Voting To Help Veterans

Since first being elected to Congress, I’ve been fighting for our veterans to get the care they were promised and earned. This week the House will be voting on more than ten bills to help veterans gain better access to education, mental health care and more. I bet you won't hear much about this in the media. Some of these bills include:

- H.R. 3218, the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, which will remove time restrictions to use the GI Bill, enabling future eligible recipients to pursue an education on their own schedule, instead within the currently mandated 15-year window.

- H.R. 918, the Veteran Urgent Access to Mental Health Care Act, which will expand access to emergency mental health care for veterans who may have received an "other-than-honorable" discharge as long as they have applied for a character of service determination, deployed to a combat theater, participated in combat or were the victim of military sexual assault.

- H.R. 282, the Military Residency Choice Act, which will amend the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to permit the spouse of a servicemember to elect to use the same residence as the servicemember for the purposes of taxation and moving, regardless of whether or not they were married prior to relocating due to the service member's orders.

- H.R. 2749, the Protecting Business Opportunities for Veterans Act, which will protect veteran owned small businesses from bad actors who abuse the VA's Vets First Program by businesses that accept contracts and "pass-through" the work to other non-veteran owned companies. It will require all participants in the Vets First Program to certify they are performing the required percentage of work, and directs the VA to refer suspected violators to the Office of the Inspector General.

These bills are just a few of the bills that the House will vote on this week to improve the care our veterans receive. As always, if you or someone you know is having an issue with VA or any federal agency, I encourage you to contact my Red Tape Cutters at 361-884-2222.