Blogger roundtables are one of the things that Michael Chertoff did in his last two years of office as DHS Secretary, with great effectiveness. At the first one he did, you could tell he wasn’t sure whether this was a great use of his time, but his public affairs team encouraged him to do it and he did. The result was a powerful exchange of ideas and insights from persons outside the department that were telling him what issues were important and what were not. With each of the blogger sessions he held, he knew he was going to be pushed by persons critical of the department who were often well-informed on particular actions and policies, as well as those probably more friendly to his way of seeing the world and how DHS should operate in it. By the end of his time in office, Chertoff would admit that those exchanges provided him a great deal of insight on what people were thinking outside of DHS’ circle that he otherwise would not have had.

That’s the thing about engaging critics, as well as those outside of your immediate (and often reinforced) circle of handlers – you just might find that their criticism has more value than you thought.

I hope the next DHS Secretary will embrace the Chertoff model in engaging bloggers as well as the model used by the Ridge and Chertoff teams when it comes to interacting with the media.

 

Spend some time with Congress

When your approval rating is lower than that of Richard Nixon’s at the point of his resignation following Watergate, it’s hard to make a case in your favor, but that’s what I hope the next DHS Secretary will do in terms of Congress. Yes, Congress is incompetent and dysfunctional and is an absolute nightmare distraction, with its 120+ committees having oversight on the department’s functions, but it is a necessary partner to DHS’ mission.

New leadership has taken hold of two of the most important Congressional committees with DHS jurisdiction. With Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) taking over the Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) now chairing the House Homeland Security Committee, there is new leadership in the biggest chairs on the Hill on homeland issues. This is a chance for the new secretary to build critical stakeholders for the department’s interests across the board while building their own political capital.

On hot button issues like immigration reform, the new secretary will have to move to the front of the bus very quickly, given DHS’ central role in securing the border and legalizing new American citizens. That person is also going to have to take a driver’s seat on additional hot button issues such as cyber security, while maintaining an active leadership presence on counterterrorism efforts, Mother Nature’s wrath and all of the other unforeseen threats and disasters that make for bad days in America.