Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

Practitioner Senior Fellow

TenpasVitaSEPT2020.pdf

Fast Facts

Director of the Katzmann Initiative and visiting fellow with Governance Studies, the Brookings Institution
Advisory board member, White House Transition Project
Fellow, Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service

Areas Of Expertise

The First Year
Governance
Elections
Leadership
Politics
The Presidency

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas is director of the Katzmann Initiative and a visiting fellow with Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, advisory board member of the White House Transition Project, and a fellow with the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service.

Tenpas is a scholar of the American presidency focusing on White House staffing, presidential transitions, and the intersection of politics and policy within the presidency (e.g., presidential reelection campaigns, trends in presidential travel, and polling). She has authored the book Presidents as Candidates: Inside the White House for the Presidential Campaign and published more than 60 articles, book chapters, and papers on these topics.

Tenpas earned her BA degree from Georgetown University and her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Virginia.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas News Feed

Dems Weigh How To Get Around An Impeachment Hold-Up To Confirming Biden’s Noms

Not having those positions filled “inhibits any kind of long-range planning,” said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a Brookings Institution expert and a senior research director for the White House Transition Project. And it burns time off the four-year clock that Biden faces before the next election to implement his policies.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Talking Points Memo

Time for a reset? U.S.-China relations during the Biden administration

Have major recent developments in China and the United States raised the possibility that the U.S.-China relationship, which has become increasingly strained over the last 10 years, might now move in new and more positive directions? The first panel discusses the November 2020 elections in the United States, providing an analysis of the election campaigns, the electoral process, the outcomes of the elections, and the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration. It will then examine the Fifth Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee in October, which discussed the foreign and domestic economic policies underlying China’s new five-year plan that will begin in 2021. The second panel analyzes the implications of these events for Chinese policy toward the U.S. and American policy toward China, assessing the prospects for both change and continuity.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Miller Center Presents

Congress should reform the law to ensure federal vacancies are filled

Serious flaws with the law that governs federal vacancies combined with Senate inaction have enabled Donald Trump to fill numerous critical jobs with acting officials indefinitely, a practice that has destabilized the work of federal agencies and undermined the role of the Senate.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas and Max Stier The Hill

In Picking Cabinet Members, Biden Turns To Obama Stalwarts

I did talk to Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, who has studied administrations back to President Reagan. She's with the University of Virginia's Miller Center. And she says, traditionally, the best source of employees is from previous administrations because, frankly, they know the ropes. And she also says that this bunch here is coming back to a completely different situation than their first go-around.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas NPR All Things Considered

How is Biden’s presidential transition going?

The Trump administration's delay in acknowledging the results of the 2020 election have left President-elect Joe Biden's transition team with even less than the usual 11 weeks to fill thousands of positions and be read in on the procedures and priorities of every government agency and department. Kathryn Dunn Tenpas looks at how the delayed start may affect the incoming Biden administration and their most urgent priorities, such as distribution of a COVID vaccine.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Brookings Podcast

Running the White House

Two panels explore how the people who run Washington, D.C., make it happen—and how they transition from one administration to the next.