Image Credit: Adelia Kirchner / The Tennessee Conservative
The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –
During a recent meeting of the Tennessee General Assembly Veterans Caucus, members reviewed various pieces of legislation regarding veterans and military affairs.
Former Acting U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) and current President of the National Association for Veterans Rights, Peter O’Rourke, attended the caucus meeting and spoke in favor of the SAVE Act.
The Safeguarding American Veteran Empowerment (SAVE) Act
House Bill 342 (HB0342)/Senate Bill 362 (SB0362) or the SAVE Act, sponsored by Rep. Jerome Moon (R-Maryville-District 8) and Sen. Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville-District 7), seeks to protect veterans from deceptive practices under the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act of 1977.
More specifically, this legislation outlines various protections regarding compensation received for those advising or assisting veterans with benefit matters.
Some of these protections include:
- Prohibiting initial up-front fees.
- Mandating all fees are contingent on a successful outcome.
- Implementing a fee cap.
- Prohibiting direct solicitation of veterans, promising or guaranteeing an increase, and using foreign call centers.
- Prohibiting having access to the veteran’s personal private financial information.
- Mandating disclosure to the veteran that there are free options available to them and mandating signed consent.
- Mandating HIPAA compliant servers.
- Prohibiting taking on a veteran in their first 365 days of discharge.
Any violation of the SAVE Act would be considered an “unfair or deceptive act or practice affecting trade or commerce” subject to penalty as defined by the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act and further enhanced by the legislation itself.
While some critics have warned that the SAVE Act might actually do the opposite of its intention and negatively impact Tennessee veterans, O’Rourke maintains that this legislation will protect veterans from third-party groups who are “bad actors,” purposefully taking advantage of veterans seeking help to obtain their benefits.
“What I saw from the department was there was good actors, bad actors…Obviously being the secretary, I mostly dealt with bad actors,” said O’Rourke, “but then after my service there at VA, what I realized is there were some very committed people that had started for-profit businesses to help veterans with their claims and act appropriately, transparently and ethically to help them.”
O’Rourke explained that it became of mission of his to separate the two groups.
“What we did at the association was develop a very exhaustive list of what a good actor looks like and what a bad actor looks like,” he explained. “That’s led us here to try to legislate the good actor behaviors and make sure that bad actors can’t operate in the state.”
The SAVE Act, which was called the PLUS Act at the time, is already state law in Louisiana.
Arizona, Kentucky, Hawaii, and Georgia have all passed the legislation in one chamber so far and the SAVE Act is pending introduction in both Michigan and Ohio.
Resolution urging the Department of Veterans Affairs to add Covid-19 and anthrax vaccinations as “pre-qualifying” for care under the PACT Act.
Rep. Monty Fritts (R-Kingston-District 32) is sponsoring House Joint Resolution 98 (HJR0098), a resolution urging Congress to “require the Department of Veterans Affairs to add certain COVID-19 treatments and anthrax vaccinations as pre-qualifying for care under the PACT Act.”
During Wednesday’s caucus meeting, Rep. Fritts noted that the resolution was to encourage Congress and the VA to help soldiers that were “given those shots at different times in their service career” and may have suffered injures from the forced vaccinations.
Conservative Tennesseans may find the three-page resolution to be quite the hard-hitting read as it not only states that “many servicemembers have reportedly been unlawfully forced to accept COVID-19 drugs and anthrax vaccinations” and that “our government has a history of subjecting our servicemembers to experimental conditions and substances without their consent,” but it also recognizes the potential for generational damage and the experimental phase these pharmaceutical substances were in when many service members were subjected to them.
The “Defend the Guard Act”
House Bill 129 (HB0129)/Senate Bill 156 (SB0156), is being sponsored by Rep. Michele Reneau (R-Signal Mountain-District 27) and Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald-District 28).
As introduced, this legislation “prohibits the Tennessee national guard, or a member of the national guard, from being released from state duty into federal active duty combat unless the United States congress has passed an official declaration of war or has taken an official action pursuant to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15, of the United States Constitution to explicitly call forth the Tennessee national guard or a member of the national guard for the enumerated purposes to expressly execute the laws of the union, repel an invasion, or suppress an insurrection.”
“This bill would restrict the governor from sending our national guard troops to only active duty combat on foreign soil, unless a congressional act of war has been declared,” said Rep. Reneau. “The primary objection is that we might lose federal funding for that.”
However, Rep. Reneau explained that the money Tennessee gets from the federal government under Title 32 is for state readiness.
“We would not lose that money if we refuse to go to active duty foreign combat,” she clarified. “Title 10 is a completely separate title, where they would be engaged to go overseas for that and just a totally different funding aspect.”
Rep. Fritts chimed in saying that about a year ago, the current secretary of defense stated that he was in support of this type of action.
Sen. Briggs did not seem to share the same support for the legislation, saying that in his opinion there are some serious issues.
“The attorney general says it’s unconstitutional and I know [Major General Warner A. Ross II] has some concerns,” said Sen. Briggs. “We could lose our, I won’t go into all that…We could lose our military equipment that we have. That means no helicopters to rescue people during rescues. We won’t be getting anything new.”
Rep. Reneau said she understood the objections, but that the primary role of the Tennessee National Guard under the state constitution is to serve Tennessee and the United States as needed.
“You know the day after Helene happened, we sent several hundred national guard overseas to the middle east,” she said. “Perhaps that shouldn’t have, the need in the middle east, may not have been as pertinent as serving our citizens here.”
“I’ll just say that I’m glad that we had our international guard over there that were assisting in shooting down Iranian missiles,” Sen. Briggs said in response. “That’s the ones you’re talking about were the people that were protecting Israel.”
Briggs quickly ended the discussion saying that he thinks everyone knows where he stands on the issue.
Similar legislation was brought last year under HB1609/SB2750 by Rep. Jay Reedy (R-Erin-District 74) and Sen. Rusty Crowe (R-Johnson City-District 3).
About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee. Adelia is The Tennessee Conservative’s on-site reporter for the Tennessee General Assembly. You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
