Health Care

Today, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Vice Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) sent letters to GSA Administrator Emily Murphy and SSA Acting Commissioner Nancy Berryhill requesting an update on the status of the fourth hearing room at the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Washington Hearing Office. SSA and GSA had been planning to construct the additional hearing room, which would expand SSA’s capacit... Read more

Mitch Miller Political winds are again swirling around FEMA as the organization races to get ready for Hurricane Florence and what’s expected to be a major recovery effort after it makes landfall. FEMA Administrator Brock Long and the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday rejected a Democratic senator’s claim that nearly $10 million was diverted from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) charged that the Trump ad... Read more

By Rep. Gerry Connolly President Trump and Republicans in Congress rammed their tax scheme through Congress without a single hearing or considering any Democratic amendments. Unlike many members of Congress, I met with community stakeholders and held a public roundtable to hear firsthand how the bill would affect our region. Overwhelmingly, I was told the bill would hit most Northern Virginian taxpayers hard in their pocketbooks. On top of that, it added $1.9 trillion to the deficit, completely... Read more

Today, Congressman Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA), Vice Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released a new congressional report that found the Republican tax law will disproportionately hurt Northern Virginia homeowners, especially those with home equity loans. The report, prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, details how the new law’s changes to the mortgage interest deduction, home equity loan deduction and state ... Read more

WaPo Editorial Board If you were embroiled in a dispute over claims for benefits or federal enforcement actions, your case would probably end up before an administration law judge (ALJ). These judges — of whom there are more than 1,900 across the federal government, 1,600 in the Social Security Administration alone — oversee trial-like hearings and adjudicate a range of administrative and regulatory questions. They have traditionally been subject to a merit-based hiring system led by the Office... Read more

Today SEEC Leadership, including Co-Chairs Reps. Gerry Connolly, Doris Matsui, and Paul Tonko, and Vice-Chairs Reps. Matt Cartwright, Alan Lowenthal, Mike Quigley, Chellie Pingree and Jared Polis released the following statement in response to the passage of H.Con.Res. 119, a Republican-led resolution expressing the sense of Congress that a tax on carbon pollution would be detrimental to the United States economy. “Today Congressional Republicans led a resolution denouncing a growing movement to... Read more

Today, Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings and all Democrats on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting documents on the proposed gag rule for the Title X National Family Planning Program, which would impede women’s access to critical information about their healthcare. “We are writing to request documents relating to the harmful gag rule you recently proposed for the Title X National Family Planning P... Read more

Today, the House of Representatives unanimously adopted an amendment offered by Congressman Gerald E. Connolly, Vice Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that would ensure funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General. Connolly offered this amendment in response to recent reports that have found widespread problems at the DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center. “We witnessed unacceptable leadership failures and pervasive understaffin... Read more

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, Subcommittee Chairman Mark Meadows and Subcommittee Ranking Member Gerry Connolly released the following statement after the Committee passed bipartisan legislation, H.R. 5925, the Coordinated Response through Interagency Strategy and Information Sharing (CRISIS) Act, to reauthorize and revamp the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Chairman Gowdy and Subcommittee Chairman Meadows iss... Read more

Today, Congressman Gerald E. Connolly, Vice Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, requested a congressional hearing on the recent failings at the Washington, DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center. In a letter sent to the Chairmen of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations and the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Connolly requested an immediate hearing to “examine t... Read more