Unanimous Consent Requests-H.R. 4031 and S. 1982

Floor Speech

Mr. RUBIO. Thank you, Madam President.

I am here on the floor today to talk about an issue that has received a tremendous amount of attention, and
rightfully so, in the last few weeks and it is the outrage of what is happening at the Veterans' Administration.

Let me start by saying certainly people need to be held accountable. This should not be and it surely is not a partisan issue. I think we all have a deep commitment to helping our veterans, the men and women who spend time away from their families and put their lives on the line to defend this country, to whom were made promises that when they come back home they will be taken care of, especially those who have been harmed when serving their country.

We are heartbroken and outraged at the news that, in fact, the agency that is supposed to take care of them is not doing so. I think what is even more troubling is that this appears to be a systemic problem. This is not simply an isolated incident in Phoenix or some other institution in the country. This is now rearing its ugly head in every part of this country that we look into. You can imagine not just as an American am I deeply concerned about this but as a Floridian. Florida is a State with an enormous veterans population, including my brother--men and women who have served our country and have done so with great courage and dignity who now have health care needs that require immediate and urgent attention.

Just a moment ago on a television interview it was brought to my attention the story of a young man, a gulf war veteran who has a brain injury, who has been waiting for weeks to even be able to see anyone, in fact has been waiting for months with no end in sight as to when that is going to end. This needs to be addressed.

Yesterday we all watched with great attention as the President addressed this issue and expressed outrage, rightfully so, of what is occurring. What the President said is that over the next week there will be an initial report and ultimately a report at the end of the month about what needs to be done to improve the system and, more importantly, who needs to be held accountable. I think that is critical here, because one of the things we are learning is not simply that there is a systemic problem in the Veterans' Administration, but that there has been a deliberate effort by some within the Veterans' Administration to cover it up or to make things look better than they actually are. That should trouble us even more because the immediate reaction when an agency is confronted with a problem should be ``we need to fix this'' and instead the reaction by some seems to be ``we need to cover this. We need to make this look better than it really is. We need to diminish this.''

This is completely unacceptable and people need to be held accountable for this. If in the Senate among the men and women who serve and work here for us some were derelict in their duties, they would lose their job. If in the private sector someone did not do their job, they would lose that job. In the military chain of command, if a commanding officer of a unit did not do his or her job, they would lose their job, and their superiors would have the ability to immediately discipline them.

So I think many Americans would be shocked to learn that even if the Secretary wanted today to fire executive managers within the agency, he cannot. Instead, he has to institute a long and drawn-out process, leading to this absurd conclusion that you are more likely to receive a bonus or promotion than you are to have been fired because of mismanagement and dereliction of duty. That is completely unacceptable.

We have to remember that the vast majority of the VA's more than 300,000 employees and executives are dedicated and hard-working people. Their Department's well-documented reluctance to ensure that leaders are being held accountable for mistakes is not only tarnishing its reputation, it unfortunately is impacting many of these hard-working men and women who are doing their jobs within the agency.

What I did a few weeks ago, in conjunction with my colleague from Florida, Jeff Miller, is file a bill. It is a very simple and straightforward bill. The bill states that the VA Management Accountability Act of 2014 would simply give the VA Secretary the power to fire or demote senior executive service employees based on their performance.

It is a power similar to the power the Secretary of Defense already has, for example, to remove military general officers from command, and, of course, it is the same power any one of our 100 Senators has to remove a member of their staff.

This bill passed yesterday in the House of Representatives, and it is sitting here on the desk in the Senate. It passed yesterday with an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Members of both parties who are outraged by what is occurring and want to bring accountability.

In a press conference yesterday, the White House indicated that they are very open to this concept and that they were interacting with leaders on it. We called the White House and asked them about it. They also indicated an openness to it, although they shared that they did have some concerns. They didn't make any suggested edits to the bill. They simply said they had some concerns, but in general they were supportive of this concept.

Earlier today during an Appropriations Committee meeting, Senator Moran offered this very bill as an amendment, and it was adopted by voice vote without a single objection.

Here is where we stand: I have come to the floor today to give my colleagues the opportunity to send this to the President before we leave for the Memorial Day recess. We have an opportunity right now to take up the bill that the House just passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, enact it into law by unanimous consent, and send it to the President so he can sign it. So when the results of that investigation come to his desk in a week or month from now, and that of the Secretary, they can discipline and/or fire the people who have not done their jobs and put our veterans in harm's way with regard to services the VA is supposed to offer. That is all this bill does--nothing more and nothing less.

We are giving the Secretary--appointed by this President and confirmed by this Senate--the opportunity to be able to fire employees of his agency who are not doing their jobs. That is all we are asking for. It is not more complicated than that. I do not understand why anyone would not support that concept.

It is right here for us. To everyone around here who is talking about how we need to quickly act, here is your chance. This is a very straightforward bill. My hope is that it will pass unanimously so we can truly say it is bipartisan.

We are not telling them whom they need to fire; we are giving the Secretary the power to hold the people who work under him accountable. This will also apply to future Secretaries as well. That is all this bill does. I hope we will be able to do that today.

I think if it were put to a rollcall vote on the floor, it would pass by an overwhelming majority. That is why, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4031, which was received from the House, and I further ask consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, without any intervening action or debate.

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Mr. RUBIO. Reserving the right to object, I wish to address a couple of points. The first is on the issue of politicizing this. I agree. In fact, that is why I have not come forward and said that the Secretary should resign. There are times in this process when that is important. There are people who were appointed by the President who are clearly not doing their jobs, and it is our job as overseers of the executive branch of the government to step forward and say that.

I have said let's give the Secretary a chance to see what happens here. I may end up asking for his resignation at some point as more information comes out, but at a minimum I think he deserves an opportunity--and his successors, whoever they may be--to hold the people underneath him accountable.

They don't have the power to do that now.

Also notice when I came to the floor today, I have said absolutely nothing of a partisan nature. I am not claiming this is a crisis created by Democrats or by another party. On the contrary, I said this is a solution that has had strong bipartisan support in the House and strong bipartisan support in the committee today. This issue may become politicized in the sense that it seems all of the reluctance to move forward is coming from one side of the equation, but that does not necessarily have to be. In fact, I will tell my colleagues right now that I believe if this came to a vote, the overwhelming majority of the Members of the majority would support this legislation I have put forward today.

Two other points that were raised, one being that there have been no hearings. I would respectfully disagree. There was a hearing on it today. This was offered. This specific language was offered in the committee, and with little debate and no dissent, it passed by voice vote. For those watching at home, here is what voice vote means: They don't even call the roll. They basically ask Members: Is anyone against this? No one said they were. This language was adopted today in a committee.

Here is my second problem. I am glad to hear there are going to be hearings with regard to this issue, and I think that is important because I am not claiming the bill I am asking us to take up today and pass would solve all of the problems. There are still serious systemic problems within that agency, and a hearing needs to address this and find responsible solutions to those problems. So a hearing is called for.

What I am asking for is very simple: Give the Secretary, appointed by a President of a party different than my own, the power to fire employees underneath him who are not doing their jobs, so they know they are being held accountable. That is all I am asking. That is all this bill does. It is that straightforward. I don't think any of us want to go home for the Memorial Day recess and when we are asked: What are you doing on this issue, our answer is: Well, in about 15 days we are going to have a hearing on this crisis.

Meanwhile, the list goes on and on of the outrages that are coming out of this agency. Every single day more cases are coming out about veterans who are not being treated fairly and appropriately, and in some cases, in my opinion, criminally, by this incompetence we see out of some in the Veterans' Administration. This is a matter of urgency, because while we are gone on our recess, the President next week is going to get a preliminary report on what is going on. It may very well be that he wants to see some people fired, and it may very well be the Secretary will want to fire some people in senior executive positions and he will not be able to do that. All I am asking for is not to give us the power to fire them but to give the administration the power to fire them and hold them accountable.

Regarding the bill the chairman has offered on the floor, this bill has already been debated, and there are problems with this bill, which is an extensive piece of legislation with many good elements in it, but it also has a cost issue at a time when our Nation owes close to $18 trillion. That was the reason so many on my side of the aisle objected to it, and that is why I object to the motion made today by the Senator from Vermont.

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Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, a bunch of issues were raised about the cost of the war in Iraq, how much money we spent, and how good we are at spending that money for the veterans. I think that is a valid debate and it is a debate we should have and should continue to have in this country. If we need to spend more money on these agencies, there are plenty of other places in the budget to find it, and we should work to make sure cost is not an issue.

But right now the central debate on the issue of what is happening in the VA has not centered around the fact that there are costs getting in the way. The central debate--and my colleagues know the President yesterday, in his press conference he held, said the central focus is on the management, the operations of this agency. Critical to the effectiveness of any agency is accountability; the ability to hold people accountable, including by taking away their jobs.

Think about this for a moment. The argument that has been made today about a new director can come in and fire the people who work underneath him or her, that argument could be made about virtually any organization on the planet. One could make that argument for staffers in the Senate, that we want to protect them, so if a new Senator is elected from a State, they can't hire their own staff.

The point I am trying to make--this is very simple. I get there are a lot of other issues we can talk about. There is one issue I want us to focus on, and that is this: We have a chance today, before we leave for the Memorial Day recess, to pass a bill that gives the Secretary that President Obama appointed the power to fire executives underneath him if they haven't done their job--a power he doesn't have right now. We have the chance to pass it on the floor. All we have to do is agree to it and it goes to the President to sign. We can then go home and say we have taken an important step in instituting accountability on this important issue, which the whole country is talking about, and we are walking away from that opportunity.

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