Hiring Heroes Act of 2011
Latest action. Committee Hearings Held.
Hiring Heroes Act of 2011- Amends the Wounded Warriors Act to extend until January 1, 2015, the authority of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide the same rehabilitation and vocational benefits to members of the Armed Forces with severe injuries or illnesses as are provided to veterans.
Expands the authority of the VA Secretary to make payments to employers to provide on-job training to veterans to include veterans who have not been rehabilitated to the point of employability.
Entitles certain veterans with service-connected disabilities who have exhausted their rights to unemployment benefits to participation in an additional VA rehabilitation program. Limits the duration of such a program to 24 months. Makes the 12-year period of eligibility for a VA rehabilitation program inapplicable under such an additional program.
Instructs the VA Secretary to follow-up on the employment status of veterans who participate in a VA rehabilitation program.
Requires (current law encourages) participation by eligible members in the Transitional Assistance Program (TAP) of the Department of Defense (DOD). Requires (under current law, authorizes) the provision of preseparation counseling to members whose discharge or release is anticipated.
Instructs the Secretary of Labor to follow-up on the employment status of members who complete their participation in the TAP.
Directs the VA Secretary to award grants to up to three nonprofit organizations under a collaborative veterans' training, mentoring, and placement program for eligible veterans seeking employment.
Requires participants in the TAP to receive individualized assessments of civilian positions for which they may be qualified based on a joint DOD, VA, and Department of Labor study of the equivalencies between military skills and civilian employment requirements.
Authorizes the appointment of an honorably discharged member of the uniformed services to a position in the civil service, without regard to specified civil service examination, certification, and appointment provisions, if otherwise qualified.
Requires executive agencies to establish programs to provide employment assistance to members who are being separated from active duty.
The summary continues for 3 more paragraphs. Read it in full on Congress.gov
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on May 23, 2011. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on July 15, 2011: Committee Hearings Held.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 112th Congress (2011-12), 283 of the 10,618 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 2.7 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
SANFORD BISHOP (D-GA) introduced it on May 23, 2011, and 70 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They come from both major parties: 61 Democrats, 9 Republicans.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on May 23, 2011, 5589 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 5536 days ago, on July 15, 2011.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 112th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2013 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers