WASHINGTON – In the wake of the Justice Department’s refusal to defend current law against a constitutional challenge by a convicted felon at the center of the Phoenix VA wait-time scandal, U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, today called on his Senate colleagues to support his bipartisan legislation to strengthen accountability at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Isakson’s Veterans First Act, which passed the Senate VA Committee unanimously, makes it easier for the VA secretary to remove employees at all levels of the department and would have avoided the constitutional challenge by the convicted Phoenix VA executive who is seeking her job back after being fired over the horrendous scandal in which veterans died while on waiting lists to see doctors.

Isakson delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:

“Last week the Attorney General of the United States of America sent a letter to Kevin McCarthy, the majority leader of the United States House of Representatives, to inform Mr. McCarthy and all of us that she would not defend the administration on the constitutional challenge to the firing of Sharon Helman, the former director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System – a firing that took place because employees under her supervision had manipulated books and overseen the manipulation of appointments to the point where as many as 40 veterans waiting in line to get their first appointment died before they were ever seen by the VA.

“She was convicted by a court of law for taking illegal gratuities in her position as director of the hospital. She filed a constitutional challenge to whether or not the administration had the ability to fire her constitutionally. And Loretta Lynch has said she’s not going to defend the United States of America or the law that we passed called the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, which calls for the firing of employees by the secretary of VA for cause.

“Today in Phoenix it was announced that the VA is firing three more employees of the VA hospital, yet in the shadow of that, Loretta Lynch is telling America she is not going to defend the country on carrying out laws that we passed in this body and the president of the United States signed.

“There is a solution to this problem, Mr. President. It’s called the Veterans First Act – written originally by 15 members of the Senate, all members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and has been signed and cosponsored by 43 members of the Senate – that once and for all ends the hide-and-go-seek that takes place in the VA. It takes the VA out from under the Merit Systems Protection Board for all senior executive leadership. In other words, the over 400 senior executives in the VA now protected by the Merit Systems Protection Board no longer would be protected by that board but instead would be subject to the secretary’s firing or the secretary’s hiring and any appeal for action taken by the secretary will be to the secretary, not to the Merit Systems Protection Board.

“The American people and the brave veterans who have fought and sacrificed for this country deserve the right to know that if they are injured by the VA or if the VA is not carrying out what it’s supposed to do for them, that we will take action and we will be effective.

“I resent the fact that the attorney general of the United States of America has chosen not to defend a constitutional challenge to the bill which this Congress passed and our president signed to give authority to the secretary, Bob McDonald, and who ever would follow him as secretary of the VA.

“But that’s not the only thing in the Veterans First Act. For the first time ever, we’re going to give caregiver benefits to Vietnam-era veterans who today can't get the same benefits that post-9/11 veterans get. That's been wrong and we're fixing that.

“We’re dealing with the opioid problem that started in Tomah hospital in Wisconsin and correcting that and putting in good standards for the use of opiates and the prescription of them in therapies to get people off opiate addiction.

“We’re cleaning up the mental health access situation to improve mental health access for all of our veterans.

“We’re giving the type of discipline to the leaders of the VA to see to it our hospitals are run like they should be, our the veterans get the services they deserve and our veterans who have returned home after fighting for us have the best quality health care and the most responsive health care system we can possibly give.

“I urge the president of the Senate, the other members of the Senate, to join with me when our bill comes to the floor and pass the Veterans First Act which brings about real accountability in the VA, real choice for the veterans, real care for our Vietnam veterans, real address the opioid problem, and first and foremost, a comprehensive reform of the VA that hasn't taken place in decades.”

Background:

Last week, the Justice Department announced that it would not defend part of the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act of 2014, called the Veterans Choice Act for short, against a constitutional challenge from Sharon Helman, the former director of the Phoenix VA Health Care system who was fired in the wake of the wait-time scandal.

Helman sued for her job back, saying the Veterans Choice Act is unconstitutional, partly because it does not allow executives to appeal to the full Merit Systems Protection Board, only to an administrative judge at the board. The Justice Department agreed with this claim, arguing that current law violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution because the administrative judges are not presidentially appointed whereas members of the Board are.

Isakson’s Veterans First Act removes the Merit Systems Protection Board from the appeal process for senior executives altogether, avoiding this constitutionality challenge.

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The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is chaired by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in the 114th Congress.

Isakson is a veteran himself – having served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966-1972 – and has been a member of the Senate VA Committee since he joined the Senate in 2005. Isakson’s home state of Georgia is home to more than a dozen military installations representing each branch of the military as well as more than 750,000 veterans.