{"id":4942,"date":"2017-02-07T12:01:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T16:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=4942"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:57","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:57","slug":"talent-act-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/talent-act-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Buzzer-beater: \u201cTalent Act\u201d Becomes Law Minutes Before Inauguration"},"content":{"rendered":"

With all of the spectacle and controversy surrounding the recent inauguration of the incoming President, Donald Trump, it was easy to miss the passage of then-President Barack Obama\u2019s final law.\u00a0 Minutes before the inauguration, Obama signed the \u201cTested Ability to Leverage Exceptional National Talent Act of 2017\u201d<\/a> (Talent Act), codifying the existing Presidential Innovation Fellows program.\u00a0 But it almost didn\u2019t happen.
\nThe Presidential Innovation Fellows program<\/a> was founded in 2012.\u00a0 The program is designed to attract the nation\u2019s brightest technological minds and place them in various government positions in order to affect positive change.\u00a0 The official Fellows website<\/a> explains, \u201cThis highly-competitive program pairs talented, diverse technologists and innovators with top civil-servants and change-makers working at the highest levels of the federal government to tackle some our nation\u2019s biggest challenges.\u201d\u00a0 The incorporation of the Fellows alongside current workers is key, explains Sen. Mark Warner<\/a>, stating, \u201cThis program provides an opportunity for this country\u2019s top talent to bring their diverse and innovative experience to the federal workforce, without displacing change-makers within government.\u201d
\nFellows with backgrounds in fields like marketing, programming, design and cyber-security are chosen from various industries and are placed in numerous government agencies, including the Department of Energy, FDA, IRS, and NASA.\u00a0 The fellowship term can range from six months to two years, but is typically a one year commitment.\u00a0 Previous and current Fellows have worked on projects from the Healtcare.gov<\/a> website to the \u201ccancer moonshot,\u201d<\/a> headed by Vice President Biden, to digitizing the Smithsonian Institute\u2019s herbarium<\/a>.\u00a0 Future potential projects include: next generation air traffic control, expanding broadband access to underserved areas, and improving the foster care system.
\nOn August 17, 2015, President Obama signed an Executive Order<\/a>, making the Presidential Innovation Fellows program a permanent fixture of the federal government\u2014well, kind of permanent.\u00a0 As we have seen from the first few weeks of the Trump presidency, as well as throughout history, an Executive Order is easily removed by a new Executive Order, and new Presidents often undo the work of those before them.<\/p>\n

And thus began a mission by \u201ca band of technophiles from both sides of the political aisle\u201d<\/a> to pass legislation that would cement the Fellows program into law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 
\nBut the clock was ticking.\u00a0 The Talent Act failed to make it through the 114th Congress and had to be reintroduced in the current 115th.\u00a0 The bill, H.R.39, passed the House 386-17.\u00a0 Then, on Tuesday, January 17, three days before the inauguration, \u201cthe Senate passed an identical companion bill by unanimous consent.\u201d\u00a0 However, the physical bill did not arrive to the Senate until the afternoon of the 19th (just one day before the inauguration). \u00a0On Friday, January 20, the bill still lacked the President\u2019s signature.\u00a0 And so, on the morning of the inauguration, John Paul Farmer, one of the co-founders of the Fellows program, found himself scrambling to get the physical bill to the White House before President Obama was President no more.\u00a0 Miraculously, Farmer managed to coordinate an impromptu signing in the Capitol holding room, just steps away from the balcony where Obama would watch the inauguration. \u00a0And just like that, \u201cat 11:07 AM on January 20, 2017, the Talent Act became law.\u201d\u00a0 At 12:00 PM, the clock expired as Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States of America.\u00a0 Talk about a buzzer-beater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With all of the spectacle and controversy surrounding the recent inauguration of the incoming President, Donald Trump, it was easy to miss the passage of then-President Barack Obama\u2019s final law.\u00a0 Minutes before the inauguration, Obama signed the \u201cTested Ability to Leverage Exceptional National Talent Act of 2017\u201d (Talent Act), codifying the existing Presidential Innovation Fellows …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7122,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4942\/revisions\/7122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}