Sen. Rick Scott can protect Floridians — and their tax dollars — from fraud
This op-ed was written by Government Accountability Project’s Legal Director, Tom Devine, and was originally published here.
This summer, the U.S. Department of Justice secured a $7.7 million settlement against Florida-based contractors for defrauding the Small Business Administration. The Justice Department was able to recover this money thanks to whistleblowers who disclosed the corruption by bringing a case under the False Claims Act. This case illustrates the need for better protections for whistleblowers who work for U.S. government contractors — these truth tellers are key to exposing corruption and protecting taxpayer dollars.
The Florida companies, HX5, LLC and HX5 Sierra, LLC, submitted false information to receive contracts intended for certain types of small businesses, including those owned by women, veterans, and members of racial minority groups. When corrupt contractors violate the law in this way, they steal funds and opportunities from Florida’s deserving small businesses.
In this instance, whistleblowers came forward with crucial information the federal government needed to take back fraudulently obtained funds. But in many cases, contractor employees may be afraid to come forward with such accusations. Employees of government contractors who speak up and expose this type of waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds have few rights to defend against retaliation. This includes a recent employee for Florida security contractor Regius Investigations and Protective Services, who allegedly was fired in 2020 after raising concerns about dangerous workplace conditions and inadequate safety procedures.
Whistleblowers are often harassed, threatened or terminated for exposing misconduct and illegality. They can be “blocklisted” from working for similar employers — ending their careers — and have even faced serious and unfair criminal charges. Outdated U.S. contractor rights leave whistleblowers defenseless against blocklisting and retaliatory lawsuits or criminal prosecutions. Retaliation doesn’t just punish honest people, it scares others into silence, allowing corruption to continue threatening the health, safety, and welfare of Florida’s residents and honest contractors. For too long, Congress has left whistleblowers and the public unprotected by refusing to update federal laws to keep whistleblowers at government contractors safe and ensure accountability for taxpayer funds.
Congress’ inaction is especially disturbing amid the recent surge of government spending. Since 2020, Congress has approved more than $4 trillion in new federal spending and, annually, Florida is one of the highest recipients, having received $26.6 billion during the 2022 fiscal year. In the 2009 stimulus bill, Congress created new whistleblower rights to help keep fraud low when spending billions. But these laws haven’t been updated since. The result? The Justice Department watchdog conservatively estimated up to $100 billion in fraud for pandemic spending alone that the government now is trying to reclaim.
Whistleblowers are crucial to protect the public from corrupt powerful interests looking to defraud American taxpayers. The billions of federal dollars in recent infrastructure spending are ripe for corruption without key reforms to encourage whistleblowers to report wrongdoing. Congress needs strengthen credible legal rights for whistleblowers, so those who take huge risks to defend the public can also safely defend themselves. Bipartisan legislation, the Expanding Whistleblower Protections for Contractors Act, would update and strengthen protection for whistleblowers at government contractors. It would better protect whistleblowers from retaliation and punish government actors who order contractors to retaliate against their own employees.
However, this bill is on life support, thanks to the “fraud lobby,” a group of large contractors who have been prosecuted in the past for fraud. Their lobbying campaign has seemingly spooked senators who supported the bill. Florida’s U.S. Sen. Rick Scott sits on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which is scheduled to consider this bill in November. He must choose whether to stand with the corrupt contractors or Florida residents and small businesses.
We urge him to stand with the people and businesses who he has been elected to protect from dishonest dealers.