Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, going back to my colleagues who have appeared to talk about issues of accountability for the Department of Veterans Affairs, I want to say how grateful I am for the spirit of collaboration that prevailed yesterday in our meeting.

Very generously and responsibly, the chairman of that committee, Senator Isakson--my good friend and distinguished colleague from Georgia--offered and committed to continue the effort to improve the measures we approved yesterday in our committee to hold accountable the Department of Veterans Affairs and all of its employees--just as we do any other agency of government--to make sure we keep faith with our veterans and leave no veteran behind.

Our Nation needs to make sure we provide the robust resources and the prompt delivery of health care services and other measures to our veterans with the honest and efficient management our veterans deserve.

So many of us were repulsed and outraged by the revelation just a little more than 1 year ago about delays in health care, irresponsible and reprehensible and, indeed, criminal obstruction of justice in cooking the books that prevailed at health care facilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs around the country, and the ramifications were sweeping.

There were indeed changes in management, beginning at the very top, with a new Secretary. There were also measures approved by this Congress in the last session, the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, to make sure no veteran suffering 30 days or more in delays in health care be denied a private provider if he or she chooses one or is living more than 40 miles from any facility.

We are working on additional measures, constructive and positive measures, to make sure this Nation fulfills its promise of prompt, world-class, first-class health care to every veteran who needs it, regardless of what that need is, the specialty or the illness, and to make sure we also cure the other deficiencies, such as the delays in disability claims, homelessness, joblessness, the need for job training and skills among our veterans.

Part of our task is accountability to make sure members of the Department of Veterans Affairs are held accountable. That is one reason why I insisted and urged from the very beginning of those revelations of wrongdoing and criminality in the Department of Veterans Affairs that there be a Department of Justice investigation. I called on the Attorney General of the United States to investigate, not the inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Attorney General of the United States because only the Department of Justice has the resources and expertise, direction, and leadership to successfully pursue the wide-ranging criminality and wrongdoing that I thought was revealed.

For all of us who hope there is honesty and fair dealing in our government, regrettably there has now been a criminal indictment. The indications are that more should follow, that there was and is reason for a Department of Justice investigation, that there are and need to be continued reports and results of the IG investigation. I have called in hearing after hearing that we be given those reports and results of the ongoing inspector general investigation, and we still are lacking in the full work product from that office. There is clearly more work to be done on the wrongdoing that has been committed in the past, and there is clearly more work to be done to prevent it in the future.

Part of what needs to be done is to protect the whistleblowers. Indeed, those revelations of wrongdoing came in part from whistleblowers who had the courage and fortitude to step forward and who were intimidated and ostracized and sometimes persecuted within the VA. They need protection. One part of what we need to do is to make sure they are protected.

There ought to be accountability going forward in disciplining employees within the VA when there is malfeasance or waste or fraud. That involves eliminating some of the redtape and rigaramole that in the past have hampered the VA Secretary or other managers in making sure that there is accountability. That is why I welcome the focus of our committee on assuring accountability and transparency.

Those changes in the law are necessary to enable the VA Secretary and his team to make sure that there is not only accurate and effective prompt discipline but also the appearance of it so that employees at the VA will know that there is a standard of conduct and it will be enforced and it will be upheld in the courts when it is challenged. That is true not only in the VA but of every department of the U.S. Government. There needs to be that perception and reality of the enforcement of codes of conduct and ethics.

There needs to be a recognition that it is in the interest not only of the American taxpayer but the employees of the U.S. Government themselves. The majority of them are honest and hard-working. Those nurses, counselors, therapists, doctors, and administrators at the VA who are doing their job--in fact, working overtime often without additional pay--who are serving valiantly and responsibly, their clients deserve that wrongdoers be rooted out and held accountable. They are the vast majority of those honest and hard-working employees, and we owe them thanks for what they do to serve our veterans, but the wrongdoers need to be disciplined.

The idea that they should receive bonuses is absolutely abhorrent. I welcome legislation that stops bonuses for employees who fail the most basic notions of effective and honest service. They deserve that those bonuses be stopped.

My colleague Senator Isakson has spoken about S. 627, the bill that has been sponsored by Senator Ayotte and was approved yesterday. I want to make sure in the improvements I am going to offer to it and that my colleague Senator Brown offered yesterday--that we actually make it more effective. That is the nature of this deliberative process, that we try to improve on what we are doing to make enforcement more effective.

I know as an enforcer, as a former U.S. attorney and a Federal and State official, enforcement is key to making the law work. The same is true of S. 1082, sponsored by our colleague Senator Rubio, which also was approved yesterday by our committee. I have offered a bill that will improve the measure we approved yesterday in a number of different respects.

First of all, there are serious questions about the constitutionality of the provision approved yesterday. I think in fairness to all of the American taxpayers as well as this body, we should face whatever deficiencies there are constitutionally in the law before that law becomes unenforceable.

The importance of making sure a law is constitutional goes to enforcement. A law that is unconstitutional, that fails to provide sufficient notice, a statement of causes, a right to be heard, an opportunity to achieve basic constitutional protection that the U.S. Security Court has repeatedly said is necessary, those deficiencies can make law unenforceable.

As I said yesterday in our committee meeting, as a former attorney general, and there are others in this body, we know how difficult the task is to defend a law or defend State action that is based on a constitutional and firm statute.

A law that is unenforceable is worse than no law at all because it creates a false sense of security, an expectation that never can be fulfilled because a law that is unenforceable will never be effective in preventing the wrong that it is designed to do.

I want to improve S. 1082--in fact, to make it more effective--but to make sure it is done in a way that can be upheld, also to protect those whistleblowers, and to make sure that if there are firings and disciplines, it is done on the merits, that it is done on the basis of real cause and evidence, not as part of a political witch hunt.

We have been through the spoils system. This Nation has lived through a time when, in effect, offices were bought and sold. That certainly is nobody's intention here, and I am sure my colleagues and I can work together to move toward a measure that fulfills our common shared objective in making sure that merit and effective action is rewarded with bonuses and through other means and that wrongdoing is punished and deterred.

There can be no enforcement unless the law is framed as well as possible, and there can be no deterrence unless there is enforcement. That is what we want to do: prevent this kind of wrongdoing going forward, not just looking backward and pursuing and prosecuting the wrongdoers, which I hope will be done. There is more than ample evidence to support it but also to prevent it going forward.

I am tremendously heartened by our committee chairman's commitment to work with me and others on that committee. He said to me very explicitly, and it is on the record, that he will, in fact, work with us. We will engage in collaboration.

I think we are going to improve these measures. They may not be huge or sweeping changes in what we approved yesterday, but we all know that words can sometimes lead to courts concluding that there are defects in the law that were never intended by the Framers. That is a consequence, an unintended result that we should avoid if possible. It may seem like lawyer talk, but it has ramifications in the courts. That is the reason we heard from the DAV at our June 24 hearing that it is ``vitally important to VA's long-term future to create an environment in which the best and brightest professionals choose VA over other Federal or private employers.''

We need those best of the best in the VA, not working in the private sector alone. Fairness and due process in our workplace will encourage talented doctors, lawyers, nurses, and other professionals to come to the VA, which is where we need them, for the strength of that system.

As the independent U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board stated in its statement for the record in the committee's June 24th hearing, there is a need to follow and respect constitutional due process. The Partnership for Public Service said much of the same thing in this letter of July 21, 2015.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask that my colleagues join in this collaboration because I know how deeply you and I feel, how we share that common goal, not just in our committee. I ask that we work to incorporate the measure I have introduced today, S. 1856, with the cosponsorship Senators MURRAY, SANDERS, BROWN, TESTER, and HIRONO, my colleagues on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, the Department of Veterans Affairs Equitable Employee Accountability Act.

This measure is introduced today, and it will help us improve and enhance S. 1082 and the supremely important objectives that motivate it.

I thank my colleagues for our work together, and I look forward to pursuing it.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

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