WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will meet with Minnesota veterans in the Twin Cities this month to discuss veterans' legislation, her office announced Tuesday.
Pelosi, D-Calif., accepted an invitation from freshman Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard and a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee.
"I want to make sure that representatives from our veterans' community have the opportunity to meet directly with the speaker of the House," Walz said.
The meeting, scheduled for April 21, is being billed as an opportunity for veterans in Walz's southern Minnesota district to air their concerns and get briefed on pending veterans' bills.
Leaders of the Democratic Congress have been touting an array of new measures that they championed in the past year, including a 3.5 percent pay raise for service members, expanded research on post-traumatic stress disorder, higher mileage reimbursement for rural veterans traveling to Veterans Administration hospitals, VA budget increases and new provisions allowing 100-percent-disabled veterans to get both their military retirement benefits and VA disability compensation.
KEVIN DIAZ
