For Immediate Release
May 23, 2003
Contact: Douglas Moore
(202) 225-6531

Congressman Marshall Begins Effort to Force Congress to Help Disabled Veterans

(Washington, D.C.) – Yesterday afternoon, U.S. Representative Jim Marshall (D-GA) began the process that will force Congress to meet its commitments to disabled Veterans. Marshall has started the discharge petition process to bring HR 303, the Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2003, to the floor for consideration by the House of Representatives.

HR 303, introduced earlier this year by Representative Michael Bilirakis (R-FL), is a resolution to permit retired members of the Armed Forces with a service-connected disability to receive both disability compensation and military retired pay for their years of military service from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Passage of HR 303 is a prime concern for military veterans and veteran’s support groups throughout the United States. Yet for reasons Marshall has called “inconceivable”, the initiative has languished in the legislative process for 16 years.

Three major veterans groups, the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States met with Marshall and have placed their support behind his discharge petition.

“We’re absolutely in favor of this discharge petition. This one of our most important issues, and we’re glad to see Congressman Marshall moving concurrent receipt forward in a bipartisan fashion,” said Mark Seavey, Grassroots Coordinator for the American Legion’s National Legislative Commission.

Concurrent receipt, the term by which this issue is known, has been repeatedly introduced in Congress, only to stall time and again. All three veterans groups are asking each of the bill’s 297 sponsors and co-sponsors to sign the discharge position as soon as Congress re-convenes the week of June 2nd.

“It’s time for Congress to put up or shut up. Concurrent Receipt has been debated for more than a decade,” said Marshall. “Right now, there are almost three hundred co-sponsors who have signed on in support of this bill. We only need 218 of those folks to bring this to the floor.”

A discharge petition is a special House rule allowing for a majority of the House, 218 Representatives, to force a vote on an issue that is being bottled up in committee or by the leadership. It is the same extraordinary procedure used to force passage of campaign finance reform legislation in the last Congress.