Bernie Sanders' Senate work at the heart of VA's latest woes

One major reason the Veterans Affairs Department leaders can't fire troublesome employees: Bernie Sanders.

The Obama administration is officials are moving to undo the Democratic presidential candidate’s past work as Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee chairman on disciplinary procedures in an effort to clean up the department, considering a change in employment rules for VA executives that Sanders fought for vigorously far just two years ago. [[[CAN WE ADD A CLAUSE HERE?//A.deG. --- done]]]. 

In recent weeks, the VA department has seen a host of job actions against senior employees overturned by the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent, "quasi-judicial" agency that serves as arbiter on a number of federal worker cases. They include the demotion of two VA executives accused of gaming the department’s hiring system for personal benefit, and the dismissal of a New York VA director over patient safety concerns.

The appeals fight has grown into an escalating intra-administration showdown between VA Department of Veterans Affairs leaders, who call the decisions off-base, and protection board officials, who blame bad legislative changes for the unsatisfactory rulings.

But Sanders — the independent Vermont senator who at the time was chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee — insisted on preserving the protection board's MSPB’s appeals role in the plan, and held up reform legislation in his chamber until it was included.

Sanders’ campaign did not respond to requests seeking comment on the disciplinary issues, but he the Democratic presidential hopeful has made the 2014 legislation one of the centerpieces of his platform campaign. [[[CAN WE INDICATE HERE WHAT HIS TENURE WAS AS COMMITTEE CHAIR?//A.deG.-- done]]] 

"It seemed to us like the Merit System Protection Board judges didn't understand the intent of Congress or our intent in punishing those employees," he said. "(Changes) "would give us more flexibility in terms of paying [employees] competitively in the medical community, as well as giving us greater flexibility and disciplining them without all of the things that happened with this."

"The implication in all of this is that VA is going to fire its way to excellence, despite what Secretary McDonald says," said SEA Interim President Jason Briefel, the association's interim president. "What we’re talking about is making it easier to punish executives with no review, no cause, no public record."

Officials with the Senior Executives Association SEA officials — who along with protection board members MSPB officials strongly objected to the last VA employment reform measure — said some appeals process must be included in any new dismissal policies.

Critics Briefel also said that critics need to stop "scapegoating" senior executives, Briefel said, adding that those as the main reason for VA’s problems, saying the roughly 400 or so individuals represent a fraction the rules cover are just one small aspect of a the 350,000-plus-employee, $170-billion department.

That’s a call that also echoes Sanders' comments defending VA workers at the height of the 2014 wait-time scandal. The senator took criticism from numerous veterans groups for being too positive about the department’s work at a time when he was leading a committee charged with oversight of VA’s failings.

Earlier this month, at a New Hampshire town hall event, Sanders acknowledged that "we should have acted sooner" on reports of wait-time problems and expressed regret that he didn’t have a quicker solution for answer to "those long waiting lines and the lies that some administrators were telling us."

Since then, issues of accountability have stymied VA reform efforts, with lawmakers from both parties upset by the heavily critical of a lack of firings and absence of criminal charges for the most egregious various wrongdoings.

VA officials have defended their action moves, calling it them as responsible management. They point to the early retirement of numerous executives in the wake of the wait-time scandal as evidence that troublesome officials are being forced out, even if they haven't been fired. They also accused lawmakers of overhyping problems within the department, saying lawmakers are conflating malice and malfeasance with mistakes made by under-trained supervisors with malice and malfeasance. 

But they have also promised to aggressively target any employees who harm veterans.  [[[EXAMPLES?//A.deG.]]] -- reworked the previous two grafs. 

On Tuesday, VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson said he would ignore the protection board's MSPB ruling regarding the New York administrator accused of undermining patient safety, citing technical legal reasons and broader moral authority.

"We expect our career leaders to be compassionate advocates for veterans and live up to President Lincoln’s promise to care for those who have borne the battle and their survivors," Gibson said in a statement. "The [protection board MSPB)] judge’s decision today runs counter to VA’s core values."

The inevitable legal fight expected to follow this decision will likely serve as a backdrop for the new debate over VA senior executive employment rules, this time without Sanders in a lead role.

Meanwhile, one of Sanders’ Republican presidential rivals — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio — has offered his own legislative plan to speed disciplinary actions against VA employees and strip pensions from department executives convicted of a crime. Other Republican hopefuls have promised similar tough new firing rules to deal with problems at VA.