Subject: Re: Biden & Obama staff in the transition and policy working group team leads
From: "Cassandra Butts" <[email-masked]>
To: "John Podesta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:29:40 -0400

We reached out to Heather as we were pulling together the working groups and
she was fine with the choices at that time.

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 6:23 PM, John Podesta <[email-masked]>wrote:

> seems fine, although we should do a check in with Heather, which I can
> do, since i need to talk to her about something else.
>
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 11:35 PM, Cassandra Butts
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > John,
> >
> > There was some confusion as to whether the Biden Senate staff could join
> the
> > transition in a role other than detailees. After talking to Bob, we've
> > concluded that the Obama and Biden staff can work on the transition and
> > continue to be payed by the Senate as long as they have the permission of
> > their boss and are working on issues related to their senate
> > responsibilities. This was the working assumption for the Obama staff,
> and
> > we have communicated this to the Biden staff.
> >
> > Also, I need your input on staffing the team lead positions on the policy
> > working groups post-election. Linda, Jeanne, Alex and Tino have all
> > expressed an interest in continuing in their lead roles, but none are
> > available to play their roles full time during the course of the
> transition.
> > Between Alex and Tino, they can provide combined full-time coverage for
> the
> > position, and it seems very natural to allow them to continue in their
> > current role as co-leads. Jeanne can be in town on Wednesday, Thursday
> and
> > Friday, but will be teaching in Austin on Monday and Tuesday. Sen.
> Daschle
> > and Jeanne have recommended that Mark Childress cover the time that
> Jeanne
> > isn't available, but he will need to deregister as a federally lobbyist
> > before he can be identified in a lead role for the transition. Finally,
> > Linda is available but can not do full-time duty. I propose that she
> split
> > the lead role with Robert Gordon. One value in keeping our existing
> working
> > group leads post-election is that none will require salaries for the
> > transition, but there is a question as to whether we will pay for their
> > travel related to their work for the transition.
> >
> > Best,
> > Cassandra
> >
>