Agenda Items for Biden’s 98th, 99th, and 100th Days in Office
Newsletter 80: There’s low-hanging fruit left to be picked
Don’t miss our panel “Rebuilding After Trump: Biden’s First 100 Hundred Days,” tonight at 5pm ET. The American Prospect’s David Dayen will moderate a conversation between Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project, Jennifer Epps-Addison of the Center for Popular Democracy, and Solana Rice of Liberation in a Generation on what the Biden administration has accomplished and where it goes from here. RSVP here.
Governance:
In just 100 days, the Biden administration has already made significant strides towards resolving the country’s immediate public health and economic crises. At the same time, it has laid the groundwork to tackle even more protracted problems like racial injustice and climate change. But, even as the Biden administration targets some of the country’s toughest issues, it is leaving much lower-hanging fruit unpicked. Before he crosses the 100 day threshold this Friday, Biden should take the following simple steps to get his administration working more fully and effectively towards his goals.
Finish firing Trump holdovers. As our Henry Burke details in a new blog, Trump appointees continue to hold positions both large and small throughout the Biden administration. Some of these positions, like those that Sebastian Gorka and Darren Beattie hold on advisory boards, have relatively little power. Nonetheless, leaving in place Trump loyalists who have openly espoused hateful, racist views is an affront. Biden should remove them without delay.
For other positions, however, the danger is not just symbolic. Trump appointees remain in roles of considerable consequence like at the top of the Internal Revenue Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Student Aid, and United States Attorneys’ offices across the country. Several are already using their continued tenure in power to inflict damage. See, for example, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Blake Paulson who, in recent weeks, has issued yet another national trust charter for a fintech company and lobbied Congress not to repeal the agency’s True Lender Rule which allows payday lenders to avoid state interest rate caps.
Even where Trump holdovers haven’t actively caused problems (at least that we know of yet), their continued hold on power represents a missed opportunity to use these positions more effectively. Consider, for instance, the United States Attorneys’ offices across the country that could be taking steps to implement reform right now but, instead, remain in the hands of Trump appointees’ right hand assistants. Or, look at the Federal Student Aid office in the Education Department which, as our Ella Fanger and Zena Wolf explain, could be targeting abusive for-profit colleges.
Reverse, drop, or settle the court cases leftover from Trump. We know that the Trump administration had no respect for the law and no scruples about bending it to suit its needs. That knowledge should be enough to force Biden’s Department of Justice to look at all of the litigation positions it inherited from the Trump administration with suspicion. Not only does that not appear to be the case, but DOJ has actually repeatedly adopted those positions. Since taking power, the Biden administration has joined its predecessor in arguing for expanded police power, stricter restrictions on immigrants’ access to green cards, a narrower interpretation of the Voting Rights Act, and more. And while it has not yet taken an official position in the cases where congressional plaintiffs are seeking Trump’s tax returns and testimony from Don McGahn, it has not dropped the Trump administration’s posture of obstruction. There is no reason the Biden administration should be carrying these straightforward cases and Trump’s bad faith positions in them past the first 100 days.
Commit to greater transparency. When compared to the admittedly low standard of past administrations, Biden has excelled at keeping corporate influence out of his executive branch. But he is still a far cry from having shut it out entirely. So long as that remains the case, he will have to do more to assure the public that his appointees’ enduring ties to corporate America are not tilting policy in its favor.
He can start by requiring that political appointees release ethics agreements like their Senate-confirmed counterparts, as we, alongside 13 other groups, called on Biden to do last week. As it stands, countless senior officials with immense power over policy are not required to offer any public information about the steps they are taking to ensure that conflicts of interest do not poison the policymaking process. That includes, for example, White House Advisor Steve Ricchetti, whose brother Jeff is lobbying the executive branch, including the Executive Office of the President, on behalf of healthcare companies. Making this commitment is not just a matter of good governance but a politically prudent step. Republican lawmakers and right wing media are eagerly working to paint the Biden administration as corrupt. Secrecy around senior officials’ conflicts of interest will only fuel these efforts.
Transition:
As Biden and his team move more decisively from the work of building an administration to that of governing, the importance of personnel is no longer hypothetical. We are seeing in real time the consequences of both good and bad picks. In the ongoing fight over intellectual property rights for the Covid-19 vaccine, for example, it would appear that United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai is using her critical position to push for greater access. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for other relevant figures, like Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. This fight, which also encompasses lesser figures in the Commerce Department, officials from the national security apparatus, and health policy leaders, is a lesson in the importance of being attentive to every appointment, even non-obvious ones.
The same can be said for the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration’s perplexing delay in releasing an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for workplace safety during the pandemic. After the Trump administration failed to safeguard workers’ with an ETS for the first ten months of the pandemic, the Biden administration promised to release one expeditiously, setting a deadline of March 15. Outside observers and advocates had little reason to worry that it would miss the deadline, especially as Biden continued to name champions of workers’ rights for positions throughout the Department of Labor. But miss it they did, by almost a month and a half. Why? It’s not clear, but we had worried last week that White House Labor Advisor Seth Harris, an intellectual architect of California’s disastrous prop 22 and former lawyer for union-busting law firm Denton’s, might have had something to do with it.
Independent Agencies
Biden’s sole confirmed independent agency official, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler is continuing his hiring spree. Unfortunately, his most recent choice, for the exceptionally powerful role of Director of Enforcement, was cause for alarm, not praise. Gensler tapped Alex Oh, a partner at the BigLaw firm Paul Weiss who has devoted over two decades to “reinforcing a corrupt status quo in corporate America, in which the largest companies systematically evade democratic accountability.” As our Jeff Hauser said in a statement released shortly after the announcement, “Gary Gensler can and must do vastly better if he is to return the SEC to the vigorous law enforcement agency it has not been since the 1970s.”
Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
Place Human Lives Over Pharma's Property Rights
The Longer Trump’s Acting Comptroller Stays, The More Damage He’ll Do
Questions for Joe Biden and Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice
Merrick Garland: A Potential Wolf in Sheep's Clothing for Criminal Justice Advocates
Delaware Connections Run Deep As DuPont Family's Darla Pomeroy Heads To Treasury
Wall Street Lawyer Leading Wall Street Oversight Unsettles Allies Of Gensler
Watchdog Calls For Investigation Into White House's Delay On Covid-19 Workplace Safety Standards
Education Department Must Rein In For-Profit College Industry Mergers And Reclassifications
Watchdog Grades Biden A "B-" On Preventing Corporate Capture Of Executive Branch
100 Days In and Biden Still has Trump Holdovers Left to Fire
The Role Of Corporations In Influencing Biden's Administration
Revolving Door Watchdog Gives Biden White House 'B-' on Corporate Capture in First 100 Days
The Troubling Business Connections of Biden's Asia Advisor Kurt Campbell
Biden gets B- from progressive think tank on hiring industry insiders
Who Is Alex Oh? 6 Things To Know About SEC's New Enforcer
Nina Turner's Dark Money Pledge Sparks Accusation Of Hypocrisy
Delay in naming OCC leader could hurt Democrats’ agenda
Takeaways from tech giants’ latest lobbying disclosures
Liberals aim to limit sway of Biden DOJ official with Big Tech ties