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Office of the 11th Congressional District of Virginia
Formerly the Office of Representative Gerry Connolly
The Washington, D.C., office and the district office of former Representative Connolly will continue to serve the people of the 11th Congressional District of Virginia under the supervision of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. Representative Connolly passed away on May 21, 2025. See Press Release
Issa-Connolly Federal IT Reform Passes House
Washington, DC,
June 14, 2013
Issa-Connolly Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) will fundamentally reform the procurement management process the federal government uses to purchase IT products and services. Read more.
Today the House of Representatives adopted bipartisan legislation offered by Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (CA) and Subcommittee on Government Operations Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (VA) that fundamentally reforms the procurement management process the federal government uses to purchase more than $80 billion in IT products and services annually. The Issa-Connolly Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) will streamline and strengthen the federal IT acquisition process and promote the adoption of best practices from the technology community. This legislation will elevate and empower agency CIOs with authority over, and accountability for, effectively managing the IT portfolio. The legislation will also empower agencies to eliminate duplicative and wasteful IT contracts that have proliferated across the federal government. “There are more than 250 identified CIOs in the federal government, yet none possess the necessary authority to effectively manage IT investments. This has resulted in duplicative and wasteful IT spending, with taxpayers forced to foot the bill for massive IT program failures that ring up staggeringly high costs, but exhibit astonishingly poor performance,” Connolly said. In addition to improving how the government procures IT, the FITARA legislation would also enhance how the government deploys these tools. The legislation would accelerate data center optimization to achieve significant cost-savings, as recommended by the U.S. Government Accountability Office; provide agencies with flexibility to leverage efficient cloud services; and strengthen the accountability and transparency of federal IT programs. If enacted, 80 percent of the approximately $80 billion annual federal IT investments would be required to be posted on the public IT Dashboard, compared to the 50 percent coverage that exists today. “Mission-critical IT investment failures not only waste taxpayer dollars, but they jeopardize our Nation’s safety, security, and economy. Our bipartisan legislation will end a status quo that is both unacceptable and unsustainable; creating an efficient and effective federal IT procurement system that best serves agencies, industry, and most importantly, the American taxpayer.” This legislation has been endorsed by IT industry leaders such as the Professional Services Council (PSC), Amazon, and VMware.
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