IT proponent Horn won't seek re-election

The professor turned lawmaker who issued grades — many of them marginal or failing — to federal agencies on computer security, Year 2000 readiness and financial management announced he will retire from Congress.

Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.) said Sept. 4 that he will not seek a sixth term in the House next year.

"It will be a real loss," said Patrice McDermott, an analyst at the public policy organization OMB Watch. Horn, 70, "is one of the few people on the House side who gets information policy and the issues of access to government information," she said.

A former president of California State University, Long Beach, Horn won media attention by using an A through F grading system to rate agencies on their performance. He began with report cards on agency preparedness for the Year 2000 problem that was expected to cause computers to crash. Last year, he graded agencies on their ability to fend off electronic attacks, awarding on average a D-minus.

Horn also pressured agency officials to comply with requirements of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act amendments. EFOIA requires agencies to set up electronic reading rooms and take other steps to make information available electronically.

Horn ordered agency officials to appear during hearings and "took them to task for not meeting their responsibilities," McDermott said. "It's rarer and rarer that congressional committees exercise their oversight responsibilities, and he was one of the few willing to do that."

Horn was chairman of the Government Management, Information and Technology Subcommittee until this year, when he became chairman of the new Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee.

Government information technology executives developed a love-hate relationship with Horn's report cards. In the Year 2000 efforts, they often complained that report cards were not an adequate reflection of their efforts. Yet they also acknowledged that the report cards helped force senior agency managers to pay attention to the issue.

The easy-to-understand grades that Horn made public forced senior-level agency managers to focus on IT issues, said Olga Grkavac, executive vice president of the Enterprise Solutions Division of the Information Technology Association of America.

Horn's stamina has also been impressive, Grkavac said. "He held a prodigious number of hearings, and he always stayed to the bitter end."

Horn cited California's redistricting by the Democratic-controlled State Assembly as a reason in part for leaving.

"The redistricting process has created major changes" in his district, which includes the Long Beach area in Southern California, Horn said. "It is also a particularly fitting time to step down at the end of this term because virtually every goal I supported in 1992 for the nation and for the district has been achieved," he said.

A moderate Republican serving in a Democratic-leaning district, Horn narrowly won re-election last year.

Horn was president of California State University, Long Beach, for 18 years.