The transition crisis Congress feared didn’t materialize

Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election handicapped Joe Biden’s presidential transition so badly that it spooked Congress into taking action. But this year’s quick and decisive results mean the Trump-proofing they did for the process won’t be put to the test.

Four years ago, Trump’s election defiance triggered a broader national crisis and prevented Biden’s transition team from accessing federal funding and information for several weeks, a holdup that hampered the new administration’s readiness on national security and tackling the then-raging Covid-19 pandemic.

Lawmakers believe they solved at least part of the problem two years later: Instead of leaving the General Services Administration, an obscure federal agency that manages the government’s real estate, in charge of declaring whether and when to share resources with the winner's transition team, multiple candidates can now get parallel access during a contested election.

Had the race dragged for days or weeks past Election Day as happened in 2020 and 2000, Trump and Kamala Harris could have both prepared to be the next commander-in-chief while courts and state legislatures hashed out the votes. The new law gave multiple transition teams the ability to send “landing teams” to agencies across the government, get money to set up offices and receive security briefings until a winner is declared.

Congress' 2022 fix also created new vulnerabilities and left a lot of things unaddressed should there be another contested election in the future. An eventual election loser could access extremely sensitive government intel, for example, and other parts of the government could still obstruct the transfer of power.

As Trump fought the 2020 election results, individual agencies and officials refused to meet with and share information with the Biden team — even after the GSA gave them a green light to do so. And some election experts argue there’s nothing much Congress can do.

One additional curveball: Trump’s team has  not yet signed agreements to receive federal funding for their transition — nor are they bound by the usual ethics and financial transparency rules that come with them.