October 09, 2025

Takano, Blumenthal & Colleagues Blast Secretary Collins For Polticizing Key Veteran Services During Shutdown

Lawmakers call out Trump VA for needlessly weaponizing the government shutdown & violating the Hatch Act

WASHINGTON – Today, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member Mark Takano (D-CA) and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) led a group of Committee members to call out Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins for weaponizing the government shutdown and artificially ending communications with Congress—despite the fact these constituent services have already been funded by multi-year appropriation bills that are not affected by the current government shutdown. The group criticized Collins for spending taxpayer resources to politicize the government shutdown, while simultaneously refusing to assist veterans with their casework.

“Congress has provided the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) with multi-year funding, which ensures a government shutdown has minimal impact on veterans’ health care and benefits,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to VA Secretary Collins. “That is why we are deeply concerned that your Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs (OCLA) refuses to initiate, dispatch, or respond to congressional inquiries on behalf of our veteran constituents. Every single day, veterans and their families come to our offices for help in getting their health care and benefits from VA. Often, they come to us as their last resort. We take those concerns or their specific cases directly to VA and advocate on their behalf. Thus, any delay in responding to this outreach or dispatching their cases will cause harm to the veterans we serve…The Department must revisit this prioritization scheme and dedicate sufficient staff and resources necessary to accomplish the task of responding in a timely manner to ALL constituent casework requests initiated by Congress.”

The lawmakers pressed the Trump VA for ending all Congressional communications during the shutdown, even though the office which handles these communications—VA’s Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs (OCLA)—has available carryover funding, unrelated to the shutdown, it can use to continue operations: “…[W]e know that previous administrations planned to continue dispatching and responding to congressional inquiries during government shutdowns by utilizing non-furloughed employees. The fact that VA has chosen not to prioritize communication with Congress on policy matters is clearly a leadership decision and a direct affront to our constitutional duty to oversee the work of the Department.” Further, the Trump VA has continued communicating with the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s Majority Staff despite ceasing communication with the other Committees’ staff.

The lawmakers also condemned Trump VA leaders for violating the Hatch Act in their communications to veterans and VA employees: “To make matters worse, it appears that leaders within your Department have used congressionally appropriated funds to send politically charged messages to veterans and VA staff about the shutdown in what seem to be clear violations of the Hatch Act. We remind you and your leadership team that we are tracking these violations and taking them very seriously. While the Trump Administration may not enforce the Hatch Act currently, we will not hesitate to investigate these violations.”

Takano and Blumenthal’s letter was signed by U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Angus King (I-ME) and U.S. Representatives Julia Brownley (D-CA), Nikki Budzinski (D-IL), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), Herb Conaway (D-NJ), Maxine Dexter (D-OR), Tim Kennedy (D-NY), Kelly Morrison (D-MN), and Delia Ramirez (D-IL).

The full text of the lawmakers’ letter is available here.

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