Two Democratic senators are introducing a bill that would require President Donald Trump’s administration to rehire veterans it fired without cause as part of Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s efforts to cut thousands of jobs from the federal government.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-IL) office confirmed to the Washington Examiner that she and Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) will introduce the Protect Veteran Jobs Act in the Senate on Monday. The bill would force the Trump administration to reinstate veterans affected by recent mass layoffs and require the administration to provide a quarterly report to Congress on the number of veterans fired from the federal government, including a justification for their firing.
“Veterans who choose to continue their service to our country in the federal workforce deserve our utmost gratitude, but instead this Administration has kicked thousands of our heroes to the curb and left them without a paycheck,” Duckworth said in a statement to ABC News, which originally reported the legislation.
“The message of our bill is simple: Give our heroes their jobs back,” the statement continues. “If Republicans really care about our Veterans, they should stop enabling Trump and Musk’s chaos and support our legislation.”
Roughly 30% of the federal workforce is made up of veterans, according to September 2024 data from the Office of Personnel Management. Duckworth herself is a 23-year veteran who served as a Black Hawk pilot in the Iraq War. She was the first female double amputee from the war.
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The Department of Veterans Affairs is additionally planning to cut up to 80,000 workers from the agency, which has drawn bipartisan criticism. Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, called the move by the Trump administration an “outright betrayal of veterans.”
In the House, Rep. Derek Tran (D-CA) introduced similar legislation that would require the government to rehire veterans who were terminated without reason under the Trump administration’s mass layoffs across federal departments and agencies.