Federal Drive Show Blog – December 5, 2013

The family of a victim of the Navy Yard shooting is suing the Navy, the Veterans Affairs Department and two contractors. They say officials ignored signs that the shooter, Aaron Alexis, was troubled. Alexis’ employer had even revoked his security clearance in the weeks before the shooting but did not tell the Navy.

Civil rights and employment attorney Lynne Bernabei of Bernabei & Watchel explains how this tragedy could impact contractors’ personnel practices.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this week published a progress report on the HealthCare.gov website. CMS says it’s fixed hundreds of bugs in the code and added new hardware capacity. By most accounts the site has improved. With expert analysis is Ryan McElrath, the chief technology officer at web developer Americaneagle.com.

Georgetown law students are ending the semester in a unique way. Five teams of students are competing in the Iron Tech Lawyer Competition where they’ll build apps designed to increase the public’s access to federal agencies. Tanina Rostain is a law professor and co-director of the Center for the Study of Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center.

The White House is telling agencies to make better use of volunteers. Not the people who spend the weekend helping at the local church or soup kitchen, but national service participants. Those are the folks who commit for 10 months or longer to programs like the Peace Corps or Americorps. But how?

That’s where the Corporation for National and Community Service comes in. It’s the independent agency that runs Americorps. Wendy Spencer is the CEO. She is leading a new interagency task force on national service.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel moved yesterday to eliminate several high-level Pentagon positions, consolidate offices and change the responsibilities of a number of organizations within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Federal News Radio’s Jared Serbu reports it’s part of Hagel’s pledge to reduce the Pentagon’s headquarters headcount by 20 percent.