Good Government

Nicole Ogrysko When it comes to the official time, there’s little that members of Congress, the Trump administration, and scholars and experts who study the topic, agree on. But the one area they do agree on is despite attempts by the Office of Personnel Management to accurately report on official time, no one knows how many federal employees use it, how much time they actually use and how much it all costs. Majority members of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by subcommitte... Read more

Congressman Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA), co-author of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), released the following statement in advance of today’s FITARA scorecard 6.0 hearing: “Chairman Meadows, Chairman Hurd, and Ranking Member Kelly, there have been a lot of changes to the FITARA scorecard since our last hearing in November. For our sixth FITARA Scorecard, we are emphasizing whether agency chief information officers (CIOs) are reporting to the agency’s head or depu... Read more

Today, U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Representative Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), along with over 30 House and Senate Democrats, called on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Neomi Rao and Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to explain how the Trump Administration plans to comply with federal law following its hasty decision to include a question on citizenship to the upcoming 2020 Decennial Census. Federal agencies seeki... Read more

Joe Davidson Even President Trump can have a decent thought now and then. Take his President’s Management Agenda, which outlines ideas to improve the federal government. The chapters cover general themes that any administration could endorse, such as “Improving Customer Experience with Federal Services,” “Getting Payments Right” and “Sharing Quality Services.” Decorated with color photos of happy citizens and dedicated federal workers, it conveys a “let’s do better” message with little hint of ... Read more

Rebecca Kheel A Democratic lawmaker said Thursday that he plans to introduce an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would block the Trump administration from using military bases to house children immigrating illegally who have been forcibly separated from their parents. "It's heartless and shameful that the Trump administration is ripping families apart and even considering keeping kids who are separated from their parents at the border on U.S. military bases," Rep. Gerry Connolly... Read more

Following recent press reports that the Trump administration is considering housing children who are separated from their families at the border on U.S. military bases, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) announced he would offer an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that prohibits this cruel policy. “It’s heartless and shameful that the Trump administration is ripping families apart and even considering keeping kids who are separated from their parents at the border on U.S. milit... Read more

John D. McKinnon President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to help accelerate long-delayed efforts to modernize the government’s patchwork of aging computer systems. The federal government spends as much as $90 billion a year on information technology, but much of that money is wasted on maintaining costly and duplicative legacy systems that are often 10 to 20 years out of date, according to critics on both sides of the aisle. One reason is a lack of funds for modernizing the gov... Read more

Chase Gunter President Donald Trump signed an executive order on May 15 aimed at empowering agency-level CIOs. Much of the order aligns with the wish-list of items federal CIO Suzette Kent laid out for her agency counterparts: authority to hire, direct-report relationships to agency leadership, increasing collaboration across agencies and increasing the visibility of CIOs within their agencies. The order directs agencies to make CIOs "voting members of bureau-level IT governance boards." It als... Read more

Congressman Gerald E. Connolly, Vice Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released the following statement on President Trump’s Executive Order on agency Chief Information Officers: “I commend the Administration for taking action to ensure that federal agencies continue to implement the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) and institute good IT acquisition practices. “One of FITARA’s foremost goals is to enhance the duties of agency Chi... Read more

Today, top Democrats from the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform Committees sent a letter to the Department of Justice renewing their February 8, 2018 request for documents related to AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner in light of new concerns raised by recent statements regarding President Donald Trump’s potential interference with the Department’s merger review process. The letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions from House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jer... Read more