Lawmaker warns of administration’s ‘fetishization’ of Silicon Valley startups

Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., warned of the Trump administration's 'fetishization' of Silicon Valley startups and announced plans to scrutinize contracting practices, revive federal IT oversight, and push for AI policy if Democrats retake the House in the midterms.

Lawmaker warns of administration’s ‘fetishization’ of Silicon Valley startups Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., discussed his plans to scrutinize Trump-era contracting practices, revive federal IT oversight and push for AI policy. Rep. James Walkinshaw has big plans for the federal government’s sprawling tech stack, including scrutinizing the contracting practices of the current administration. In an extensive sit-down interview with Nextgov/FCW and other GovExec reporters, the Democratic congressman from Virginia said that he wants to help rebuild the federal government’s capacity after sweeping disruption https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2026/05/doge-about-making-government-services-easier-access-its-head-says/413680/?oref=ng-topic-lander-featured-river carried out by the Department of Government Efficiency — from strengthening civil service protections and tech talent pipelines to tightening cybersecurity guardrails on AI and reviving oversight tools like the FITARA scorecard and FedRAMP. “I’m starting to talk to my colleagues about a comprehensive and robust agenda to rebuild the capacity of the federal government, an American capacity agenda, for lack of a better term,” he said in the Monday interview. “We’re obviously in this post-DOGE era, where, in my view, a lot of damage has been done, 300,000 federal workers lost,” he said, adding that many of the staff lost at offices across the federal enterprise were those experienced with technology and understood how their agencies worked. His plan, he added, is focused around three pillars — talent, technology and delivery — that center on rebuilding a battered federal workforce, speeding secure AI and tech modernization, and pushing agencies to measure success by whether people actually receive services and mission tools on time, not just whether they satisfy oversight checklists. Contractor oversight Walkinshaw said that if Democrats take the House majority in this year’s midterms, there will be “heavy scrutiny of the contracting practices” of the current Trump administration. Contracts with the Defense and Homeland Security departments would fall under that purview, he said. So too would any contractors who donated to the White House ballroom renovation and other ancillary projects pushed by the Trump administration, he added. “Those companies that continued to do things by the book, the way that they did before this administration, maybe they lost some business in the last couple years, but they're going to be happy that they continued to do things by the book,” Walkinshaw said. “Those that played by the Trump rules … those companies and the contracts they received are going to face a lot of scrutiny.” Watchdog groups and Democrats have raised questions of late about whether companies with federal business interests are helping bankroll Trump-backed projects while also receiving or seeking government work. The White House ballroom project has become a particular flashpoint https://www.citizen.org/news/corporate-donors-to-trumps-white-house-ballroom-have-received-50-billion-in-government-contracts-since-the-east-wing-was-demolished/ , after several reports and analyses tied some donors to major federal contractors and raised concerns about donor anonymity, conflict-of-interest safeguards and the use of public funds. On defense contracting, Walkinshaw also took aim at what he called the Trump administration’s “fetishization” of Silicon Valley firms, saying he fears the current White House has leaned too much into startup culture to solve defense tech problems that also require sustained oversight, procurement standards and basic IT management. “I do worry that with this administration, especially, there might be too much of a fetishization of a certain kind of company, the Silicon Valley-based startup,” he said. The comments reflect a broader debate amid the Trump 2.0 push to swiftly bring more commercial technology firms into national security work, particularly as both defense and civilian agencies look to buy software, AI tools and other evolving technologies more quickly. Supporters have seen that shift as a necessary challenge to slow-moving acquisition systems and legacy prime contractors. Critics, however, warn that speed and startup culture are not substitutes https://www.nextgov.com/modernization/2025/04/house-lawmakers-diverge-doge-point-bipartisanship-federal-tech/404933/ for procurement safeguards, cybersecurity requirements, long-term maintenance and oversight of how those tools are actually used. Cybersecurity Walkinshaw noted that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stands as a prime example of the Trump administration making sweeping cuts and then later having to reverse course. The agency’s workforce has been significantly cut over the past year under efficiency-driven efforts and other prevailing GOP misgivings about the cyberdefense shop. CISA acting director Nick Andersen recently said the agency intends to hire around 330 people in the coming months. Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the cyber unit likely needs around 600 hires and that it might take a year to bring them on. But the congressman argued restaffing will be more difficult than many anticipate. “I don’t think that there’s a lot of high-level introspection at the highest levels of these agencies about the negative impacts,” he said. Staffing up at CISA again is a “very difficult thing to do after you’ve just attacked people, abused them, denigrated their service, and then said ‘we want you to want to come back.’” Cybersecurity has long drawn bipartisan support in Washington, but CISA has become a recurring target of Republican scrutiny over its past work countering election-related disinformation https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/02/cisa-staff-focused-disinformation-and-influence-operations-put-leave/402958/ . Since last year, Trump officials have sought to “refocus” the agency’s mission, arguing that CISA had strayed too far from its core mission set. On other government cyber matters, Walkinshaw said he’s especially concerned about shadow IT — tech and AI tools used without management approval — inside federal agencies, and he plans to introduce amendments in upcoming appropriations measures that would address basic “blocking and tackling” cyberdefense, which he says is “even more important now in an advanced AI world.” He is also planning amendments focused on event logging — digital records that show what happened on a system and when — to “try to get agencies to actually follow the law and log those cyber incidents when they occur.” Walkinshaw, along with Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., introduced https://walkinshaw.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=657 legislation on June 25 that would require the Department of Homeland Security to provide lawmakers with a report on identified gaps that prevent the agency from fully meeting event logging requirements. FITARA scorecard Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who died last year, was one of the original sponsors of the 2014 Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, or FITARA, meant to help the federal government better onboard and use new technologies. Walkinshaw previously spent over a decade working as the chief of staff for Connolly, and he was elected last September to finish the rest of Connolly’s term. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in collaboration with the Government Accountability Office, released its first FITARA scorecard in November 2015 to grade agencies’ tech modernization and oversight efforts on an A to F scale. Since then, the biannual scorecard has served as an oversight mechanism for many agencies, although the most recent iteration of the scorecard was released https://www.nextgov.com/modernization/2024/09/agencies-score-record-number-s-latest-fitara-scorecard/399713/ back in September 2024. Walkinshaw said the committee’s current Republican leadership “has kind of walked away” from releasing the scorecard, citing the lack of hearings held by the Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Government Innovation Subcommittee panel, in particular. He attributed this to the GOP majority’s desire to avoid subpoena fights over multiple Trump-era controversies. But that public grading system is important, Walkinshaw stressed, because “it’s necessary and valuable to have an outside forcing mechanism to push for change and innovation.” The rapid pace of technological change, he said, means “there’s an opportunity to incorporate technologies that were not available three years ago or five years ago that could make many of our functions more effective and more efficient, but if it’s not done thoughtfully and intentionally, it could also go horribly, horribly wrong, and Congress has a huge stake in ensuring that we get it right.” In addition to resuming the scorecard — something the congressman posited would likely happen if Democrats retake the House in the upcoming midterm elections — Walkinshaw said the current grading scale should be modernized to account for advances in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity threats. “The question is obviously, ‘how do you develop those metrics in a way that’s objective?’ But I think that scorecard proved to be over time a good forcing mechanism to nudge agencies to modernize,” Walkinshaw said. When it comes to further AI use across the federal government, Walkinshaw said a grade related to the adoption of the capabilities could also be helpful for better understanding if agencies are effectively leveraging the technologies and not locking themselves into potentially expensive programs, noting that it is “very hard to unwind after you’ve committed to it.” FedRAMP modernization Walkinshaw noted that the government’s cloud security assessment and authorization initiative — the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP — will need to be reauthorized next year. GSA is in the process of rolling out a FedRAMP 20x initiative to modernize the authorization process for cloud providers. He said continuing the program is “100% necessary” — a process he expects to be bipartisan — and added that “if it’s not reauthorized, any administration could basically shut down the program, and then we go back to every cloud provider for every service for every agency starting their authorization to operate process from scratch.” He similarly expressed concerns about the program’s long-term financial backing, pointing out that it is supported through the General Services Administration’s Federal Citizen Services Fund, which means “it’s basically what GSA decides, so it doesn’t really have stable funding.” He also said he believes “there should be in statute stronger requirements for the FedRAMP office to engage with industry and with the public,” noting that “they do it right now but it’s been sporadic over the years.” And streamlining agency adoption of cloud services, he added, is another area where he believes the program can be tweaked for the better. Walkinshaw noted that providers still need to receive an ATO from agencies after receiving FedRAMP authorization and said “those agencies need to retain some responsibility for what’s operating on their networks,” but added that “I’d like to explore ways to close that gap, because I still hear from businesses that feel like they’re redoing some of the work that they did during their FedRAMP certification when they’re going to get their ATO at their at their agency.” AI legislation forecast Despite Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Lori Trahan, D-N.Y., releasing a discussion draft https://www.nextgov.com/artificial-intelligence/2026/06/lawmakers-propose-ai-framework-would-preempt-state-laws-3-years/413975/ of AI legislation earlier this month that would, among other things, preempt state AI laws, Walkinshaw said that finalization of a national AI regulatory framework is unlikely until early next year. “I don’t think you’ll see traction on any kind of large AI package before the election,” he said. “I think both sides are in a kind of ‘wait-and-see’ mode.” Walkinshaw added that House Republicans are broadly happy to let the White House take the lead on developing and disseminating an AI regulatory framework, and that Democrats are not confident they can get a satisfactory bill passed at this time. “In terms of big picture packages, it’s going to be next year,” he said. “Then the question will be, ‘If Democrats are in control of Congress, is there a compromise between what we develop –– which will come out of our commission –– and what the president will be willing to sign?’” Among potential provisions that could make it into national AI regulation, he added, standards export controls https://www.nextgov.com/artificial-intelligence/2026/06/parts-nsa-lose-mythos-5-access-amid-anthropic-supply-chain-dispute/414366/ placed on AI products could become a notable feature, given the federal government’s recent decision to restrict the release of certain Anthropic products https://www.nextgov.com/artificial-intelligence/2026/06/anthropic-suspends-top-ai-models-after-us-export-control-order/414173/ , following conflict over the company’s decision to limit how its products could be used. “Companies like Anthropic deserve to have some certainty as to what the process is going to be, so they can make investments, and the American people deserve some sense that there’s a process to ensure safety with respect to advanced models, so hopefully we’ll get there early next year,” Walkinshaw said. 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