Action Building for HR 82 – The Social Security Fairness Act
The joint authors of HR 82, Congressman Garret Graves (R, LA) and Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D, VA), filed a discharge petition with the House clerk on Sept. 10 to force a vote on the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. HR 82 seeks repeal of both Social Security penalties, the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension offset (GPO).
As members of the Texas Retired Teachers Association (TRTA) know, WEP and GPO negatively impact many public-school education retirees who have earned enough credits to qualify for their own Social Security benefits (WEP) or seek to collect spousal/widow benefits (GPO).
A discharge petition is a parliamentary procedure used to release legislation from a committee and force a vote on the House floor. The petition is activated by collecting at least 218 signatures from House members. HR 82 currently has 327 bipartisan co-sponsors who signed onto the original bill, the second highest number of co-sponsors of any legislation in the House. When filed, the petition had collected 119 of the 218 signatures needed to move the process forward.
Successful congressional discharge petitions are rare as they are a direct challenge to congressional leadership, and there are multiple parliamentary moves the leadership can use to thwart the effort. Since 1993, when the rules were changed to make the signatures public, only a handful of such petitions have led to successful legislation passing both chambers of Congress.
In 2022, a similar petition on HR 82 (the same bill number has been used in two consecutive congressional sessions) received the requisite signatures. The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee responded to the petition by reconsidering the bill as a full committee and passing a version of it, though it never received a floor vote. In 2002, Congressman Jim Turner of Texas filed a discharge petition on the same piece of legislation, but it came up a couple of signatures short due to pressure from congressional leaders at the time.
TRTA is in favor of HR 82. We support all the measures that have been brought forward this Congress to rid the country of these unfair and arbitrary Social Security provisions. We support congressional action on bipartisan efforts to restore the Social Security benefits public servants have earned while paying into a public pension plan as well as Social Security during their working career.
Reform of both WEP and GPO is long overdue, and Congress has missed many opportunities to advance measures to help school employee retirees, as well as other public servants negatively impacted by the WEP and GPO.
Still, there has been increased activity around fixing these negative and harmful provisions. TRTA staff are engaged with the Texas congressional delegation on this important issue, and we will update our members as news happens.
TRTA thanks the Texas congressional delegation members who support HR 82. We also thank Texas Congressman Jodey Arrington, who has filed the Equal Treatment of Public Servants Act (HR 5342), which, if passed, would end the arbitrary WEP and provide relief to two million public servants who are currently harmed by the WEP.
Thank You!
Thank you for being a member of TRTA. We are asking members to please renew their dues with TRTA if they have not done so already. If you know someone who is not a member, please invite them to join us! There is strength in numbers and the surest way for us to accomplish success is to grow the organization. Please stay tuned to the Inside Line as progress continues to be made on reforming WEP and GPO!
