[dopeboy]

I used to work at the White House in the Presidential Personnel Office where I worked on an internal staffing tool to help fill political appointed positions across government. As we poured hours and contracting dollars into, we wondered aloud many times whether our work would go on into the next administration. The tool and the workflow behind it is pretty standard so there shouldn't be any reason why not. The general consensus was that if the next administration is a Democratic one, our work had a chance of staying alive.

One thing not mentioned in the article - everything archived by NARA ends up going to Obama's official library. I'm curious if and how they're going to make that accessible to the public.

[rebootthesystem]

I worry about polarization to such an extent that administration N might spend millions of dollars to develop tools useful for the running of the nation and, upon transition, these tools are negated to administration M almost purely on an ideological bases.

In other words, we are not supposed to be developing software and tools at the White House, or anywhere else, to support a particular political party but rather in support of our nation.

Not saying this is what you have done. I just have a sense that if Trump wins those not sympathetic with the right might cripple the infrastructure that was developed or let it rot and become useless. This isn't good for anyone.

[r_smart]

I took the above content to mean that a Democratic president would already have ties to the Whitehouse, and maybe be familiar w/the tool already, hence more comfortable with it and willing to keep using. It didn't read to me like an ideological motivation. Rather it's like when companies get a new CEO they come in and change everything and move the company headquarters to be closer to their house. Or when many programmers first start working with a new codebase. "What the hell? That last guy had no idea what he was doing!"

[harryh]

Do you have any evidence to support your worry? It seems to me that it's mostly unfounded. Nothing like what you describe has ever happened in the past.

[nothrabannosir]

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-European-parliament-move-...

Most of the Parliament would like to move the seat to Brussels because most other European institutions (notably the Commission) are there, but France would not agree to give up the Strasbourg seat.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/future-eu/news/auditors-put...

Every year, the European Parliament meets for 12 four-day part-sessions in Strasbourg and six additional two-day part-sessions in Brussels.

Roughly €114 million is spent every year to move the European Parliament between its Brussels and Strasbourg seats every month, according to a new assessment by the European Court of Auditors. EurActiv Germany reports.

:(

[arrrg]

That’s not political polarization, that’s nation states being egoistical dicks (as they frequently are).

At any rate, it's completely unrelated to the topic at hand and not remotely an example of anything that was discussed.

[nothrabannosir]

It's politicians being petty to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payer money wasted per year. "Not remotely an example of anything that was discussed?" It may not be obvious from the outside, but the feeling for us tax payers is very similar. These are not just random nation states; they're supposed to be team members, and work together. But they'd rather score points with their own little sub groups by not yielding to the "other guys", thereby disadvantaging everyone. Sound familiar?

[imron]

Well, there was that time when the outgoing administration removed the 'W' keys from many of the keyboards and did other damage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/12/us/white-house-vandalized-...

Given the animosity of the Democrats towards Trump, if Trump wins, I would say there is a non-zero chance that some petty vandalism will also likely occur.

[mirimir]

Maybe the Ws were just mementos. I wonder whether any of them have shown up on eBay.

[heartbreak]

You should watch the TV show The West Wing.

[Broken_Hippo]

Someone would have to start tracking this stuff to have proper evidence: I'm not sure the studies have been done.

However, I don't think it is unfounded. For some years we've had a congress set on refusing things Obama is for - even if they are wanted by the people. They are presently intent on appealing so-called 'Obamacare' instead of sitting down and working on it to make it better. They seem to have lost the ability to, you know, make compromises. They seem bent on un-doing anything that the other party has done.

These are the same folks that will legislate things so that they look good, but then fail to fund it - basically rendering it useless. And i'm pretty sure things like this happen at city and state levels as well. It certainly appears so at times, anyway.

[harryh]

There is a big difference between gridlock due to legitimate political disagreements(1) and the dumping of useful apolitical software just because it happened to be written when the other party was in power.

1. It's interesting that you chose to use Obamacare as something that is "wanted by the people" when a majority of Americans disapprove of the law. http://www.people-press.org/2016/04/27/more-americans-disapp...

[toomuchtodo]

What was the name of the internal staffing tool?