Senate Backs Bill to Protect Whistle-Blowers by 97 to 0

Acting with blessing in advance from the Bush Administration, the Senate on Thursday unanimously approved a bill to provide greater job safeguards for federal employee whistle-blowers who expose government fraud and waste. The vote was 97 to 0.

The measure, a slightly revised version of legislation that was unexpectedly vetoed by then-President Ronald Reagan last fall, now goes to the House, where it is expected to be approved and sent to the White House for President Bush to sign.

The bill, the first approved by the Senate this year, is designed to protect federal employees who disclose wrongdoing or wasteful spending from retaliation by their superiors in the form of dismissals, demotions, denials of promotions, unwanted transfers or negative job appraisals.

The measure assures that names of whistle-blowers will not be disclosed, except in rare instances to prevent imminent danger to health or safety or to block a violation of law.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), floor manager for the bill, said that Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh had given his approval to the revised legislation on behalf of the new Administration.

As a result, he said, the measure will be “stronger and better” than the one killed by Reagan last October.

“The enactment of this bill will be a victory for all of us who want to protect the taxpayer’s pocketbook from being picked by wasteful government spending,” Levin said.

The legislation would make the Office of Special Counsel, now a unit of the Merit Systems Protection Board, a separate federal agency with the primary task of protecting federal employees who expose government mismanagement or fraud.

Employees who assert that they are victims of reprisals for whistle-blowing would be able to seek a hearing from the Merit Systems Protection Board on their own if the special counsel did not act on their behalf within four months of their complaints.

The bill would also make it easier for federal employees to prove retaliation against them for disclosing improper actions and allow payment of attorneys’ fees in some instances.

Levin, who was joined by 27 co-sponsors, including many Republicans, said Congress should send a clear message to whistle-blowers that they will be protected and an equally clear message to federal employers that reprisals against those who disclose wrongdoing will not be tolerated.

A 1978 law designed to provide protection has proven inadequate, the Senate sponsors said. Recent surveys by the merit board found that 70% of federal employees with knowledge of fraud, waste and abuse did not report it, and the percentage of those who feared reprisals for exposing wrongdoing rose from 20% in 1980 to 37% in 1983.