The presidential transition of Bill Clinton began when he won the United States presidential election on November 3, 1992, and became the president-elect. Clinton was formally elected by the Electoral College on December 14, 1992. The results were certified by a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1993, and the transition ended when Clinton was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1993.
Pre-election developments
Clinton's presidential campaign launched an effort to plan for a prospective presidential transition in August 1992. The effort was known as the "Clinton-Gore Pre-Transition Planning Foundation" or the "Clinton–Gore Presidential Transition Planning Foundation". Clinton chose to have the effort be headed by his campaign chair Mickey Kantor. Businessman Gerald Stern was named as the coordinator of the planning group on September 24, 1992, heading its day-to-day operations. Assisting him was lawyer John Hart. Other members of the team included Warren Christopher, Henry Cisneros, Vernon Jordan, and Madeleine Kunin. The team was headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, in an office suite in a building only blocks away from the campaign's headquarters. Barry Carter oversaw the national security aspects of the transition planning. The team collected vast amounts of research on past presidential transitions, and compiled a large briefing books outlining a strategy for a potential transition. By late-October, the transition effort had a full-time staff of between ten and fifteen people. By late-October, the team had also received roughly 2,000 inquiries from job seekers in their prospective presidential administration. Despite the early start, few decisions about hires for Clinton's administration were outlined until after the election.
Planning for the logistics of the potential transition was overseen by John P. Hart. The transition team had already, in the weeks before the election, begun preparing office space in downtown Washington, D.C. to house part of the prospective post-election transition's staff if Clinton or another candidate were to unseat him in the election.
On October 6, 1992, President George H. W. Bush signed an appropriation that would provide $5 million to a prospective transition. If Clinton or another candidate were to win, the appropriation would give the president-elect's transition team $3.5 million, and give $1.5 million to Bush's administration to aid them in the transition. This was in accordance with a 1988 increase in funding for presidential transitions to these amounts.
Official transition
After Clinton defeated Bush in the election, both Bush and Clinton publicly proclaimed their desire for a smooth transition between their administrations.
In addition to transitioning into the presidency, Clinton had to transition out of the Arkansas governorship. The last time that a sitting governor had transitioned into the presidency had been Franklin D. Roosevelt after the 1932 United States presidential election. Clinton resigned from his governorship on December 12, 1992.
Following the election, after tensions between Kantor and Clinton's top campaign staff had arisen, Kantor was dismissed as head of the transition effort. On November 6, Warren Christopher was named as the transition director and Vernon Jordan was named to serve as the chairman of the transition's board, making them co-leaders of the transition. Bush named Andrew Card to head the Bush administration's role in the transition.
On November 13, Clinton named several dozen other members of his transition team. The members he named were noted by The New York Times to have, "diversity in age, sex and ethnic background". Robert Reich was named to lead the economic policy team, and Sandy Berger was named to lead the foreign policy team. Clinton's transition team largely consisted of individuals that had worked on his presidential campaign.
On November 13, Clinton outlined ethics guidelines for his transition staff. These guidelines would forbid any staff or volunteers from, in the first six months of the Clinton administration, lobbying the government in areas they had worked on during the transition. The ethics guidelines also required transition workers to file detailed financial disclosure forms, and forbid them from doing any work on the transition that appeared to be a conflict of interest. These ethics guidelines received praise from the groups Common Cause and Public Citizen.
In mid-November, the Little Rock operations of the transition moved their offices to a new building.