Statements On Introduced Bills And Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself and Mrs. McCaskill):

S. 474. A bill to amend the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 to apply whistleblower protections available to certain executive branch employees to legislative branch employees, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to introduce another bill as part of my Accountability in Government Week. Yesterday I introduced the False Claims Act Clarification Act to help restore the original intent of the most successful law the Government utilizes to protect taxpayers' dollars from fraud, waste, and abuse.

One key component I added to the False Claims Act when it was amended in 1986 was allowing whistleblowers to file cases on behalf of the Government when they are aware of fraud or abuse of taxpayers' funds. Whistleblowers are the key to unlocking the secrets of wrongdoing because they have access to information about how the frauds were perpetrated and can help lead authorities in the right direction to uncover the fraud. However, for their brave efforts whistleblowers are often the victims of retaliation and are removed from their jobs by supervisors who do not want the wrongdoing uncovered.

I have often said whistleblowers were as welcome as skunks at a picnic, despite the fact that all they do is bring forward the truth. This is wrong. That is why I have supported strong whistleblower protection laws during my time in the Congress.

The landmark whistleblower law is the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989--I believe is the year it was passed--providing rights and remedies to executive branch whistleblowers who are the victims of retaliation. I proudly cosponsored that bill. But like many laws that are 20 years old, it needs to be updated. So I have cosponsored legislation introduced by Democratic Senator Akaka to do just that. However, that law also needs to be extended to employees of the legislative and judicial branches of Government. So I come today to start the discussion and to introduce legislation that will provide the same whistleblower protection rights currently extended to executive branch employees to the legislative branch.

I am pleased to be joined by Senator McCaskill in introducing the Congressional Whistleblower Protection Act of 2009. This important legislation simply adds whistleblower protections to the legislative branch by incorporating the Whistleblower Protection Act into the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, a law that I authored to bring Congress in line with many labor and workplace practices that affected businesses around the country because I have long believed Congress should practice what it preaches. This legislation will do just that.

You might remember the Congressional Accountability Act was passed because, going back to the 1930s, Congress had exempted itself from a lot of employment laws because we individual Senators are employers, the Congress is an employer, but we exempted ourselves from, I think, 18, 19 different laws at that particular time.

So in 1995 I wanted to end the proposition of why we had two sets of laws in this country--one for Capitol Hill and one for the rest of the country. Now, since 1995, we have one set of laws, but we do not have the whistleblower protections that ought to be in it.

A theme that has dominated this new Congress, as well as dominated the campaign of last fall, is accountability and responsibility in Washington. In most instances, the only reason we discovered waste or fraud is because employees were brave enough to stand up to the wrongdoers and to expose the offenses. Without these whistleblowers, the American taxpayer would continue to foot a bill that might be a violation of law, might be fraudulent use of taxpayers' money, might just be a waste of taxpayer money. Either way, taxpayers are hurt.

This bill is long overdue. I have previously introduced similar legislation, but, unfortunately, those bills were never brought out of committee. I hope the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, of which the chairman is on the Senate floor--I did not know the Senator would be so available for me to preach to him. I hope the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will examine this legislation and will closely and expeditiously report it to the full Senate so we can ensure employees of the legislative branch that they are protected from any reprisals relating to protected whistleblowing the same way as executive branch employees.

Now, it has been a number of years since the Congressional Accountability Act was signed into law. So I would like to remind my colleagues why we passed that law. It was a time very similar to today. The American people were demanding more from their elected officials in Washington and wanted accountability and transparency in all branches of Government. I believed then, as I do now, that Congress needs to put its money where its mouth is and apply the various labor and employment laws that were enforced on other branches of Government and businesses all across the country.

That is what the Congressional Accountability Act did. It applied a number of important laws to Congress, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, title VII, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Family Medical Leave Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, Employee Polygraph Protection Act, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the Rehabilitation Act, as well as some provisions of title V relating to Federal service labor-management relations. It also created the Office of Compliance of the legislative branch that oversees the application of these important laws to this branch of Government and ensures that employees' rights under these laws are protected.

While the Congressional Accountability Act was a good start, the Office of Compliance has recommended additional laws be applied to the legislative branch, including the purpose of my bill, the Whistleblower Protection Act.

We have already taken the steps to protect whistleblowers in the executive branch, so it does not make sense not to extend those same protections to whistleblowers working right here in our own backyard on Capitol Hill. My bill will, very simply, give congressional employees the same protections that workers of other branches of Government have. It does this by simply adding the Whistleblower Protection Act to the preexisting list of statutes that are applied to the legislative branch by the Congressional Accountability Act.

This is a straightforward and simple solution to ensuring that employees of the legislative branch are not without vital whistleblower protections. So I ask, in closing, that my colleagues join me and Senator McCaskill in supporting this bill to ensure that those who help us in the fight to hold Government accountable are not punished for those efforts.

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