Chairman Johnson Criticizes Partisan Blocking of Critical Protection for VA Whistleblowers

Press Release

A bill to protect federal employee whistleblowers from retaliation -- a bill that won unanimous bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee -- was blocked Thursday by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

The bill, the Dr. Chris Kirkpatrick Whistleblower Protection Act of 2015, would increase discipline for federal supervisors who retaliate against whistleblowers, and it would prohibit Department of Veterans Affairs employees from accessing private medical records of fellow employees. Johnson, who sponsored the bill and shepherded it through the Homeland Security committee that he chairs, took to the Senate floor Thursday to seek unanimous consent for the bill from the full Senate on the day that marked seven years since Dr. Kirkpatrick's death. Sen. Reid objected, halting the bill's progress.

"Rather than protect our nation's veterans, Senator Reid prefers to play election-year politics, using the finest among us as a political football," said Johnson. "Dr. Chris Kirkpatrick, a VA employee who spoke up about over-prescription of our veterans at the Tomah VA facility, faced such severe retaliation after blowing the whistle that he took his own life. And this is how my colleagues on the other side honor him? It's appalling to me that Senator Harry Reid would block this common sense bill when veterans' lives hang in the balance. The finest among us -- and the memory of Dr. Kirkpatrick -- deserve better."

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