VA Accountability Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Chairman, let me just say, first of all, that I have been on this committee for the entire time I have been in Congress, 23 years.

What I have always enjoyed about this committee is the bipartisan nature of this committee. But let me just tell you this bill, H.R. 1994, I do not support.

The gentleman from Florida, Chairman Miller, has said repeatedly that we voted for this provision in the Choice Act. And the only reason we did it was because these were union people or not union people.

I went to every single meeting, every single conference, and this provision that you are talking about--the devil is always in the details.

Maybe we need to make sure we read every bill closely because I was not--yes, the Secretary has the authority to fire people. But we want to make sure that they have due process.

We are voting to give the VA the additional resources they need to do away with the backlog.

Would the gentleman from Florida respond to that. Because none of us were voting for H.R. 1994. It was a bad year for Congress, a bad year for the American people.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

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Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Chairman, Chairman Miller has said repeatedly that this provision that you have was in the base bill of the Choice program and that we all knew that we were voting to give the Secretary additional authority to fire people.

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Ms. BROWN of Florida. Yesterday in the committee I heard someone say that the goal is to close all of the VA facilities and privatize it.

Now, let me be clear that that is not the goal of the Members on the Democratic side.

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Ms. BROWN of Florida. Let me just be clear. I am just amazed that, on the last day of the session, we are spending the entire afternoon discussing H.R. 1994--a bill that the Senate will not pick up; and if, by some miracle, it passed, the President would veto it--when there are so many other things that we could be discussing.

How about addressing H.R. 3266, which will give the Secretary the authority to run the VA like a business, which is what we keep saying?

I support the substitute amendment. The accountability substitute is offered today because it brings real accountability to the VA while maintaining constitutionality due process protection for civil service employees.

At the Committee on Veterans' Affairs over the past 2 years, we have learned of widespread mismanagement and--let me emphasize--lack of training at the VA. The problems that the VA has have gone back for many years, over 30. Maybe if we had adequately funded VA, they would have fewer problems.

The majority has introduced H.R. 1994, which attempts to increase accountability by allowing VA to immediately fire any employee for misconduct with only limited due process. The substitute increases accountability by allowing VA to immediately suspend, without pay, any employee whose misconduct posed a direct threat to veterans' health and safety.

Unlike H.R. 1994, the substitute provides sufficient due process rights to meet constitutional requirements by providing an accused employee with a fair chance to tell their side of the story.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this substitute and vote against H.R. 1994.

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