Senator Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following comment after the Supreme Court upheld federal law extending whistleblower protection to federal contractors and subcontractors.
“Today the Supreme Court sent a strong message that retaliation against whistleblowers who work for federal contractors and subcontractors won’t be tolerated. This was Congress’ intent all along, as is clear from the language in the law explicitly extending these protections to contractors and subcontractors. It’s good to see the Supreme Court uphold the will of Congress, recognize the benefits of whistleblowers, and offer protection to those seeking to uncover the truth.”
A long-time advocate for whistleblowers, Grassley worked to establish the whistleblower protections for private sector employees as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley reform effort. He is the co-author of the 1989 whistleblower law designed to protect federal whistleblowers. Grassley also authored changes made in 1986 to the President Lincoln-era federal False Claims Act to empower private-sector whistleblowers. Since the 1986 amendments were signed into law, the False Claims Act has brought back tens of billions of dollars to the federal treasury, and has deterred even more fraudulent activity. In 2009, in coordination with Senator Patrick Leahy, Grassley worked to pass legislation to shore up whistleblower protections in the False Claims Act that had been eroded by the courts after years of litigation by defense and healthcare contractors.