March 2 is the anniversary of the signing of the False Claims Act by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The law is America’s first whistleblower award law and according to some experts the most effective whistleblower law ever passed.
In recognition of the historic day, National Whistleblower Center (NWC) is urging supporters to take action on their Seven Major Campaigns of 2024 by urging Congress, the White House, and federal agencies to prioritize stalled pieces of whistleblower legislation which are critically needed.
“The United States is a leader in a time where conflict is fueled by fraud, NWC’s 7 Campaigns empower the public to take action to stop those frauds today,” says NWC Executive Director Siri Nelson. “By taking action today, individuals can continue improving whistleblower laws and commemorate President Lincoln’s anti-fraud legacy.”
“President Lincoln believed in democracy, and knew that whistleblowing was democracy in action – relying on citizens to hold the powerful accountable,” says NWC Chairman Stephen M. Kohn. “Working together, democracy will not perish from this earth.”
In January, Kohn appeared on Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss NWC’s seven major reforms. Kohn previously outlined the reforms in an article for the National Law Review.
“All seven of these reforms have strong bipartisan support,” Kohn says. “Furthermore, as we’ve pointed out many times, objective and high quality public opinion polling, including the Marist poll, have shown that 80% of the American people support more whistleblower protections. And 1 in 4 likely voters say that a candidate’s position on whistleblowing could impact their decision on whether to support that candidate. So we’re dealing with a situation in which you have seven pending whistleblower reforms, all with strong bipartisan support, strong public support. Yet, all of them are stalled either within an executive agency, which is ignoring the problem, or within Congress that is busy debating whatever they’re debating as opposed to getting a job done.”