John Culberson: “I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment. The Acting CHAIR. A point of order is reserved on the…”

“I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment. The Acting CHAIR. A point of order is reserved on the amendment. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. LaMALFA. I appreciate Chairman Culberson for allowing the time here today on this important topic. Mr. Chairman, the VA continues to broker cases as a means to lessen the backlog that many Members are clamoring about. This amendment I am offering with my colleague, Mr. Huffman, who wished to speak today, is very important to both of us and to many of my other colleagues. When a case is brokered out of the Oakland VA office to the San Diego VA office, for example, San Diego will tell my staff that they are not allowed to update them on the status of a case because it is not in San Diego's jurisdiction to do so, they basically claim. We know there are no VA rules in law that state that caseworkers cannot be updated on a veteran's case. This amendment simply states, if a congressional office is looking for an update on a veteran's case that has been brokered to another VA office, that the staff will be given a status update with no jurisdictional concerns. As Members, we serve our constituents. It is a reasonable request that caseworkers in our offices should be allowed to receive an update on a case regardless of where that case has been sent so that this VA backlog can be solved. Our veterans should not suffer because of this backlog.…”