WASHINGTON —
The House and Senate overwhelmingly passed an emergency funding package in late July
to help the Department of Veterans Affairs overcome its nationwide crisis in
care and confidence. H.R. 3230, the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability
Act of 2014, was passed in the House by a vote of 420-5, and in the Senate by
91-3.
With
federal midterm elections just weeks away, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the
United States wants America to remember the names of the eight legislators who
voted against disabled veterans: Reps. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), Jack Kingston
(R-Ga.), Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) and Steve Stockman
(R-Texas), and Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Jeff
Sessions (R-Ala.). Not on the Nov. 4 ballot are Kingston and Stockman, Coburn,
because he is stepping down, and Corker, whose six-year term doesn’t expire
until 2018.
The
hypocrisy of the “no” votes, according to VFW National Commander John W.
Stroud, is that between 2003 and 2010, five of them voted to approve more than
a half trillion dollars in supplemental war funding with little regard to
corresponding offsets or spending oversight, yet in July they would vote
against $16 billion to improve the care and services the VA provides to
wounded, ill and injured veterans. The three not in office at the time of those
war funding votes are Crawford, Sanford and Stockman. Sanford, however, was the
governor of South Carolina from 2003-2011, a state that experienced tremendous
active, Guard and Reserve deployments, as well as combat casualties.
“By
voting no, those eight members failed to stand with America’s wounded, ill and
injured veterans,” said Stroud, a retired Air Force first sergeant from
Hawthorne, Nev. “Failing to support America’s veterans is inexcusable, and I
hope every voting constituent in every home district and state remembers that,
because the VFW will do our best to remind them,” he said.
“The
VFW has a long memory when it comes to remembering those who vote for war but
not the warrior, and though we will never tell our members and supporters who
to vote for, we will always tell them who in Congress does — or does not —
support veterans, service members and their families.”
The
13 members of the House and Senate who were not present to vote on H.R. 3230 —
for reasons their constituents should ask — are Reps. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.),
Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), Colleen Hanabusa
(D-Hawaii), Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.), Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) and Albio Sires
(D-N.J.), and Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Kay
Hagan (D-N.C.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Brian Schatz
(D-Hawaii).
Along
with Kingston and Stockman, Hanabusa will not be on the November ballot, nor
will Senator Harkin. The three representatives lost their Senate primary
challenges, and Harkin is retiring after serving five terms in office.