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Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) introduced the Civil Rights Tax Relief Act in 2009. This bill would provide that compensatory damages awarded in whistleblower and other cases would be excluded from the definition of “income” for income tax purposes, just as other personal injuries are excluded. The Civil Rights Tax Relief Act will also permit whistleblowers and civil rights plaintiffs to pay taxes based on the tax rates of the years the wages would have been earned but for the unlawful discrimination.

They have now reintroduced this bill as the Civil Rights Tax Relief Act of 2011, H.R. 3195. Last week, Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced a companion bill, S. 1781.

This bill has positive outcomes for both employers and employees. The CRTRA will help employers by reducing the costs of employment and civil rights litigation by enabling more cases to be settled before trial. This will free up valuable court time for other cases. It also helps the employees by not requiring that they pay taxes on non-economic damages.

"The reintroduction of the CRTRA in both the House and the Senate is an excellent development and a great opportunity for Congress to level the playing field for employment plaintiffs who have to deal with illegal discrimination and pay higher taxes on their settlements or awards. We laud all the sponsors and look forward to making the CRTRA law," stated Bruce A. Fredrickson, who guided advocacy for the CRTRA on behalf of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA).

This bill failed to pass in the last session of Congress, but has the potential to pass this time around if enough people contact their representatives to advocate for it!

Intern Sravani Nichanamatlu wrote this blog entry.

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On Thursday the House Oversight Committee marked up the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. Similar bills have been passed during the past few sessions of Congress but never signed into law. Each new session of Congress brings a new start to the process.

Important language from past versions of the bill has been removed during this session, undoing significant progress for whistleblower protections. Specifically, the House of Representatives bill (H.R. 3289) in its current form would: 

• Cut out the right to a jury trial for federal employees.
• Empower the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to summarily dismiss whistleblower cases.
• Block whistleblowers from access to more “liberal” U.S. Courts of Appeal (such as the 9th Circuit). Instead, the government would be able to force their cases into a special court.

During the markup, Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), pictured right, proposed restoring language that would provide federal employees with a right to trial by jury.

“It gives either party to a proceeding the right to request a trial by jury,” explained Rep. Braley. “Because it’s been endorsed by whistleblower advocacy groups and because it is such a central right embedded in our nations history, it seems right to restore this language to the bill.”

Chairman Darrel E. Issa (R-Calif.) responded by stating, “There are serious concerns about expanding … access to our federal court system.” Ironically enough, in the past he voted in favor of a bill that includes jury trials for federal employees. Twice.

Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) argued that he has yet to hear one good reason to depart from the tradition of a jury trial. In his opinion, “It makes legal and common sense to extend this protection to federal workers.”

You can encourage your Representative to support jury trials for federal employees by Taking Action.

*Kim Le contributed to this post.

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Julia Davis, the Homeland Security writer for the Los Angeles Examiner, released an article yesterday calling for action today to "protect whistleblowers, so that they may continue protecting our nation." The article is called, "The House cooks up another turkey of a bill, guts whistleblower protections." Davis laments that, "Instead of improving an already deeply flawed Senate bill that was introduced earlier this year, the House slashed even more whistleblower protections." She decries the elimination of jury trials, the addition of summary judgment, and the shenanigans in picking which court will hear appeals. She joins with the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) in urging all Americans to take action today to ask Congress to fix this bill. She also made this graphic to express the distress of whistleblowers over the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA). Thank you.

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Today, leaders in the House of Representatives introduced a bill (H.R. 3289) to amend the Whistleblower Protection Act. Their new bill would strip federal employee whistleblowers of court access.

The House version of the bill further erodes federal employee whistleblower protections from an already weakened Senate bill that was introduced earlier this year. The amendments would:

• Cut out the right to a jury trial for federal employees.
• Empower the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to summarily dismiss whistleblower cases.
• Block whistleblowers from access to more "liberal" U.S. Courts of Appeal (such as the 9th Circuit). Instead, the government would be able to force their cases into a special court.

The bill was introduced today in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

A number of prominent civil rights groups have signed a letter to Congress demanding immediate changes to the legislation. Their requests include ensuring full appeals court access for federal workers and blocking the ability of the MSPB to summarily throw out whistleblower claims.

The National Whistleblowers Center issued the following statement:

We are particularly troubled by the judicial gerrymandering precedent that would be set by this bill. Unlike its Senate counterpart, the House bill completely chokes off access to normal court review and bypasses more "liberal" courts of appeal, such as the 9th Circuit.

In the past two Congresses, the House endorsed full court access for federal employees by overwhelming, bipartisan majorities. This precedent has been abandoned. For the fist time, the House is endorsing a bill that will strip federal employee whistleblowers from all access to jury trials under the Whistleblower Protection Act. This setback for employee rights must be fixed.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform plans to hold a markup of the bill on Thursday, November 3, 2011.

The NWC has issued an Action Alert calling on all Americans to ask their Representative to fix the bill.

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