On the recordJuly 13, 2022
I have tremendous respect for the ranking member and the work that he has done on our great committee. I do want to emphasize that servicemembers would not be allowed to sue the Department of Defense. In fact, in many of these cases what happens is the cases are resolved by policy or should be resolved by policy within about 60 days, so this actually gives the service lines added time to resolve these cases. This is for those egregious examples--and I have spoken with servicemembers who have had to live with these egregious examples--of lack of a true effort to resolve these harassment and discrimination claims. So this would be a last resort that would simply have a court urge the service line to complete the investigation of harassment or discrimination. We are currently experiencing a challenge in recruitment. We want to retain this talent, and we want to demonstrate to our servicemembers that they matter, all of them, and that we will ensure that they have access to a free and fair process. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
