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Legislation intended to strengthen whistleblower protection provisions in federal law unanimously passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday.

The bill, called the Federal Employee Protection of Disclosures Act, (S. 494) is designed to provide clarity on congressional intent regarding whistleblower protections.

The bill would allow for independent determination of whether a security clearance revocation constitutes whistleblower retaliation. It also would create a pilot program that would suspend the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals' sole claim on federal workers' whistleblower cases for five years, require agencies to educate employees about whistleblower rights, create an objective test for determining whether a worker has made a protected disclosure and allow the Office of Special Counsel to file amicus briefs with the federal courts in support of whistleblowers.

A similar bill passed the House Government Reform Committee last fall and an identical bill won the approval of the former Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in July 2004.

The sponsor of the new bill, Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii, said he is pleased that the committee once again passed legislation strengthening whistleblower protections.

"If federal employees fear reprisal for blowing the whistle, then we not only fail to protect the whistleblower, but we fail to protect taxpayers," Akaka said.

According to the Government Accountability Project, only one whistleblower protection case--out of 97--prevailed on the merits in federal court between 1994 and 2004 due to legal interpretations of the original 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act.

Sweeping Accusation

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has voiced concerns about political bias in the Office of Special Counsel's enforcement of the 1939 Hatch Act.

Conyers, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement Wednesday that the OSC "seems to be sweeping Republican violations [of the Hatch Act] under the rug."

He said anonymous whistleblowers have complained that during the 2004 presidential campaign, an investigation of then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was placed on hold by either Special Counsel Scott Bloch or Deputy Special Counsel James Renne, both political appointees, while an investigation of a visit by Democratic nominee John Kerry to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida was undertaken.

The anonymous complaints were forwarded to the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency two weeks ago as part of its investigation of OSC.

"To get to the bottom of this, I am writing to Special Counsel Scott Bloch to find out directly from him whether he handles complaints about Democrats differently than complaints about Republicans," Conyers said.

OSC spokeswoman Cathy Deeds said that the facts in the anonymous complaints are "dead wrong." She said that the career staff performed preliminary reviews of the allegations within days after receiving the complaints--faster than it does for almost all other cases.

She said the reviewers quickly determined that Rice's activities did not violated the Hatch Act.

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