Thompson Pushes DHS on Contracts

House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) is on a mission to see the Department of Homeland Security and its largest contractors hire more small, minority-owned and women-owned companies to fulfill government contracts. He is also willing to dedicate significant resources of the committee and his own personal persuasion to pursuing this goal.

Last month, Thompson summoned more than a dozen federal procurement officials and several major federal contractors to Kansas City, along with a flock of staff, to meet with a group of small-business owners and promise to open doors for the companies to get government contracts.

“Our job is to help you do business,” Thompson told the gathering of about 200 people at Kansas City’s Metropolitan Community College. “I don’t think you will ever have an opportunity to have the cadre of senior people … or the business people that we are going to have here. … So rather than you spending the next six months trying to see these individuals, we just brought ’em to you.”

Read more: (Paul Singer, “Thompson Pushes DHS on Contracts,” Roll Call, 03/02/2010)