VA Accountability Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in opposition to H.R. 1994. We are all frustrated that the VA is not moving fast enough to hold bad employees accountable, but I do not believe H.R. 1994 would lead to real, long-term accountability at the VA. In fact, I believe it would have the opposite effect by possibly shielding poor-performing VA employees from ever being removed.
This bill violates longstanding Supreme Court precedent regarding our Constitution's promise of due process rights. Our Constitution guarantees that we cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Our veterans were willing to lay down their lives to defend this basic promise.
The Supreme Court of the United States has determined that our Constitution gives Federal employees the right to due process, meaning fair notice and a chance to respond, before losing their jobs. As lawmakers, we do not have the power to revoke this constitutional principle of fairness and due process for a select group of people, no matter how outraged we may feel. I believe it is wrong to assume that VA employees are guilty until proven innocent.
If H.R. 1994 were enacted, I believe courts could very well overturn any removals as a violation of those employees' due process rights. They could then reinstate and give backpay to those who were removed. Bad employees would become permanent fixtures at the VA.
We all agree that VA needs to use the current tools it has more vigorously to remove poor-performing employees, but we should not throw out important constitutional protections to arbitrary actions simply because some claim it is too difficult to follow the law or be faithful to our basic principles of fairness.
H.R. 1994 would provide a new tool to VA managers, but perhaps not the tool imagined by its supporters. Bad managers and political appointees would have the ability to threaten the livelihoods of honest VA workers trying to follow VA regulations and policy, thus reinforcing the culture of fear and reluctance to speak out against poor management or malfeasance at the VA. If these employees were fired, they would have very little opportunity to tell their side of the story.
H.R. 1994 would make VA the only at-will workplace within the Federal Government. Veterans desperately need our Nation's top doctors, nurses, and counselors to choose to work at the VA, and it is already hard enough to recruit them away from the private sector.
An article last week in USA Today found that VA has 41,500 unfilled medical jobs, ``forcing vets into costly private care.'' Removing basic civil service protections--and basic fairness--would make VA an even less desirable place to work and add to these recruiting woes.
Keep in mind that over 30 percent of VA employees are veterans themselves. They deserve better than to find themselves in a workplace that strips them of basic constitutional protections--again, protections that they fought to defend.
This bill is nothing more than an attempt to destroy the civil service using the VA as a test case. It would empower the very individuals who have often perpetuated the worst VA scandals--VA managers--to threaten the livelihood of hard-working, frontline VA employees and silence the voices of the whistleblowers we rely on to tell us when something is wrong.
For all of our frustration with the VA, the continued existence of a nonpartisan civil service is vital if we are to fix the mess at the VA and provide our veterans with the benefits and services that we have promised them and that they have earned.
As the Merit Systems Protection Board has stated in a report from May: ``Due process is available for the whistleblower, the employee who belongs to the `wrong' political party, the reservist whose periods of military service are inconvenient to the boss, the scapegoat, and the person who has been misjudged based on faulty information. Due process is a constitutional requirement and a small price to pay to ensure the American people receive a merit-based civil service rather than a corrupt spoils system.''
We should not, under the guise of ``accountability,'' destroy one of the best tools we have to provide the benefits and services we have promised our veterans. That tool is a nonpartisan and nonpolitical VA workforce.
We need to take steps to protect the vast majority of the high-performing VA workforce from being fired at the whim of capricious or retaliatory managers or political appointees, not to make it even easier.
I believe H.R. 1994 violates our Constitution. The administration has issued a veto threat, and if enacted, H.R. 1994 would not stand up in a court of law. Ultimately, veterans would be harmed the most when courts overturn this policy and then reinstate bad employees at the VA.
Instead of scapegoating the vast majority of hard-working VA employees, Congress should look for real opportunities to reform our civil service in a manner that is constitutional, while providing adequate resources and better policies to provide outcomes at the VA.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Just in quick response to my good friend, Chairman Miller, bringing up the issue of the SES provision, yes, most of us did vote for the Choice Act, the provision that dealt with the SES reform to make it easier to fire those employees. That number of employees is a very small number. It is about 400. We are talking about addressing the entire 300,000-strong employees.
Let me just say that at the time I wish we had spent more time reviewing the constitutionality. I do believe
the constitutionality of that action is also in question.
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Mr. TAKANO. Reclaiming my time, let me just say that I believe the Constitution applies to the Senior Executive Service as well as all of the 300,000 employees of the Veterans Administration.
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