Does Senatorial And Congressional Involvement Help?

[SolInvictus]

Does it help in a DRO appeal to involve your local senator or congressman to get your case closed? And does anyone know the average time that takes to get results. Thanks for any input in advance.

[jbasser]

It helps you to wait an additional 60 days for the inquiry to be over.

Remember the folks at the RO do not care about the following.

Attorneys, VSO's and especially Congress or Senate Critters. They answer to no one and they have proved that time and time again.

J

[halos2]

I know a vet who recently contacted his congressman, after VA stalling since 06...He heard back from them in 3 days (congressional office) the VA is checking this out now! They expect to have an answer within 2-3 weeks...Who knows, however he chose this route when he found out about a vet wrapped up 13 years with appeals and they "looked" into his claims and in a few weeks he got a check for over 400k. I really don't know as I have heard it stalls things but it is an election year...

[broncovet]

It is somewhat controversial. While several posters have stated that a congressman got them results "pronto", some others have even suggested the reverse effect.

There are about 278,000 VA employees. And they "do" different things. To say "the VA will do this" or "the VA will do that" often depends on which of the 57 Regional offices, which employee, and sometimes what mood that employee is in as to what "they" (the VA) will "do".

There is a wide variety of how much these employees are trained. And their opinion of Vets varies widely, just like their opinion on which man they will vote for come November.

I do think there is somewhat of an "immunity" of the VA to congress. VA goes their own way, and defies that congressman to do anything about it. Someone said the VA lives in "splendid isolation".

VA officials are rarely held accountable for their actions. If they were, would someone not be held accountable for some 17 suicides per day?

I think a better option than congress involvement in your case is to file a writ of mandamus. Even tho the Writ will likely be denied, it raises up red flags and makes the decision makers very uncomfortable because the judges of the Court of Veterans claims does not report to VASEC.

[manning01]

I agree with jbasser I went that route and all I got was a canned letter from the Congressman's office that they forwarded from the VA. What a joke and if you have any questions please contact us statement like that will do any good. They just bent over and accepted the VA's lame response and didn't do a thing because they can't they have no power to force them to do anything. In fact as "J" put it mine also took about 60 days and nothing came out of it except an extra entry in Ebenefits as an item closed. Not worth the time IMO 750 days and counting....JM

Edited October 21, 2012 by manning01

[john999]

If the congressman is your brother-in-law it does help.

[SolInvictus]

I appreciate all of the educated and thoughtful advice and ill have to say John999's final comment sums it up and puts a bow on it quite nicely. It's complicated and varies greatly depending on the vets circumstances, location and proximity to the senator. But I think we can all agree that the closer the vets proximity, either by degrees of relation or professional association, to the political representative the better. In my case he's my 33rd cousin twice removed from another mother. I'm also the king of Siam so I should get my results as soon as yesterday. But a vet can always pray.