The U.S. Supreme Court rules the Veterans Affairs Administration should be doing more to award government contracts to veteran-owned businesses.
In a ruling announced today, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that the VA had not properly used guidelines set by Congress to increase the number of disabled veteran run small businesses being considered for federal contracts.
Jim Brennen is the legislative director for the Texas Coalition of Veteran Organizations. He says in the past too many veteran owned businesses were being discriminated against or simply passed up for these contracts. Brennen says the government mandated that the VA as well as other federal agencies had to consider these small businesses for a percentage of all of its federal contracts.
“Certain contracting officers embrace the idea of using them and other contracting officers consider it a burden, everybody has their biases about whether they think it’s a good idea to set aside work for veterans," Brennen explains.
Attorney Edward DeLisle has represented dozens of Texas disabled veteran owned companies that have lost contracts with the federal government. He calls Thursday’s ruling a victory, but also says more needs to be done to ensure that the federal government is doing everything possible to help these disabled veterans.
