Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., right, co-sponsor Rep. Raul Ruiz, R-Calif., hold a news conference on May 21, 2026, at the Capitol in Washington. (Rep. Mark Takano/Facebook)
WASHINGTON — In an urgent move to bring the Richard Star Act to a vote, Rep. Mark Takano of California, the top Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, announced that he is leading a discharge petition drive to force a vote in the House.
He needs at least 218 signatures from lawmakers on the petition to bring the bill to the floor. The petition has collected 157 signatures — 61 short of the requirement.
The Major Richard Star Act would eliminate a “dollar-for-dollar” drawdown that requires combat-injured veterans to forfeit retirement pay when they start receiving disability compensation.
The bill has collected 330 co-sponsors in the House, but Republican leaders have objected to an estimated cost of $1 billion a year to deliver full benefits to combat-injured veterans.
“Here we are in this moment. Veterans spoke and we listened,” Takano said at an impromptu news conference called Thursday evening. “The time to discuss has long since passed. The time to act is now.”
A discharge petition is a parliamentary procedure used in rare circumstances to move a stalled bill out of committee and bypass House leadership. For the petition to advance, it requires a majority of signatures from the 435-member House.
Takano and Rep. Raul Ruiz, also a California Democrat, introduced the resolution on April 30 to begin the discharge petition process and force a vote.
“We need to get this done once and for all,” Ruiz said. “The injustice toward our veterans must end. Veterans are being penalized and are not able to receive their retirement benefits dollar for dollar.”
The bill would allow combat-injured veterans with less than 20 years of service to concurrently receive their full benefits.
More than 54,000 combat veterans are estimated to be impacted by the so-called wounded warrior tax.
“This legislation will end the wounded veteran tax, the offset that keeps medically retired veterans from receiving their full Department of Defense retirement pay and their full Department of Veterans Affairs disability pay,” Takano said.
It will require $10 billion to $13 billion over 10 years — for roughly $1 billion a year, Takano said.
No action has been taken on the House bill since April, when it was referred to the House VA Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs.
A companion bill also stalled in the Senate over costs.
But the bill has broad support from veterans service organizations, including Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Wounded Warrior Project, Disabled American Veterans, and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Wounded Warrior Project described the bill “as a long-overdue fix that promotes fairness for those who sacrificed so much.”
“Paying the full cost of war shouldn’t be partisan,” Takano said. “It’s the right thing to do. It is time for us to act.”
