The Bill
Three senior House Democrats introduced the CISA Force Structure Assessment Act this week, a bill that would require the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to conduct a comprehensive, military-style evaluation of its own workforce — the kind of "force structure assessment" more commonly associated with the armed services than a civilian federal agency.
Sponsors:
- Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) — lead sponsor
- Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) — top Democrat, House Homeland Security Committee
- Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) — ranking member, cybersecurity subcommittee
What the Assessment Would Cover
The legislation directs CISA to evaluate, in detail:
- Personnel levels, training, and certifications in the wake of budget cuts
- Federal IT system security and the agency's support role for state and local governments
- Emerging threats from artificial intelligence and quantum computing
- Threat-hunting and incident response capacity
- Support capabilities across critical infrastructure sectors
- Operations of the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative
- International cooperation efforts
Why Now
Roughly 1,000 CISA employees have departed the agency during President Trump's second term, driven by budget cuts and other attrition. The workforce reduction has drawn concern from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — Republicans have approved some of the cuts while objecting to others, but the scale of the exodus has raised bipartisan questions about whether CISA can still perform its core mission of coordinating national cyber defense and supporting critical infrastructure operators.
Walkinshaw framed the stakes directly: "America's cyber defenses are only as strong as the people behind them."
Why This Matters
A force structure assessment doesn't restore headcount by itself — it produces a documented, public accounting of exactly where CISA's capacity gaps are, which is a prerequisite for any future funding fight or organizational fix. For an agency that state governments, critical infrastructure operators, and the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative all lean on, a formal readiness review carries weight beyond the immediate legislative math, especially with a Democratic-sponsored bill facing a Republican-controlled chamber. Whether it advances or stalls, it puts a specific, citable record of CISA's post-cuts capability on the table.