From Democrats to pastors, Republican Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner has lined up a diverse group of people to help his transition into office.

One day after winning the Illinois governor’s race, Rauner began announcing picks for his transition team.

Rauner’s running mate Lt. Gov.-elect Evelyn Sanguinetti leads the team. Dozens of other advisors have been appointed, including former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, U.S. Representative Aaron Schock and former SIU President Glenn Poshard.

Daley served as White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama from January 2011 to January 2012, and is confident in Rauner and the team he picked.

“Bruce’s love for Illinois and his competitive drive can make it great once again, the second to none,” Daley said.

Aaron Schock is the U.S. representative for Illinois’ 118th Congressional District and has held this office since 2009. He said a transition team is an interim cabinet that helps the governor-elect make effective administrative and policy changes.

“It is an advisory board, not a governing board,” Schock said. “The transition team only exists while the state government is in transition.”

Schock said he is satisfied with Rauner’s picks and will make himself available to the governor-elect in any way he needs.

“He’s assembled a balanced, bipartisan transition team of effective leaders who are working together to make policy and staffing recommendations that will get the Illinois economy back on track,” Schock said. “The goal is to help Governor Rauner prepare to lead the entire Illinois administration, which includes every state department and commission.”

Glenn Poshard, a former U.S. and state represenative, said Rauner called him the day after the election and asked if he would be interested in joining the team.

“He felt that my background, having served at the state and federal levels of government, my background in education, economic development, some of these other areas, would serve him well on the transition team,” Poshard said. “I told him I would be happy to do whatever I could to get him started and wished him much success.”

Although it will be up to Rauner what issues the team will focus on, Poshard said he hopes to advise Rauner on education-related issues. Poshard, a former educator who has been with SIU for more than 40 years, said education and funding for education is one of the biggest issues that concerns him.

“My major issues are trying to make sure that we stabilize the state funding for education,” he said.

Poshard said students coming from wealthy areas often have an advantage for getting a good education, but he will make it his responsibility to balance these opportunities for all students. He said he also wants to advise Rauner on economic and job-related issues, and said he will focus on making sure Illinois gets the infrastructure funds it needs to create to jobs.

Poshard said he plans on cooperating with Rauner to make sure the transition team is successful.

“Well, I think every transition team can be effective,” Poshard said. “I’ve worked with transition teams before and what you look for are people who have good ideas, who have experience and knowledge in certain areas that you can take their ideas, their energy and I think the transition team is an important part of having a new administration off and running.”

Rauner said a diverse team is important for getting Illinois back on the right track.

“Well, it’s all about tapping into the great resources of the people of Illinois,” Rauner said “We want the smartest, most accomplished leaders in the state to help be a part of our government administration. We also want to tap into the networks of people who know other people who are leaders.”

Through expertise, knowledge and networking, Rauner said his team will help him find solutions for the state’s issues.

“We want experts in finance, and in pensions, and in healthcare and in operations and technology,” Rauner said. “We want the most talented people in Illinois to come forward and volunteer and join the administration so we can become the best run state in America.”

Republican Terri Bryant was elected state representative for Illinois’ 115th District on Nov. 4. She said the voters sent the Republican Party a clear message with Rauner’s win. She said his background will also help his transition to governor.

“He is a very successful business man,” Bryant said. “He has the right idea when it comes to cutting taxes. Therefore you’re basically bringing business into the state.”

Bryant also said the diversity of Rauner’s transition team reflects his openness to compromise.

“I think he’s made a very broad and definitely deep transition team, and it looks like he’s reached across the aisle so I would hope that going that extra mile to include individuals in both parties would indicate he’s willing to reach out and be open-minded,” Bryant said.

Rauner is not the first elected official to create a transition team before taking office.

David Yepsen, the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, said new administrations do this often.

“I think it’s pretty common, in fact, when you get a new administration, new president, new governor, to have a group of people who come in and help you find permanent staff to help you identify the issues in the department,” Yepsen said. “There are literally hundreds of positions that a governor has to fill and so you’ve got to start at the top with good people to get that done.”

John Jackson, a political scientist, said forming a transition team has been the standard procedure for new administrations for years.

“It’s always done,” Jackson said. “It’s established protocol going back for many years and it’s also kind of a state-level model of what the presidential candidates do if they’re elected president.”

Yepsen said it’s important for newly-elected officials to form diverse transition teams.

Jackson, a visiting SIU professor, also said the team’s diversity will be good for Rauner’s administration.

“We are a very large and diverse state and these people present some of that diversity, not all of it, but it’s a desirable quality to have a group like this represent a number of different interests,” Jackson said.