Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume, and I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 5620. Now, there is no dispute whether Congress should take action to increase accountability at the VA. On both sides of the aisle, we recognize that VA employees have a patriotic duty to provide veterans the care they have earned, and there should be consequences when they fail to meet that standard. But we must also recognize that VA employees, nearly a third of whom are veterans themselves, have constitutional rights. In several ways, H.R. 5620 violates those rights and, therefore, will not achieve our shared goal of a more accountable VA workforce. In fact, passing this bill will move us further away from a strong accountability system that will improve the quality of service VA provides to veterans. This flaw in the legislation is not without precedent. The accountability provisions included in the 2014 Veterans Choice Act could not be enforced after the Attorney General determined they violated due process rights. And President Obama threatened to veto a previous version of the bill, H.R. 1994, for the very same reason. Now, unfortunately, the majority continues to treat the constitutional rights of VA employees as inconvenient obstacles to evade, instead of fundamental civil service protections to uphold. The strict time requirements H.R. 5620 puts on administrative bodies, such as the Office of Personnel Management and the U.S.…”