Lurita Doan Finally Forced Out At GSA

By John Bresnahan

(The Politico)  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."