Supporting Veterans in STEM Careers Act — signed into law.
What's wrong. What it costs the patient. What we're doing about it. This page lays out Doc's record on veterans in three layers: the diagnosis, the prescription, and the receipts.
I served in uniform. I write veterans bills the same way I deliver babies: I show up, I do the work, and I am answerable to the people in the room.
What we're doing about it.
- Public Law 116-115 — cosponsor as a Congressman (signed Feb 2020)
- PACT Act — voted yea (Aug 2022)
- Major Richard Star Act (S. 1032) — cosponsor
In detail.
Approximately 155,000 veterans live in Kansas. Doc is one of them: a U.S. Army Reserves Captain who served from 1984 to 1991. The veterans portfolio for a Kansas senator means three things: getting the bills passed that close the gaps between what veterans were promised and what they actually receive; making sure VA care reaches rural Kansas, where the nearest VA facility can be two hours away; and standing up for the Kansas military communities at Fort Riley, Fort Leavenworth, and McConnell AFB that produce the next generation of Kansas veterans.
On the legislation side: as a Congressman in 2019, Doc cosponsored the Supporting Veterans in STEM Careers Act, which Trump signed as Public Law 116-115 in February 2020 — directing federal STEM scholarship and fellowship programs to actively recruit veterans transitioning into civilian careers. On the PACT Act in August 2022, Doc voted yea: the largest expansion of VA benefits in a generation, covering veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances. Doc currently cosponsors the Major Richard Star Act (S. 1032), which would end the offset that forces medically-retired combat-injured veterans to choose between retirement pay and disability compensation.
On rural VA access: Doc has worked the CHAMPVA reimbursement issues that hit rural Kansas families particularly hard, pushed VA telehealth expansion (the same telehealth permanence fight as the broader CONNECT for Health Act), and supported the Mission Act's community-care option for veterans who cannot reasonably travel to a VA facility. For a vet in Norton County, the closest VA hospital is in Topeka — community care is not a policy abstraction, it is the difference between getting care and going without.
The job for a Kansas senator on veterans is not photo ops. It is bill text, vote records, and showing up when a casework call comes in from a vet who cannot get the VA to return a phone call. That is the standard.