Over the past two years since Congressperson Veronica Escobar was voted into the seat there’s been a bit of neglect on her part with regard to Veterans Issues in El Paso.
El Paso has about 45,000 Veterans that have served our country during Peace and during conflict. We have taken the oath to protect these United States and our Constitution, the very same oath administered to members of the house, senate and POTUS respectively. Sometimes I wonder how serious those on the hill take this oath.
Veterans, more than any other group of people know the price of freedom, we have any number of us that can share our insight and have been more than ready to assist Ms. Escobar in navigating the needs of our Veterans.
Although Ms. Escobar has continued having quarterly Veterans Town Hall and Coffee with Veterans, very little has come from these meetings. It brings to mind similarities with former Congressman Reyes, who at times has had a group of “yes men” around him during his time in office.
During Ms. Escobars’ two years in office, not much has been accomplished with legislation in regards to Veterans Affairs. Out of 395 bills only 35 that had anything to do with Veterans Affairs were co-sponsored by Ms. Escobar. One of the bills that died before her time in office was “The Faster Filing Act”, which could have sped of the process for Veterans applying for their benefits, but instead we got thrown a bone and recently HR 4985 Veterans Residential Care Choice Act was co-sponsored by Ms. Escobar. It is an election year after all.
Veterans, as a whole expect to be represented, we’ve taken our cause time and time again to those elected into office. El Paso Veterans can and has been the deciding factor in elections and this election cycle is no different.
We are about 45,000 in number, not taking into account Veterans spouses and at least two of their children who are of voting age which brings the number to about 180,000 total, which is more than enough to turn things around within Congressional District 16.
We have on the GOP side Ms. Irene Armendariz-Jackson a very inspired person who is willing to take our issues to D.C. and sit in the seat of Veterans Affairs that Ms. Escobar chosen to vacate after we had a representative in that seat for the last 24 years. Ms. Escobar sits on a number of boards and committees in D.C. I wonder if it’s more of a prestige thing or something else “ego” perhaps.
Ms. Irene Armendariz-Jackson will be hosting a Veterans Forum Sept 3rd 6:30 p.m. at Grace Gardens Christian Center 820 N Raynor. Veterans, we have a stake in this race and we truly need representation at this crucial time in Our Country.
While the article claims that there has been a bit of neglect for veterans over the past two years by Rep Escobar, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The facts are that in 2019 Rep Escobar voted for 100% of the veterans bills that came up for vote in the House of Representatives. To date in 2020 she has voted for every single veterans bill that has come up for vote in the House. Her legislative record is officially documented in the Library of Congress at congress.gov.
She and her staff have been listening to the veterans’ concerns that have been raised in town halls, other forums, and by individual veterans and their family members. Earlier this year El Paso veterans specifically asked her to cosponsor HR 4985, Veterans Residential Care Choice Act, she listened to them, and she signed on as a cosponsor. In fact she has cosponsored so many bills for veterans that she ranks fourth among all US Representatives in the state of Texas and ranks first among Representatives in their first term. This data is also documented officially in the Library of Congress.
As for the Faster Filing Act that the article referenced, it never made it out of subcommittee in 2015 and it did not provide for faster filing. The only requirement it provided was to have the Secretary of the VA provide expected processing times for claims to veterans. This is also on record at the Library of Congress.
The article identified an e-mail in a text box as being from a particular group of veterans when in fact it was written by a single veteran and only represented his feelings at the time. Even the text of the e-mail shows it was written for one individual and not for a group. And by the way, it was out of date with respect to number of bills cosponsored, and the math was off by a factor of 100.