential Transition team, and on Reagan’s White House Staff.  He currently advises corporations on strategic change.

 

 

OUR DERELICT CONGRESS

Published in Newsmax
#DEEPSWAMP #RINOgator



Republicans on Capitol Hill are doing everything possible to lose their majorities in 2018.  They always seemed uneasy in the Majority.  They may get their wish and have the voters return them to a permanent Minority.

Senate Republican Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, recently railed against President Trump about “excessive expectations” and not knowing the “reality of lawmaking”.

Is it “excessive” to think the Senate and House should pass a Budget Resolution?  Every previous Congress passed one by April.  The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 mandates Congress pass an overall Budget Resolution to guide Appropriations.  This year’s budget resolution was introduced on July 21, with no action scheduled. Republicans have majorities in both Chambers, what is the hold up?

Is it “excessive” to think the Senate and House should pass eleven Appropriation Bills to fund the government?  Up through 2014, the House passed all eleven bills by July.  Since the Republicans took the Senate in 2015, only a few Appropriation bills even passed the House.  Not one has passed the House in 2017.   Hearings haven’t even been scheduled.

Is it “excessive” to think the Congress should spend time actually working?  The House met for only eight days in April, twelve days in May, and will not meet in August. Worse, in 2017, House votes are scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, and none are scheduled on Fridays.  This means most House Members only work two and a half days a week.  They can fly in Tuesday afternoon and leave Thursday night without being recorded as absent on the other days.  So in July there were only nine days of actual voting.  The same nine days of voting are scheduled for September, even though there is a firm end of month deadline for funding the government past September 30, 2017. 

Is it “excessive” to expect Members of Congress to work for citizens and not for themselves?  When Members are “in session”, they spend up to four hours every day making political fundraising calls out of the Republican and Democrat national headquarters near the Capitol.  Instead of participating in debate, attending hearings, and listening to constituents, Members are sitting in cubicles, wearing headsets, and making calls to shake down donors for campaign money.

Does the “reality of lawmaking” include casting fake votes for use in direct mail fundraising?  That is what happened in 2015 when Senators Alexander, Capito, Heller, McCain, Murkowski, and Portman voted for a straight repeal of Obamacare.  They knew President Obama would veto the legislation, their votes were used in campaign ads and fundraising.  These six Senators voted against a straight repeal of Obamacare in July 2017, because they knew President Trump would sign the bill.  When do votes reflect real policy instead of fake propaganda acts?

Does the “reality of lawmaking” include crippling President Trump’s ability to have his team running the Executive Branch?  Since Trump was sworn-in, Republicans and the conservative media blamed Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats for holding up Presidential appointments.  However, on the last day before the Senate left for their August Recess, Republicans unanimously invoked a procedure that prevented Trump from naming Recess Appointments.  This has never before been used against a Party’s own President.  Why didn’t Senate Republicans negotiate with Trump allowing him to Recess Appoint key nominees stalled in the confirmation process?  This act of treachery shows Senate Republicans truly want Trump to fail.

If they were in the military, Capitol Hill Republicans would have been Court Martialed for dereliction of duty.  Their actions, and inactions, are the very definition of dereliction: 

United States Code Title 10, Section 892, Article 92 - Member who is derelict has willfully refused to perform his duties or has incapacitated himself in such a way that he cannot perform his duties…Article 92 also applies to members whose acts or omissions rise to the level of criminally negligent behavior. 

Why are Congressional Republicans so determined to obliterate themselves and their Party?  

Americans deserve better.

Congressional Adjournment's Unintended Consequences

This article was published in Constituting America

http://www.constitutingamerica.org/blog/blog/category/guest-constitutional-scholar-essayists/scot-faulkner 

Article 1, Section 5, Clause 4


Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 made sure the two Congressional chambers had equity when it came of the operations of the Legislative Branch. Neither the House nor the Senate may adjourn for more than three days (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays) without the concurrence of the other Chamber. The formal end of a Congress is when the Legislative Branch adjourns “Sine Die” (from the Latin “without day”) meaning “without assigning a day for a further meeting or hearing”. The Constitution [Article 2, Section 3] also grants the President the authority to summon the Congress for a special session if circumstances require. The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution also sets a formal start and end time for each Congress.

These various provisions have led to numerous unintended consequences.

One of the first instances was when the Southern states seceded from the Union. They deprived the sitting Congress of a quorum. In order to continue governing, President Abraham Lincoln issued the very first Presidential Order on April 15, 1861, Executive Order 1.

The most complex consequence of Clause 4 relates to when Congress takes a recess and when it adjourns. A recess is a temporary halt to activity on the floor. Everything stops, and when the recess ends, the chamber resumes from where it left off. A recess might last 10 minutes or it might last weeks. The length of time does not matter. An adjournment is a formal end to business in the chamber, and upon return the chamber does not resume from where it left off. Just like a recess an adjournment can be for one minute or for three weeks. However, unlike a recess, an adjournment creates a new legislative day (this is more relevant to Senate proceedings).

Certain things happen, under the standing rules of the House and Senate, precisely because it is a new legislative day. Much of it is routine business: the reading of the previous day’s journal, filing of reports, delivery of messages from the House, etc., but there are also consequential things. In the Senate, during the first two hours of each new legislative day, motions to proceed are not debatable, and therefore cannot be filibustered.

Any formal break in Legislative Branch activity also opens the door for a President to take certain actions. This includes making appointments which require Senate confirmation, and “pocket vetoing” legislation. A pocket veto means that the Congress cannot override the veto because it is not in session. An adjournment of the Legislative Branch also allows the President to reconvene Congress for a specific action [Article 2, Section 3]. Congressional leaders have devised ways to avoid inadvertently unleashing Presidential activism.

The Congress can take a break from legislative activity, and still avoid a formal recess or adjournment, by meeting in a “pro forma” session. Pro forma means “for the sake of formality”. In recent years pro forma sessions have prevented Presidents from making recess appointments, and in the case of President George W. Bush in 2008, deprived him calling a special session to reauthorize the Protect America Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

As long as a Member convenes either the House or Senate to formally open and close a session there is no recess or adjournment. Members sometimes compete to see how fast they can conduct a pro forma session. The record is currently held by Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island who completed the task in 12 seconds.