The Intercept Writes About Our Veterans Bill of Rights

by Future Majority | 6.14.19

Please take a few minutes to read a great article in The Intercept about the lawmakers from 11 states that are pushing the Veterans Bill of Rights Future Majority launched last month with the great organization Future Now.

Here's a snippet of the piece by The Intercept reporter Akela Lacy featuring Future Majority advisor Army Major (Retired) Richard Ojeda!

AS THE COUNTRY mourned and celebrated Americans who have died in combat over the weekend, state lawmakers from around the country were working on a comprehensive plan to tackle some of the toughest problems facing veterans: suicide, homelessness, access to mental health care and medical care, and access to jobs.

A group of 26 state lawmakers across 11 states is planning to introduce a so-called Veterans Bill of Rights before their respective legislative sessions end or early next session. The impetus, organizers say, is the federal government’s failure to improve the way the country treats and supports people who’ve served in the military — even in the wake of a 2014 scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs that revealed massive wait times for veterans at VA campuses across the country, false record keeping, and lapses in care.

“When you have seven people so far this year who have committed suicide on a VA campus, you know there’s a problem,” former West Virginia State Sen. Richard Ojeda, a veteran himself, told The Intercept.

Ojeda, who ran for Congress in 2018 and then launched a short-lived presidential campaign, is now a senior adviser to Future Majority, a nonprofit Democratic strategy organization. Ojeda, Future Majority, and Future Now, a state-level political organizing group that developed the model policy for the veterans’ legislation, are working with the lawmakers to ramp up support for the bill and will travel to the 11 states to campaign for the bill over the next several months.

Read the full article here.

Read the Veterans Bill of Rights here.

And tell us, do you support a Veterans Bill of Rights to tackle suicide and other critical issues facing America's military Veterans and their families?