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Christie's new challenge: Running Trump transition team

As a presidential candidate, Gov. Christie often told voters they should have one question for Donald Trump. "I don't care which one of the things he talks about, just ask him: How?" the governor said while campaigning in New Hampshire. "I can answer how, because I've done it."

As a presidential candidate, Gov. Christie often told voters they should have one question for Donald Trump.

"I don't care which one of the things he talks about, just ask him: How?" the governor said while campaigning in New Hampshire. "I can answer how, because I've done it."

Christie may now be tasked with answering that question - for a potential President Trump.

Last week, Trump named Christie his transition team chairman, a role that the governor said carried "the responsibility of putting together a plan that will carry his first 200 days in office" and preparing to fill 4,000 federal jobs, in the event the billionaire businessman is elected president.

Christie, who until February was juggling the demands of his duties at home with his presidential campaign, told reporters he couldn't predict "the exact amount of time" his new role would require, "but I've always been able to manage my time well." He said the effort would also rely on volunteers.

For a transition team, preparing to take over the federal government is a "phenomenally complex endeavor," said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that advocates for better transition preparations. "Doing it right is critical to any candidate's ability to achieve what they promised on the campaign trail."

During his campaign, Christie disagreed with a number of Trump's positions, including calls to build a border wall with Mexico and to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Despite those differences, Christie defended his decision to endorse Trump in February, saying afterward that "you're the only person you agree with 100 percent of the time," and declaring Trump the best candidate to take on Hillary Clinton.

In planning a White House transition, "the president is the one ultimately who's going to be in charge," said former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who led 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's transition effort. "Part of the duty of the transition chair is to carry out the commitments of the candidate."

The chair also has a role in prioritizing, Leavitt said, with "some things that happen on day 1, day 10, day 100."

The Romney transition team developed plans to implement the candidate's promises, such as the Keystone Pipeline - delineating what actions federal departments would need to take to move the project forward, Leavitt said.

"In essence, what we created was a miniature federal government," said Leavitt, who is also a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator and Health and Human Services secretary. He began work on the transition in May 2012.

By the election, about 600 people were involved with the project, many of them volunteers, Leavitt said.

The chairman decides how to steer that effort. "The way I did it might be different than what Gov. Christie will do, and the person who does the Clinton transition," Leavitt said.

Transition planning has commanded more attention since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "We recognized the vulnerability of a government when you're changing leaders," said Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the nonpartisan White House Transition Project, which provides information to incoming staffs, and a retired professor of political science at Towson University.

In 2008, even before President Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain had been nominated by their parties, their representatives were called in to meet with President George W. Bush's staff, said Kumar, who wrote a book on the transition. By the time of Obama's election in November, people working on his transition had received national security clearances.

Since 2008, Congress has passed legislation making transition planning "an expectation of candidacy," Leavitt said. The government gave office space to Romney's team in September 2012.

This year, candidates will get office space on Pennsylvania Avenue for transition planning once they are nominated by their parties, Kumar said. Outgoing transition efforts also have been formalized to start earlier; Obama this month signed an executive order requiring administration officials to start meeting six months before a presidential election to coordinate transition activities.

Announcing a chairman, though, is a choice. "In Trump's case, he wants to make sure that people know that he thinks governing is important," Kumar said. Christie's selection is "prominent, whereas it was behind the velvet curtain in earlier administrations."

Key first steps of transition planning include forming a team. Since government support isn't available until later, a campaign may need to raise money for transition efforts, Leavitt said.

The first 200 days of a president's term - the period Christie said he would be planning for - is "the most critical period" of the administration, Leavitt said. "Relationships are created, major issues are framed, and initiatives are launched."

Obama's first bill signings included equal-pay legislation - the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act - and an expansion of publicly funded health insurance for children.

To what extent Christie would shape the start of a Trump presidency isn't clear. "He could have someone else trying to identify the most important things in the first 200 days," said former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, who worked on homeland security for Romney's transition team. "You have to have people in place more than anything else."

While the role will be another draw on the time of a governor who traveled outside New Jersey for the majority of days last year, "as opposed to running for president, he can control this one," Kean said.

"He's trying to keep his foot in the national level," Kean said. "I think he may have gotten himself where he has the best of both possible worlds, as far as he's concerned."

mhanna@phillynews.com

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