The Department of Veterans Affairs has a new No. 2 official after the Senate voted along party lines Thursday to approve Paul Lawrence as deputy VA secretary.
Lawrence, a former Army captain who served as the VA's under secretary for benefits in the first Trump administration, was approved in a 51-45 vote Thursday, an unusually partisan split for a VA nominee. By contrast, VA Secretary Doug Collins, who has since become toxic for Democrats, was approved 77-23 last month.
While Democrats did not cite anything specific about Lawrence's qualifications or background they opposed, they voted against him in protest of the Trump's administration's ongoing austerity measures at the VA.
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"I voted for Doug Collins, and I regret it," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said on the Senate floor this week. "I'm not making the same mistake with Paul Lawrence. There's no reason to believe he'll be any different, not to mention any better, because he's the deputy. I have respect for their service in the military, as I do for anyone who has worn the uniform, but I cannot, I cannot vote for Paul Lawrence, and I hope my colleagues will be as vigilant as I am seeking to be in voting against him."
Lawrence will take over as deputy secretary, a role considered to be the chief operating officer of the department, at a time when the VA is under intense scrutiny over the Trump administration's cost-cutting measures.
The VA has fired about 2,400 employees who were in their probationary period, defined as the first couple of years after starting the job or getting a promotion, and canceled more than 500 contracts that it described as wasteful, though it has not released a full list of what's been canceled.
The department is also planning on firing more than 80,000 employees later this year in what VA officials have described as an effort to "identify and eliminate waste, reduce management and bureaucracy, reduce footprint, and increase workforce efficiency."
While the department has insisted that veterans' health care and benefits aren't being harmed by the cuts and blasted "legacy media, government union bosses and some in Congress" for fearmongering, Democratic lawmakers and veterans themselves have surfaced examples to the contrary.
When Lawrence was pressed about the cuts at his confirmation hearing last month, he pledged to look into them more once he is confirmed and to ensure veterans services are protected.
The firings were "designed not to affect the provision of health care and benefits, and there was a safeguard where the first-level [Senior Executive Service] supervisors could opt somebody out of that process," Lawrence told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
When senators presented him with examples of questionable terminations, Lawrence said that those examples were "inconsistent with what I have read," but added that he would look into the dismissals.
While Democrats turned against Lawrence over the cuts, Republicans praised his past experience at the VA and with management in general. Prior to his work in the first Trump administration, Lawrence had a lengthy career as a management consultant.
"Congratulations to Deputy Secretary Lawrence on his confirmation to this critically important role," Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said in a statement Thursday. "Through our conversations and his past experience at the Veterans Benefits Administration, Mr. Lawrence has demonstrated that he is prepared to help Secretary Collins lead the Department of Veterans Affairs and support the needs of our nation's veterans and their families."
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