4,000 new offices to be filled.
- Click here for the article.
Like everything else amid the pandemic, the transition effort — led by former Sen. Ted Kaufman, a longtime Biden adviser who literally wrote the law on presidential transitions — is doing more work remotely than it would under normal circumstances. The General Services Administration has allocated transition workspace at 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, the home of the Commerce Department.
"Like many organizations around the country, the Biden transition team will continue to do our work remotely," a transition spokesperson confirmed to CQ Roll Call in a statement last week. "While we have access to GSA space, the number of staff needed inside the office will be limited. Our team is following the direction of public health experts and medical professionals to develop a plan to keep our staff and their families safe."
That's a far cry from the approach of the current White House, where personnel on all levels from junior aides to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have routinely disregarded the advice of public health experts, particularly when it comes to wearing protective masks. Meadows himself has tested positive for COVID-19, as first reported by Bloomberg News.
Some functions may require transition personnel to operate in in-person settings, including as part of what are known as "beachhead teams" that begin working at federal departments and agencies while politically appointed employees from the outgoing Trump administration are preparing to leave. But much of the federal workforce continues to operate remotely
