Reading Room Document

Authority of the General Services Administration to Provide Assistance to Transition Teams of Two Presidential Candidates

The Presidential Transition Act of 1963, with certain limited exceptions, authorizes the Administrator of the General Services Administration to provide transition assistance only for those services and facilities necessary to assist the transition of the "President-elect" and the "Vice-President-elect," as those terms are defined in the Act. Since there cannot be more than one "President-elect" and one "Vice-President-elect" under the Act, the Act does not authorize the Administrator to provide transition assistance to the transition teams of more than one presidential candidate. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/19311/download.

November 28, 2000