Government Accountability Project

Last night, the Senate unanimously approved comprehensive bipartisan whistleblower protection legislation for federal employees. This action is the result of a decade-long effort to protect the federal employees who risk their careers to protect the rest of us. The Make It Safe Coalition (MISC) urges the House to quickly pass the bill to make it law this year.

The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (S. 372) makes significant progress in affording millions of federal workers the rights they need to protect all Americans. It restores 'best practice' free speech rights by overturning years of flawed judicial and administrative decisions that had left current whistleblower law in tatters and federal workers unprotected. For the first time in history, the law will have structural reforms including normal access to appeals courts for whistleblowers, and the right to a trial. The legislation has the strong support of dozens of groups from the across the ideological spectrum.

Senators Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME), and George Voinovich (R-OH) worked together to draft the bill. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) also helped ensure the passage of this legislation. MISC thanks the senators and their committed staff for their tireless commitment to federal whistleblower and taxpayer protections. The Obama administration has also been crucial to shaping a bill that has broad support in Congress and from the administration.

Though this bill does not include all of reforms sought by MISC, it gives us a strong beachhead from which we can wage these battles. We will continue to fight to extend and expand whistleblower protections in the 112th Congress.

Taxpayers and American families depend on federal workers to sound the alarm to alert us to waste, abuse and threats to public health and safety. For this reason, we urge the House to move swiftly to pass S. 372 without amendments and get this bill to the President’s desk before the end of this year.

GAP Legal Director Tom Devine commented, “This is the procedural breakthrough we’ve needed for years. If the House finishes the job, Congress will give a Christmas present to the American taxpayers. While any significant reform must survive a political gauntlet, the whistleblower bill is remarkably intact. It significantly expands rights and employees covered, reverses almost all hostile legal rulings for the last 17 years, and finally breaks through to structural reform for normal court access so congress will not have to pass these rights a fourth time."