[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 118 (Monday, July 23, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H8226-H8228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXPRESSING SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING A CHILD OF A DECEASED MEMBER OF
THE ARMED FORCES
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules
and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 175) expressing
the sense of Congress that courts with fiduciary responsibility for a
child of a deceased member of the Armed Forces who receives a death
gratuity payment under section 1477 of title 10, United States Code,
should take into consideration the expression of clear intent of the
member regarding the distribution of funds on behalf of the child.
The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
The text of the concurrent resolution is as follows:
H. Con. Res. 175
Whereas the death gratuity payable under section 1477 of
title 10, United States Code, upon the death of a member of
the Armed Forces, is intended to provide funds to meet the
immediate needs of the survivors of the deceased member;
Whereas such section designates the surviving spouse and
any children of a deceased member as the highest and second
highest priority, respectively, to receive the death gratuity
payment; and
Whereas a member with a child or children, but no spouse,
usually designates another individual to be responsible for
that child or children and may express a desire that such
individual receive the death gratuity payment on behalf of
the child or children: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that courts
with fiduciary responsibility for a child of a deceased
member of the Armed Forces who receives a death gratuity
payment under section 1477 of title 10, United States Code,
should take into consideration the expression of clear intent
of the member regarding the distribution of funds on behalf
of the child.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas.
General Leave
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that
all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their
remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, House Concurrent Resolution 175 deals with a tragic
situation where a member of the Armed Forces dies leaving a surviving
child but no spouse. This resolution expresses a sense of Congress that
State courts with fiduciary responsibility for the child of a deceased
member of our Armed Forces should take into consideration the express
desires of the fallen soldier as to how funds related to the soldier's
service should be distributed on behalf of a surviving child.
When an American soldier makes the ultimate sacrifice, not only does
our country suffer a terrible loss, but that soldier's family suffers
directly. Among many other concerns, a family faces a number of
immediate financial challenges; and, unfortunately, these challenges
come in the midst of their grief. These financial and emotional
hardships are compounded when the deceased servicemember was a single
parent.
I thank the mover of the bill for his leadership and the cosponsors,
thank the members of the Judiciary Committee, Chairman Conyers and the
ranking member Mr. Smith.
This bill helps the surviving family members of a fallen soldier
better cope with these financial hardships. Congress established a
death gratuity intended to address some of these expenditures families
must cover during the traumatic period following a loved one's death.
The current system administering the death gratuity, however, often
makes it difficult for those left with the responsibility of caring for
a fallen soldier's child to access these funds. A death gratuity
payable to a minor child is placed in trust until the child gains
majority status. In the interim, the relevant State court has
discretion to release funds for the care and needs of the child.
The problem here is that the Armed Forces personnel who are single
parents currently have no formal way to designate, for the purposes of
the death gratuity, a caretaker for their minor child in the event of a
servicemember's death.
It is our duty to do all we can to ensure that the children left
behind are cared for as their parent requested. When servicemembers
make it clear
[[Page H8227]]
who they would like to care for their children in the event of their
death, those wishes should be an important factor for the court to
consider.
It is almost like the tragedy of 9/11 and a bill that I authored
after those parents are deceased to ensure that the children of the 9/
11 tragedy, the orphan children, would have their benefits promoted and
supported and rendered first. This legislation, and rightly so, wants
to give parents the opportunity to designate who should be the
custodian for these funds so children can be taken care of first and
foremost. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, House Concurrent Resolution 175 deals with a tragic
situation where a deceased member of the Armed Forces leaves a
surviving child, but no spouse.
This resolution simply expresses the sense of Congress that State
courts--with fiduciary responsibility for the child of a deceased
member of our Armed Forces--should take into consideration the
expressed desires of the fallen soldier as to how funds related to the
soldier's service should be distributed on behalf of the surviving
child.
When an American soldier makes the ultimate sacrifice, not only does
our country suffer a terrible loss, but that soldier's family suffers
directly. Among many other concerns, the family faces a number of
immediate financial challenges, and unfortunately, these challenges
come in the midst of their grief. These financial and emotional
hardships are compounded when the deceased service member was a single
parent.
To help the surviving family members of a fallen soldier better cope
with these financial hardships, Congress established a death gratuity
intended to address some of the expenditure's families must cover
during the traumatic period following a loved one's death.
The current system administering the death gratuity, however, often
makes it difficult for those left with the responsibility of caring for
a fallen soldier's child to access these funds. A death gratuity
payable to a minor child is placed in trust until the child gains
majority status. In the interim, the relevant State court has
discretion to release funds for the care and needs of the child.
The problem here is that Armed Forces personnel who are single
parents currently have no formal way to designate, for the purposes of
the death gratuity, a caretaker for their minor child in the event of
the service member's death.
It is our duty to do all we can to ensure that the children left
behind are cared for as their parent requested. When service members
make it clear who they would like to care for their children in the
event of their death, these wishes should be an important factor for
the court to consider.
I strongly urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I
reserve the balance of my time.
H. Con. Res. 175 will help the children of fallen soldiers by
providing necessary guidance to the courts about how to treat the
expressed desires of a deceased service member when it comes to
distribution of the death gratuity. I ask my colleagues to join me in
supporting this resolution so that the wishes of soldiers are given
proper respect and consideration.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, it represents a bipartisan conviction that is
unanimous in this Chamber that we owe those who serve in the uniform of
the United States and who fall in that service everything. And we owe
their families who share their sacrifice the same.
H. Con. Res. 175, brought to this floor today by the gentleman from
Iowa (Mr. Latham), will be an expression of a Congress acting on that
gratitude and on that debt. It is a highly technical matter, but as I
am sure the gentleman from Iowa will explain and the gentlelady from
Texas explained, this is an issue that impacts the lives of people that
this Nation cherishes the most.
There are a number of cases where the children of single-parent
servicemembers killed in action and their guardians have not been able
to access death benefits intended for them. This resolution addresses
cases where specific instructions were left by a servicemember as to
the distribution of benefits to caretakers.
In order of priority, death benefits are currently distributed to a
surviving spouse, children, and other classes of persons such as
siblings designated by the deceased. Benefits of a single parent's
minor children must be held in trust by a State court which appoints a
trustee who supervises the distribution of funds on behalf of the
children. This consumes time and money in instances where the deceased
clearly designated a caretaker to serve as a de facto trustee.
The fiscal year 2008 national defense authorization bill will include
a provision allowing servicemembers to begin predesignating caretakers
as recipients as part of the death gratuity payment. However, neither
House nor Senate provisions help families that have already been
affected. Although H. Con. Res. 175 takes the form of a congressional
concurrent resolution and therefore has no legal effect, it is
confidently hoped that attorneys for minor children will use the text,
once passed by the House, to convince State courts to honor the wishes
of deceased single parents who designated caretakers for this purpose.
Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham) in
particular for his tender care of the service families of these
American heroes, for his advocacy on behalf of families whose loved
ones paid the ultimate price while defending our great Nation. I urge
the House to adopt H. Con. Res. 175.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my
time.
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to yield such time as he may
consume to the principal author of H. Con. Res. 175, the gentleman from
Iowa (Mr. Latham).
Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for
recognition and for the kind words. I appreciate that very much. The
gentlewoman from Texas, thank you for your support. And I want to thank
Chairman Conyers and Ranking Member Smith for working together to bring
this very important resolution to the floor quickly after it was
introduced.
I also want to thank Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton
and Ranking Member Hunter for their valuable input on this resolution
and important work on this issue.
Many servicemembers who are single parents rely upon grandparents or
other caretakers to care for their children while they are deployed. If
the servicemember is tragically killed in action, these caretakers are
left without access to the death gratuity payment to help raise the
servicemember's children.
I am grateful that the House and Senate Armed Services Committees
have addressed this issue, including in the 2008 defense authorization
bill provisions allowing servicemembers to begin designating caretakers
as recipients of all or part of the death gratuity as we go forward.
However, it is important that we also consider those families that have
already been affected by the situation, which is the purpose of this
resolution today.
There have been as many as 143 recent cases where minor children were
the recipients of the death gratuity which they cannot access until
reaching the age of 18. In some of these cases, such as the one
involving the Jaenke family from Iowa Falls, Iowa, in my district, the
fallen servicemember left specific written instructions that part of
the death gratuity be used to care for her daughter. Naval Petty
Officer 2nd Class Jamie Jaenke, who was tragically killed by a roadside
bomb in Iraq last summer, was survived by her 9-year-old daughter
Kayla, who is being cared for by her grandparents. Kayla's family has
experienced countless financial hardships as a result of not having
access to the death benefits for the purposes that Jamie intended.
While the situation may not affect a large number of families, the
bottom line is I believe the wishes of our servicemembers with respect
to their death benefits should be honored.
Our Nation will be forever grateful for Jamie's dedication and
service and the sacrifice she has made for our Nation. It is a
fundamental duty of Congress to ensure that the children of fallen
servicemembers, like Kayla, are cared for. We owe this to our
servicemembers who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Mr. Speaker, I
urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I urge the Senate to
act in a
[[Page H8228]]
quick manner to resolve this unfortunate situation.
{time} 1500
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me simply rise again on
behalf of many of my colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee to
commend to the attention of all Members H. Con. Res. 175 regarding the
payment of survivor benefits to family members of deceased service
personnel.
It is a highly formalistic sounding bill, highly technical, but I
think you could sense, Mr. Speaker, the emotion in the voice and the
countenance of its principal author. I would expect that Mr. Latham of
Iowa is here on this floor for Kayla and for the children of those 143
soldiers who find themselves caught in a confused bureaucracy and
unable to access the benefits to which they are entitled and to which
the hero that they lost as a parent and a loved one intended them to
enjoy.
So, again, I urge my colleagues to support H. Con. Res. 175, and I
rise with a humble sense of gratitude for the tireless work of the
gentleman from Iowa in bringing this legislation so quickly and so
thoughtfully to the floor of this Congress.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, allow me to rise and yield
myself such time as I may consume to thank Mr. Latham for his
sensitivity and leadership.
Mr. Speaker, let me acknowledge that there are men and women as we
speak on the front lines in the battle for their Nation. Many in Iraq
and Afghanistan but many lose their lives elsewhere around the world in
the Nation's uniform.
This is an instructive and important legislative initiative, but can
we imagine being lost in battle, a fallen soldier who's not able to
provide for his or her family or his child? H. Con. Res. 175 and the
backdrop of those who are now losing their lives in battle will help
the children of these fallen soldiers by providing necessary guidance
to the courts about how to treat the expressed desires of a deceased
servicemember when it comes to the distribution of a death gratuity.
Hopefully, the constituent of Mr. Latham and many others will find
refuge and relief. It is certainly not the Nation's desire to leave
them wanting and destitute.
This particular bill provides comfort to those who need comfort and
financial support for those who are suffering.
I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution so the
wishes of the soldiers are given proper respect and consideration and a
grateful Nation is truly grateful.
Let me also thank the ranking member, Mr. Smith; the full committee
chair, Mr. Conyers; Mr. Berman and Mr. Coble of which this particular
amendment and legislation has come through. And we ask that the
legislation be passed with great support in this body.
I ask my colleagues to support it.
Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.
Con. Res. 175, which helps children of fallen soldiers access military
death benefits. I would like to express my deep appreciation to my
friend, Congressman Latham, for taking the lead on this issue. I am
proud to be a cosponsor of this important legislation.
On June 5th, 2006, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jaime Jaenke was
killed in Iraq when her Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb. Ms. Jaenke,
from Iowa Falls, was the first female from Iowa to die in the Iraq
conflict.
Jaenke left behind a daughter, Kayla, who is cared for by Jaenke's
parents. She had designated her mother, Susan, as the beneficiary of a
$100,000 death benefit intended to help survivors. However, under law,
only spouses or children are allowed to receive the benefit, so it must
be kept in a trust for Kayla until she turns 18.
But the Jaenkes need the money now. They incurred unanticipated
expenses such as hiring a lawyer to get legal guardianship and
obtaining health insurance for Kayla. They also had funeral costs and
other expenses, even as their horse stable was losing money.
Congressman Latham's resolution would express the sense of Congress
that courts should have the discretion to redistribute death benefits
to caretakers if the service member left clear intent for the use of
these funds. This would be a Godsend to the Jaenkes and the at least
143 identical cases where other families are affected by these same
circumstances.
Mr. Speaker, Congress needs to act, and they need to act fast, to
help the families of those who have given so much for their countries.
These families already have to face the anguish of losing a son or a
daughter. They should not have to worry about the financial strain of
dealing with unexpected expenses. I urge all of my colleagues to send a
strong message to our military families that we understand the need for
flexibility in protecting these families from unintended consequences.
Mr. LOEBSACK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my support for House
Concurrent Resolution 175, of which I--along with the entire Iowa
delegation--am a cosponsor.
I would also like to thank the gentleman from Iowa for his leadership
on this issue.
This resolution expresses the sense of Congress that courts should
take into consideration the expression of clear intent by a member of
the United States Armed Forces regarding the distribution of death
gratuity payments to their surviving children.
Such payments are intended to provide for the immediate needs of the
survivors of deceased servicemembers. However, under current law,
children cannot directly receive the payments until the age of 18, even
if they are designated as the recipient by the servicemember.
The wishes of those who serve our country should be honored to the
greatest extent possible. As a member of the Armed Services Committee,
I am proud that the fiscal year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act
passed by this House allows servicemembers to designate up to 50
percent of their benefit payment to someone other than a spouse or
child, thereby assuring that children under the care of individuals or
family members other than the servicemember's spouse are properly
provided for by the gratuity system.
This resolution reaffirms the commitment of Congress to providing for
the children of those who have served our country, and I strongly urge
its passage.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield back my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) that the House suspend the
rules and agree to the resolution, H. Con. Res. 175.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the concurrent resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________