Braxton Taylor
Department of Veterans Affairs employees and veterans fired from other agencies as part of the Trump administration’s slashing of federal jobs would be reinstated with full back pay and benefits under a bill being introduced in the coming days by a top Democrat.
The bill from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, would also reinstate military spouses, survivors, veteran caregivers and members of the National Guard or Reserves who have been fired from the federal government since Jan. 20, according to a summary of the bill provided to Military.com from Blumenthal’s office.
Veterans make up about 30% of the federal workforce. Democrats have estimated that about 6,000 veterans have been fired so far across the federal government in departments ranging from the Federal Aviation Administration to the National Park Service to the Pentagon to the VA itself.
Read Next: GOP Plan to Avert Government Shutdown Would Fund Next Month’s Junior Enlisted Pay Raise
At the VA, about 2,400 employees have been fired. The firings at the VA so far have focused on probationary employees, which means those who were recently hired, promoted or transferred.
But the VA cuts are poised to grow much larger in the coming months. Last week, a leaked memo revealed that the department is planning on firing about 83,000 employees later this year.
While Blumenthal’s bill stands little chance of getting taken up while Republicans control the Senate, it marks the latest and strongest effort to date by Democrats to confront Republicans on the politically sensitive issues of cuts to the VA and veterans employment, and suggests Democrats are digging in for a fight over the VA after an initially muted response in the early days of the Trump administration.
“My proposed bill is a call to action at a moment of crisis for veterans,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “VA’s system of health care and benefits has been disastrously and disgracefully put on the chopping block by Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Their heartless and heartbreaking cuts, freezes, firings and other malign directives will destroy lives and livelihoods if unchecked. We must stop them.”
Since his first day in office, Trump has worked to dismantle parts of the federal government through hiring freezes, firings and unilateral withholding of funds that are legally mandated by Congress. Trump has empowered Musk, the world’s richest man, to lead the slash-and-burn effort through a White House office dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
VA Secretary Doug Collins has insisted cuts to the VA will not harm veterans health care and benefits.
“We’re going to accomplish this without making cuts to health care or benefits to veterans and VA beneficiaries,” Collins said in a video posted to social media last week about the impending 83,000 firings.
But Democrats contend the cuts and other Trump administration actions have already hurt veterans. For example, the hiring freeze has led to a suspension of VA research in areas such as cancer and suicide prevention.
Democrats also argue it will be impossible to cut more than 80,000 employees without reversing progress on implementing the PACT Act, the sweeping law that extended VA health care and benefits to millions of veterans exposed to toxic substances during their military services. Cuts that deep will bring the VA back to pre-PACT Act staffing levels after the department went on a hiring spree in order to handle the influx of new patients and beneficiaries from the law.
In addition to reversing the firings that have already happened, Blumenthal’s bill would require the VA to certify that care and benefits won’t be harmed by each firing, according to his office’s summary.
It would also mandate the resumption of all research projects, bar any hiring freezes at the VA if they would reduce benefits or care, prohibit closing any VA offices or programs unless explicitly authorized by law, require at least a year’s notice before any changes in telework policies and prohibit the VA from rescinding job offers for any reason not directly related to the prospective employee’s actions, according to the summary.
For civil servants who are veterans, military spouses, survivors, caregivers and reservists, the bill would also bolster their job protections by prohibiting their inclusion in any mass firings; requiring their supervisors to be notified at least 10 days before they are fired; mandating proof of poor performance; and barring them from being fired if it would leave their office more than 50% vacant, the summary said.
The cuts at the VA have been among the only actions by the Trump administration that have elicited public statements of concern, albeit not outright opposition, from Republicans.
After news leaked of the upcoming 83,000 firings at the VA, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., released a statement acknowledging he had “questions about the impact these reductions and discussions could have on the delivery of services, especially following the implementation of the PACT Act.”
And Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, said in a statement that while he agrees the VA needs reform, “current efforts to downsize the department and increase efficiency must be done in a more responsible manner.”
At a committee meeting Tuesday, Moran also said he is in the process of crafting his own bill to ensure any changes in the VA workforce are “thoughtful, transparent [and] carried out in close coordination with this committee, with our colleagues and with stakeholders including veterans.”
Sensing the vulnerability, Democrats have been seizing on the effects on veterans as part of their political messaging against Trump.
Separate from Blumenthal’s bill, Sens. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Andy Kim, D-N.J., introduced a bill Monday that would also force fired veterans to be reinstated to their jobs in the federal government. Blumenthal is also a co-sponsor on their bill, which is a companion measure to one introduced in the House by Rep. Derek Tran, D-Calif.
Last week, Blumenthal tried to muscle through a vote on the Senate floor on a nonbinding resolution opposing the firings at the VA, forcing Moran to publicly object.
Democrats have also written a torrent of letters to administration officials, demanding answers on the firings.
And several Democrats invited fired veterans as their guests to Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last week.
Among them was David Pasquino, an Army veteran who served 18 years in the infantry and twice deployed to Iraq. In February, Pasquino was fired from his job in human resources at the VA, where he focused on recruiting information technology specialists to, among other areas, help get the VA’s beleaguered electronic health records program back on track.
At Trump’s speech, he was a guest of Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
“I was in shock. I was appalled, angry, upset … I ran through all the stages of grief in about four days,” Pasquino told Military.com in an interview last week about his reaction to being fired. “The narrative is that these terminations and firings are not going to affect services to veterans or services that the American public relies on, which is completely false.”
Related: 83,000 VA Employees Slated to Be Fired This Year by Musk’s DOGE, Memo Says
Story Continues
Read the full article here