WASHINGTON — When a Purple Heart recipient named Pat reached out to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray in November to inform her that he couldn’t transfer his GI bill benefits to his children, he wasn’t expecting congressional action to solve the problem.

He simply just wanted to let the Washington state Democrat know, he told States Newsroom in an exclusive interview.

With a child about to head to college, Pat, who didn’t want his last name used, had recently been told by the Army that he couldn’t transfer his education benefits to them because he received the Purple Heart after he was medically discharged. This rule does not apply to those who receive the medal while still in service.

Murray and Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, introduced a bipartisan bill Thursday aimed at closing that loophole.

The legislation, titled the Purple Heart Veterans Education Act, would permit retroactive award recipients who served on or after Sept. 11, 2001 to transfer their education benefits to one or more dependents. It was unveiled just ahead of Memorial Day, when the nation honors its deceased service members.

“As the daughter of a Purple Heart recipient, I’ve seen firsthand the enormous sacrifices Purple Heart veterans make to defend our freedoms, and I feel strongly that we should be doing absolutely everything we can to help all veterans and their families thrive,” Murray said in a statement Thursday.

“It doesn’t make any sense that service members who are awarded a Purple Heart after their service can’t transfer their GI benefits to their dependents, while those who receive it during their service can—and I am grateful to Pat, my constituent in Washington state who brought this gap in the law to my attention,” continued Murray, a senior member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.

“Our legislation will close this loophole and allow more children of Purple Heart veterans to further their education. I want to thank Senator Tillis for joining me on this legislation and I’ll be working hard to get it passed into law.”

Virginia recognizes Purple Heart recipients and their service in a variety of ways and has historic connections to the award. The oldest military honor in the United States, the Purple Heart dates back to 1782 when it was established by then-General George Washington — a native of Westmoreland County, Virginia — to commemorate the bravery of select Continental Army soldiers during the American Revolution.

“Sergeant William Brown was awarded the decoration for his gallantry while assaulting British positions at Yorktown in October 1781,” according to the Army Historical Foundation.

The Military Order of the Purple Heart, “the only veterans service organization comprised strictly of ‘combat’ veterans,” is headquartered in Springfield, Virginia. The organization created the Purple Heart Trails program; the trail’s origin point is in Virginia at Mt. Vernon, where Washington is buried, and extends the length of Interstate 95 through the state.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin decreed August 7, 2023 as Purple Heart Day in Virginia and the state offers special license plates commemorating the prestigious award.

Glitch in education benefits

Pat was medically discharged from the U.S. Army and retroactively received a Purple Heart for his actions during Iran’s retaliatory missile barrage in January 2020 on an Iraq airbase, after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

The Army later approved 39 Purple Hearts for service members who experienced the attack, according to a December 2021 report by the Army Times.

As his teenager looks to enroll at Central Washington University next year, Pat found out that by law his education benefits would only be available for transfer if he had received the award while still in service.

“My thought was, ‘I doubt that legislators would have done that intentionally.’ I just thought, you know, people probably just didn’t think about how that happens — that some people are going to get retroactive Purple Hearts, or for whatever reason in evaluating them, they’re delayed. So it’s not like an unusual thing,” Pat said in a phone interview.

“I wasn’t thinking much was going to happen, but I just wanted to write Senator Murray, who is my local senator, and let her know the issue. They responded by saying, ‘That’s an oversight on our part, and we want to make good on that.’”

Pat said he’s “grateful for Sen. Murray” and hopes his action is able to help other Purple Heart veterans. For now, his family is moving forward with the college enrollment process for his child, he said.

Benefits and dependents

Among the provisions in the legislation, Murray and Tillis’ bill would also allow veterans to split up 36 months worth of benefits to each of their dependents. For example, they could transfer 20 months to one and 16 months to another.

The bill, if enacted, would also prohibit the benefits from being treated as marital property or a marital estate asset.

And, the bill would permit dependents to access unused benefits if their veteran family member has died.

“Purple Heart recipients are heroes who honorably served our country at great costs, and this oversight that prevents servicemembers who received this distinguished award after their service from transferring their GI bill benefits to their dependents needs to be corrected immediately,” Tillis said in a statement Thursday.

“I am proud to co-introduce this commonsense legislation with Senator Murray to close this loophole and ensure every Purple Heart recipient and dependents are able to further their education,” continued Tillis, who also sits on the Senate’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

The number of veterans who retroactively received the Purple Heart after their post-9/11 service is unclear. The bill is estimated to cost $500,000 in mandatory spending over 10 years, according to an informal analysis provided to Murray’s office by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The bill has received praise from veterans groups, including the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

“Unfortunately, not every veteran’s service and sacrifice on behalf of the United States of America is fully recognized while they’re still in uniform,” IAVA CEO and Iraq War veteran Allison Jaslow said in a statement Thursday.

“The Purple Heart Veterans Education Act ensures that those veterans who’ve endured bodily harm on behalf of our nation, but weren’t recognized for it until their service concluded, are able to turn that recognition into an investment in the education of their loved ones.”

More Purple Heart recipients

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have “greatly increased” the number of Purple Heart recipients as the Department of Defense has added some traumatic brain injuries as a recognized condition for the award, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

It wasn’t until a 2017 law that Purple Heart recipients were able to receive full post-9/11 GI Bill benefits regardless of their length of service. Previously, the recipients had to have 36 months of active service.

The Department of Defense does not maintain a record of the number of recipients, according to the CRS, but by law they do maintain a publicly accessible list with the permission of the veteran or next of kin.

Military historians and the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor estimate about 1.8 million Purple Hearts have been awarded since 1932. The Army Historical Foundation estimated as of 2016 that 30,000 Purple Hearts had been awarded since 2001. The CRS cited this statistic.

by Ashley Murray, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.

WASHINGTON — The race to harness the tax code is in full swing as economists and advocates across the political spectrum view the expiring Trump-era tax law as an opportunity to advance their economic priorities.

Democratic Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington said Wednesday that reworking the tax code will be “a reflection of what your values are.”

DelBene, who sits on the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax Policy, said her priorities include modernizing the tax code, raising revenue via carbon fees on imported goods, and making permanent an expanded child tax credit akin to the temporary changes in place during the pandemic.

“The top line is starting from what our values and goals are, and then looking at what the policies are that help us get there,” DelBene said at a Politico-sponsored discussion on proposed tax law changes.

The early morning event at Washington’s Union Station brought together tax experts and advocates from Georgetown University Law Center, the Urban Institute, the Heritage Foundation and Groundwork Collaborative.

Tax overhaul

The massive tax overhaul ushered in under the Trump administration permanently cut the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%. The 2017 law, championed by Republicans as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, also put in place several temporary measures for corporations and small businesses. Some are phasing out or already expired, including immediate deductions for certain investments.

Temporary changes for households included marginal tax rate cuts across the board, a doubling of the child tax credit, and a near doubling of the standard deduction — all of which are set to expire Dec. 31, 2025.

A bipartisan bill to temporarily extend the expiring business incentives and expand the child tax credit beyond 2025 sailed through the U.S. House in late January, but has been stalled by U.S. Senate Republicans who oppose some of the child tax credit expansion proposals.

A May 2024 nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report estimated extending the tax cuts would cost roughly $4.6 trillion over 10 years. The bulk of the cost would stem from keeping in place individual tax cuts, according to an analysis of the report by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Critics of the 2017 law point to a recent March analysis from academics and members of the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Federal Reserve that shows that the law’s benefits flowed to the highest earners.

DelBene said revisiting the corporate tax rate, even on the Republican side, is “on the table” and lawmakers will be talking about “where the TCJA wasn’t about investing and making sure that we were being fiscally responsible.”

‘Incredibly bullish’

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, said Wednesday she’s “incredibly bullish” on elected officials making “fundamental changes” to the tax code next year.

The progressive think tank sent a letter Wednesday to House and Senate leadership and top tax writers urging them “to use the expiration of these provisions as an opportunity to address long-standing problems with our tax code, not just to tinker around the edges.”

The letter was signed by 100 organizations from across the U.S., ranging from the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers to the National Women’s Law Center and United Church of Christ.

Stephen Moore, who helped write the Trump-era tax law and is now the conservative Heritage Foundation’s senior visiting fellow in economics, said the 2017 law was a “huge success” and that “we’re gonna definitely make those tax cuts permanent.”

Moore is an economic adviser for former President Donald Trump’s reelection effort, but said he was not speaking on behalf of the presidential campaign.

He said he does not agree with Trump on everything, including a promise to enact 10% tariffs on imported goods, reaching as high as 60% on Chinese imports.

“A tariff is just a consumption tax,” he said. “And so you know, I think that it is not a great policy, in my opinion. But if you’re gonna have a tariff, I would rather have a tariff that is uniform than trying to have, like, a protectionist tariff to, you know, protect this industry or that industry.”

When pressed on data that shows funding the Internal Revenue Service increases revenue, Moore said that President Joe Biden’s increase in funding for the agency is “diabolical.”

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.

The 2024 Bay-wide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey results have revealed a stable blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay. Encouraged by these findings, fisheries managers from Virginia, Maryland, and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission have decided to maintain current harvest levels while awaiting a comprehensive benchmark stock assessment.

Since 1990, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources have conducted the annual Winter Dredge Survey. This survey uses traditional crab dredges to sample blue crabs at 1,500 sites throughout the Chesapeake Bay from December through March. The 2024 survey estimated the blue crab population at 317 million, with adult female crabs remaining above average for the second year.

Monitoring the adult female blue crab population is crucial, as they are essential for propagating future generations. The population has responded positively to management changes made after the 2008 Blue Crab Fishery Disaster declaration. Notably, there has been no overfishing of female crabs in 2024, continuing a positive trend.

Jamie Green, Commissioner of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), highlighted the importance of Virginia’s license-specific bushel limits: “One of the most influential management measures that has contributed to the long-term success in blue crab fisheries management has been the license-specific bushel limits implemented by Virginia in 2013. This allows Virginia to reduce regulatory burdens that would economically benefit the industry while maintaining the long-term conservation goals of the joint Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions.”

However, the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee (CBSAC) has warned that other factors affecting blue crab abundance may not be fully understood. To address this, a collaborative effort supported by Virginia, Maryland, and the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office is underway to conduct a comprehensive stock assessment over the next 2-3 years. This assessment will consider habitat availability, water temperature and salinity, ocean dynamics, and predator abundance, with the results informing future management strategies.

CBSAC recently reviewed the 2023-24 Winter Dredge Survey results, which will be detailed in the forthcoming CBSAC Annual Report, scheduled for release this June. In Virginia, stakeholders can learn more about the survey results at the Virginia Marine Resources Commission’s Crab Management Advisory Committee meeting on May 29 at 4 p.m. Additional information about public meetings can be found at MRC.Virginia.gov.

WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House Wednesday passed a bill to add a citizenship question to the decennial census and exclude non-citizens from the population count used to determine federal representation.

No House Democrats voted for the bill, which passed along party lines 206-202. The vote sends the bill to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it is unlikely to move forward.

Census data determines the number of congressional districts in each state and the amounts of federal funding distributed to each state.

“Common sense dictates that only American citizens should be counted for electoral apportionment,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R–Louisiana, said in a statement after the vote.

Johnson said including non-citizens in congressional reapportionment rewards illegal immigration and cities with relaxed immigration policies with more representation.

However, Democrats argued Wednesday that the bill would unfairly harm people who came to the country both legally and illegally with less federal funding and weaker representation of their communities.

“We don’t need to start finger-painting on the Constitution with this silly election-year proposal,”  Rep. Jamie Raskin, D–Maryland, said on the House floor. “This is a land that is built on immigration.”

The census last included a citizenship question in 1950. During his presidency, Donald Trump attempted to add the question to the 2020 census but was blocked by the Supreme Court.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D–New York, was critical of the citizenship question in 2019 when he accused Trump of “intimidating communities of color.” House Republicans want only the number of U.S. citizens in an area to count for representation. If enacted, this legislation could decrease federal representation for states with large immigrant populations, including California, Florida, and Texas.

“The mere presence of illegal immigrants in the United States is having a profound impact on the outcomes of elections, skewing the representation of Americans,” Rep. Chuck Edwards, R–North Carolina, said on the House floor.

Edwards, the bill’s sponsor, added that non-citizens have no allegiance to the United States and should not count for representation.

Rep. Nanette Barragán, D–California, countered that adding a citizenship question would have a “chilling effect” on census participation by immigrant communities.

Opponents of the bill said that immigrant communities might be afraid to answer the census with a citizenship question over fears of being reported to law enforcement agencies.

“This would deprive immigrants of representation and resources,” Barragán said.

Johnny Zuagar, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Census Council 241, told Capital News Service Tuesday that Trump’s push for adding the question to the 2020 census caused chaos and difficulty for census workers.

Zuagar said U.S. Census Bureau employees had to work hard to regain trust in immigrant communities. “Our staff has done a great job of just trying to build relationships throughout the country with different groups, especially Hispanic groups,” Zuagar said. “We just don’t want to add more challenges.”

Census employees cannot legally provide identifiable information to anyone, including law enforcement.

By KATHARINE WILSON
Capital News Service

WASHINGTON – Maryland federal and state lawmakers and local education groups are speaking out against allowing teachers to carry firearms in classrooms, adding that they are confident that a bill allowing such a practice won’t come to fruition in the state.

“The simple truth is that the vast majority of Americans want commonsense reforms like stronger background checks and an assault weapons ban to keep our schools safe from the epidemic of gun violence,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, said in a statement.

He added: “Despite that, some legislators continue to press for policies like this one in Tennessee to allow for concealed carry for handguns on school grounds. It’s a misguided and dangerous approach that undermines the safety and well-being of both students and educators.”

Maryland is one of 14 states, and the District of Columbia has some law preventing school boards from giving K-12 educators the authority to carry firearms, according to the nonprofit firearm training organization Faster Saves Lives.

Maryland law prevents anyone from carrying or possessing a firearm in public and private K-12 schools, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a nonprofit based in California.

The law was extended to higher education institutions in March 2023.

Tennessee is the most recent state to pass legislation in stark contrast to Maryland’s law.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a law on April 26 allowing teachers and other school staff members to carry firearms on school grounds. The law was passed after three 9-year-old students and three adults were killed last March in a shooting by a former student at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.

“There are no circumstances where educators should carry weapons on school property,” said Cheryl Bost, president of the Maryland State Education Association. “Our educators are trained professionals in the field of education. And that’s what we want to do in our classrooms and our work sites, whether that’s bus drivers, secretaries or teachers.”

Tennessee teachers still need approval from their school’s director and principal to carry firearms. Educators would also have to obtain a handgun permit and complete at least 40 hours of approved training from the Police Officer Standards and Training Commission in addition to the 40 hours of basic training.

“That is a pretty insignificant amount of time,” said Maryland Del. Jared Solomon, a Democrat. “Considering the amount of time that law enforcement has to train and create scenarios and figure out how to confront these kinds of situations.”

Solomon started his career as a high school teacher in Baltimore City before moving to the policy side of education. He believes that another problematic aspect of Tennessee’s bill is that it won’t allow parents to be notified if their students’ teachers are carrying guns.

“If you didn’t want your child in a classroom with a teacher that was carrying a gun, you wouldn’t have that option, which I think is not really parental choice,” Solomon said. “I know certainly, I would not want my child in a classroom where the teacher is carrying a weapon.”

Mark Pennak, president of the gun owners’ rights organization Maryland Shall Issue, doesn’t see Tennessee’s law as a problem.

Pennak believes that teachers serve as the “first line of defense for students” and that those willing to be trained and who can carry a gun should be allowed to.

“The whole idea of concealed carry is that the mass killer intruder does not know who is armed,” Pennak said in an email. “If the information is shared with parents, that advantage will disappear, and the armed teacher would be in the same position as the uniformed school resource officer – the first target.”

Pennak added that programs, like the nonprofit organization FASTER, help train school faculty to ensure that they are not risking the students’ safety.

“Trained teachers do not put their children at risk,” Pennak said.“That is what the training is for. And any such minimal risk is far outweighed by the protection that an armed teacher can provide right at the outset of a school shooting.”

The number of school shootings in K-12 schools in the United States has increased each year from 2021 to 2023, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database created by data scientist David Riedman.

The database defines a school shooting as an incident where a “gun is fired, brandished (pointed at a person with intent), or a bullet hits school property, regardless of the number of victims, time, day, or reason.”

In 2021, 256 shootings were recorded in the database. That number jumped to 308 school shootings in 2022 and 348 in 2023.

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, said he does not believe that allowing educators and other school professionals to carry guns would solve the mass shooting epidemic in schools.

“We do not need more guns in schools, and we do not need educators and other school professionals carrying guns,” Cardin said in a statement. “Teachers are hired to teach, not be security guards. The answer to stemming the epidemic of gun violence in our schools is not to bring more guns into the schools.”

Jaime Lennon, spokeswoman for Maryland Democratic Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, said that the possibility of a bill like Tennessee’s being introduced at the federal level is slim. Lennon added that no research suggests that arming teachers would solve the problem.

“Congressman Ruppersberger would strongly oppose it in any event, quite simply, because teachers have stated over and over that they do not want to carry guns into their classrooms,” Lennon said. “There is also zero scientific evidence that this is a realistic solution to an incredibly complex problem. If more guns equaled less violence, we would be the safest country on the globe.”

Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer said “Marylanders have long known that the answer to stopping mass shootings does not lie in increasing the number of firearms on American streets.”

“I’m disappointed to see this law passed in Tennessee, but I remain confident that under the leadership of Governor (Wes) Moore and our strong Democratic delegation – Maryland will continue to be a state that works towards ending gun violence once and for all,” Hoyer said.

Both Bost and Solomon said they were confident that the Maryland legislature would not allow teachers to carry guns in schools anytime soon.

“We’ve really instituted a lot of strong firearm safety standards and laws in the state that I think are a much better step forward than just saying we’re going to introduce more firearms into a school and leave that task to a teacher,” Solomon said.

Bost added that a deeper investment in school counselors and psychologists to help students deal with trauma, along with reducing class sizes to help teachers better cultivate relationships with students, could help prevent situations where students feel the need to resort to violence.

“Guns have never been, and will never be an answer, whether it’s in our society or our schools,” Bost said. “It’s actually getting into our classes and providing the resources. We are doing a good job with that here in Maryland. We can always do better.”

Maryland Del. Susan McComas, a Republican, agreed that the state would never pass a law similar to Tennessee’s legislation, adding that Maryland should consider using resources officers who can work with students.

“There are just too many what ifs and scenarios where a teacher might be attacked by a distraught student or a group of students to get the gun,”  McComas said, referring to Tennessee’s law.

By TORRENCE BANKS
Capital News Service

WASHINGTON – Since 1790, the Census Bureau has taken a head count of every person, regardless of citizenship, in the United States so Congress can determine how votes are distributed among members of the House of Representatives and Electoral College.

House Republicans want to make this process a thing of the past.

The House Tuesday voted 205-195 along party lines to consider a bill that could add a citizenship question to the decennial census and exclude non-citizens from the population used to calculate congressional district representation.

Then, President Donald Trump pushed to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census but was blocked by the Supreme Court in 2019 due to concerns about dishonest disclosure of the reason behind asking the question.

The census last asked the entire population about citizenship status in 1950. Since then, the government has presented a citizenship question to a sample of households through the American Community Survey and an occasional added survey to the census.

The census is not only used to determine the number of House members and Electoral College votes per state but also to decide how to distribute federal resources across the country.

Democratic lawmakers, including New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury, said the citizenship question could make non-citizens afraid of filling out the census, decreasing federal funding and representation.

“These counts would have devastating implications for not only our electoral system but the well-being of our families and communities,” Stansbury said Tuesday during a debate on the House floor.

Republicans, such as New York Rep. Nick Langworthy, argued that including non-citizens in the population for apportionment rewards illegal immigration and is unfair to U.S. citizens.

“Allowing non-citizens to vote dilutes the voice of the American citizen and opens the door for manipulation and exploitation of our electoral system,” Langworthy said.

Removing the weight of non-citizens in federal representation distribution could change the House’s party divide.

States with large immigrant populations – namely California, Texas, and Florida – would each have had one less representative if “unauthorized immigrants” had been excluded from the post-2020 census apportionment, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center report.

The 14th Amendment states that the apportionment of representatives is determined by a count of the “whole number of persons.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D–Maryland, said during a House Rules Committee meeting Monday that the bill was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, adding that the bill would exacerbate the undercount of the Hispanic population.

“This bill would destroy the accuracy of the census,” Raskin said.

According to Census Bureau reports, the 2020 census had a statistically significant undercount of Hispanics in the United States, with almost 5% not counted. This undercount has been attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and fears that answers to census questions could be shared with other agencies.

The Census Bureau cannot legally share identifiable information with anyone, including law enforcement.

However, Rep. Erin Houchin, R–Indiana, said Tuesday that since the proposed legislation would still allow counting non-citizens in the census, the change would not greatly impact federal assistance or an accurate population count, calling such claims a “red herring.”

A 2019 Census Bureau report said a citizenship question is sensitive for non-citizens and could affect the self-response rate.

Beyond the impacts of political representation, Johnny Zuagar, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Census Council 241, told Capital News Service that the bill, even if not passed, could complicate the jobs of census employees and the underfunded Census Bureau.

Bringing up the possibility of a census citizenship question again, Zuagar said, will likely make immigrants unsure if they can trust the Census Bureau not to report them to immigration authorities.

Census workers would have to take time to explain the citizenship question and the safety of the responses, Zuagar said, complicating their work.

During the 2020 census, he said, census employees had to work with immigrant communities to regain that lost trust.

“We’re just here to measure the country and follow the Constitution. You can trust us,” Zuagar said.

The House will likely vote on the bill this week. If passed in the House, the measure would move to the Senate, controlled by the Democrats.

By KATHARINE WILSON
Capital News Service