Mark Takano: “My good friend and colleague, Chairman Miller of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, has implied that my clear and present…”

“My good friend and colleague, Chairman Miller of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, has implied that my clear and present danger standard in the substitute that I have offered is too narrow and does not give the Secretary enough tools to dismiss bad employees. I respectfully disagree. Particularly in the case of the Phoenix VA, the hospital's director, Sharon Helman, clearly posed a threat to the health and safety of veterans. Under my substitute, she would have been immediately removed. Similarly, many of the speakers on the other side of the aisle cited a crackhouse case where a VA employee took a veteran to a crackhouse. Now, my substitute and the clear and present standard, the health and safety standard that we have put forward, would clearly have addressed that employee and would have made that employee immediately dismissible. Let me remind you again that VA does have current title 5 procedures that they have been using to remove poor-performing employees. We should encourage the VA to use them better, to use the tools that they have. I remind my colleagues that last year 872 permanent employees were removed, 487 more resigned in lieu of being fired, and 958 probationary employees were terminated. Now, the fact that the VA wait list scandal emerged out of Phoenix was because we do have protections for whistleblowers. They could be strengthened.…”