Legit and non-legit uses of taxpayer money? Not sure about taking the taxpayers’ money to pay the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to introduce, lobby, discuss, go through numerous committees at federal legislature to take issue over– one man’s criminal act. $50,000- 150,000+ for one domestic seemingly small bill, costs in salaries of clerks, senator’s salaries and bennies, rent and overhead, food, drink, paper and copiers– that kind of big money for teenie bills, could do a lot of good elsewhere, yes?
I read my small hometown newspaper when I can, and sometimes note that Indiana really is a world away from the world in some very good ways and also some not so hot ways. But today, Indiana made national news because two Federal Indiana legislators proposed a law allowing authorities to dig up the remains of a military veteran from a national military cemetery and to inter the veteran in a non-military cemetery… the Senators’ desire being to not allow honor to a veteran who had killed a civilian [and in this case, then killed himself.]
You decide the efficacy, money to be spent, taking Federal Legislature’s time to create law, rather than say, a new rule, a policy … It is useful really, to go to massive expense of exhumation and transport and… Is it useful to cause whatever more pain financially and emotionally, by digging up a dead person who did a terrible deed at the end of his short life. What will ‘disturbing the dead’ do to all close-in persons, even as it may for a moment’s speck of time, satisfy some. It’s not mine to say regarding the survivor families, and I suspect the bill came at the urging of one or another close-in… It will likely not abolish the lifelong pain and suffering that cannot be mediated by bringing back the dead… nor likely by digging up the dead either. And yet for those so hurt, sometimes, for a moment, every little bit seems to help …
here is the article–
U.S. Sens. Joe Donnelly, D-Granger, and Dan Coats, R-Ind., on Thursday introduced the Respect for National Cemeteries Act, which would give the Department of Veterans Affairs and Army the authority to disinter veterans buried in national cemeteries who committed capital crimes.
The bill, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., would give the VA the authority it needs to exhume the remains of Michael LeShawn Anderson, a veteran who shot and killed Indianapolis resident Alicia Dawn Koehl in 2012 before committing suicide, according to a news release.
Koehl’s family later discovered that Anderson had mistakenly been buried at Fort Custer National Cemetery in Michigan in violation of federal law, which prohibits persons who have committed a capital crime “but were unavailable for trial due to death” from being laid to rest in a national cemetery.
“My office has worked with the Koehl family to address this injustice, and this week, we were informed by the VA that a legislative solution is needed,” Donnelly said in a statement Thursday. “Today, Sen. Coats and I introduced a bill to help provide relief to the Koehl family and a solution to these tragic circumstances.
“We must preserve the honor of being buried in a veterans’ cemetery.”
Said Coats, “This legislation will give the VA the authority it says it needs to resolve this unacceptable mistake and help provide the Koehl family with a sense of peace and closure.
“The victims and family members of this tragic shooting have suffered enough and deserve to have their request met,” Coats added. “No one who commits a state or capital crime should be given the honor of a military burial and be laid to rest next to our nation’s heroes.”
On May 30, 2012, Anderson went on a shooting spree at an apartment complex in Indianapolis, injuring three people and killing Koehl, a wife and mother of two, the release states. He then killed himself as police were arriving.
The bill (S. 1471) has been referred to the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs for further study.