While many eyes in the state are focused on the statewide elections on Oct. 24, the game of musical chairs for the 16 powerful key cabinet positions may not end until right before the new governor is inaugurated on Jan. 11.
As featured in the latest issue of Business Report, the race for those positions, which include the inspector general and State Police superintendent, generally starts right after a new governor is elected. Candidates on the campaign trail are usually reluctant to discuss the topic and this is sometimes by design.
“The last thing you want to do is starting thinking about the transition before election day,” says Timmy Teepell, the former chief of staff and key political architect for Gov. Bobby Jindal. “People will automatically start jockeying for jobs, and you end up taking your eye off the ball. People start pulling at the candidates from all kinds of angles.”
But with the current election cycle now being counted in weeks rather than months, sitting secretaries and contributors alike are starting to glance ahead and wonder what the next administration will look like. Who will be allowed to keep their job, and who will be looking for a new one?
It’s the campaign after the campaign, traditionally overseen by a transition committee and its chairman. A new governor usually has less than two months, between the runoff and inauguration day, to piece together a cabinet consisting of the state’s top government positions. They must carry out this task with no infrastructure, which is why the next governor will probably need somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million for a transition team to oversee the massive HR effort, the early January inauguration and the logistics for the first legislative session.
But it’s the recruiting, interviewing and hiring that makes the process so intense.
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