Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania people named to Biden's transition team

President-elect Joe Biden has named several people with Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania ties to the agency review teams that will guide a transition before Jan. 20, when Biden is scheduled to take office.

Although they don’t have a say in the matter, political science experts in the region say Biden should tread slowly. Biden is poised to become the 46th president, although President Trump has yet to concede.

“The transition is problematic because the nation is divided. There’s this hyper-partisanship and polarization that the election hasn’t resolved,” said Joe DiSarro, a professor at Washington & Jefferson College who has studied presidential politics for five decades. “This is not what we need in a democracy.”

That said, there’s no harm in being patient as the court cases play out, he said.

“I fully believe that President-elect Biden is going to defeat Trump in the courts,” DiSarro said. “(But) there’s nothing wrong with dotting every i and crossing every t to make sure. We have a difficult situation. President Trump is not a good loser.”

DiSarro anticipates Trump eventually will concede.

“I think everybody would be well advised to move in a deliberate, methodical and very careful manner in order to ensure an orderly transition,” he said.

The Biden-Harris Transition Team announced members of its agency review teams that will help with the transfer of power.

Among those named to the teams are Geovette Washington, senior vice chancellor and chief legal officer of the University of Pittsburgh.

Washington could not be reached for comment. Pitt officials confirmed she is taking a leave of absence from her post.

Before joining Pitt, Washington worked in the U.S. Commerce Department with Patrick Gallagher, who is now the chancellor of Pitt.

She also worked as general counsel and senior policy adviser for the Office of Management and Budget at the White House during the Obama administration.

Washington will be the leader of a group of 20 people tapped by Biden to lead the transition at the Commerce Department.

A Carnegie Mellon University distinguished service professor, Christopher Goranson, will be part of the team leading the transition at the Department of Interior.

Goranson was a Presidential Innovation Fellow during the Obama administration, where he worked with the Department of Interior to launch park programs.

A Pennsylvania Democratic Party official, Billie McGrane, will be on the team assigned to the Environmental Protection Agency; J. Mahlet Mesfin, a humanities professor at the University of Pennsylvania, will be on the Office of Science and Technology Policy team; and Jim Brown, former chief of staff for Sen. Bob Casey Jr., will join former Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera on the team assigned to the Education Department.

“Pedro Rivera was an excellent secretary of education for Pennsylvania, and he is a tremendous choice by President-elect Biden to help prepare the education efforts of the next administration,” Gov. Tom Wolf said. “Pedro’s leadership was critical to rebuilding strong relationships to local school communities and improving the quality of education in our state.”

Rivera left the Wolf administration on Oct. 1 to become president of Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology.

In order to bridge the partisan divide in the country, it would be wise for Biden to name a Republican to a top position in his cabinet, DiSarro said.

He proposed Republican Sen. Pat Toomey to lead the Treasury Department, but admitted it was a long shot because it would jeopardize a GOP seat in the Senate.

Another possibility is appointing former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, who was the first secretary of homeland security, to a position, DiSarro said.

Ridge endorsed Biden and maintains respect among Republicans, DiSarro said.

“That might be a good way to make for a smoother transition, to try to bridge this partisanship gap that exists between Republicans and Democrats,” DiSarro said. “If you want to bring people together, you’ve got to share power.”

Philip Harold, a political science professor at Robert Morris University, said this was an “unprecedented” election and urged patience.

“This is a situation where one candidate is calling himself the president-elect, and the other is saying not so fast,” Harold said.

Regardless, transitions — especially when one political party cedes power to another — always have been chaotic.

“Truman was very unhappy with how Eisenhower treated him,” Harold said. “There’s always frictions. In this case, it’s a narrow election and there’s a new form of voting, so there’s a lot of question marks in people’s minds.”