Lurita Doan finally forced out at GSA

Lurita Doan, head of the General Services Administration, was forced to offer her resignation tonight, according to an e-mail she sent out this evening.

Doan was appointed in late May, 2006, becoming the first woman to serve as GSA Administrator. With 12,000 empioyees and a $20 billion annual budget, GSA has responsibilty for overseeing the thousands of building and properties owned by the federal government.

Doan became the subject of congressional scrutiny last year for allegedly using GSA to help Republican lawmakers win re-election. Doan denied the allegation, but her appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was disastrous. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel, called on Doan to resign over the allegations, but Doan refused to do so.

Here is the text of the e-mail that Doan sent out earlier this evening announcing her forced resignation:

"Dear Friends and Colleagues at GSA,

Early this evening I was asked to submit my resignation, and I have just done so. It has been a great privilege to serve with all of you and to serve our nation and a great President.

The past twenty-two months have been filled with accomplishments: together, we have regained our clean audit opinion, restored fiscal discipline, re-tooled our ability to respond to emergencies, rekindled entrepreneurial energies, reduced bureaucratic barriers to small companies to get a GSA Schedule, ignited a building boom at our nation’s ports of entries, boldly led the nation in an aggressive telework initiative, and improved employee morale so that we were selected as one of the best places to work in the Federal government.

These accomplishments are made even more enjoyable by the fact that there were lots of people who told us they could never be done.

Best of luck to all of you, it has been a true honor."

Update - Waxman issued this statement in reaction to Doan's resignation: “I know this decision was difficult for the White House and Lurita Doan, but it was the right thing to do. GSA should now be able to return to its nonpartisan tradition and its work as our government’s premier contracting agency."

Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), ranking member on Oversight and Government Reform, offered praise for Doan's tenure at GSA, although he noted that Doan's "management style was not everyone's cup of tea," and admitted that Doan suffered from "personality conflicts" at the agency.

Davis also criticized Special Counsel Scott Bloch, who found last year that Doan had violated the Hatch Act and urged President Bush to remove her from office. That law prohibits federal employees for using their offices for political activities.

“It would be a shame if this decision had anything to do with the hyperbolic and unfounded allegations of Scott Bloch and others who were after her just to claim another administration scalp," Davis said in a statement released by his office. "There's no doubt personality conflicts played a role. Certainly, her management style was not everyone's cup of tea.

Davis added:“But the administrator appears to have fallen victim to a bureaucratic culture that fears, rather than rewards, entrepreneurial spirit, innovation and bold leadership.

Lurita Doan's legacy at GSA should be viewed as a positive one, and her attempts to bring private sector best practices to the agency should be applauded.”