A fight over voting rules and compensation for people exposed to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune has become entwined with the annual defense policy bill, leaving veterans and their families caught in another round of congressional gridlock.
The House approved a $1.15 trillion defense measure on July 22, but provisions opposed by Democrats face a difficult path in the Senate. Senate leaders passed a short-term funding patch on Aug. 2, giving Congress until Dec. 11 to resolve broader spending disputes.
North Carolina Democratic Rep. Deborah Ross voted against the House bill. She said Republican leaders transformed what is usually a bipartisan defense measure by adding the SAVE America Act, which would impose stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration.
“What the Republicans did in this NDAA was politicize it and put in poison pills for Democrats so that Democrats would vote against the NDAA and the Republicans could say, ‘See, they don’t care about the troops,’” Ross said. She called the voting measure “voter suppression.”
Ross said the measure could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, including active-duty service members stationed overseas and an estimated two million North Carolina women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates.
A blocked Camp Lejeune amendment
Voting rules were not Ross’s only objection. House Republican leaders also declined to allow a floor vote on a bipartisan amendment she co-sponsored to revise the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022. Supporters say the proposal would help toxic-water claimants receive fairer and faster judicial review.
Among the issues is whether claimants may choose a jury trial. “Some people don’t want a jury trial; they just want to settle their case,” Ross said. “But if you do want a jury trial, we have that right under the Constitution.”
The legislation would also allow cases to be heard in other federal courts in the region, including South Carolina, rather than concentrating them before four judges in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Ross said Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan has held up the underlying proposal over concerns that limits on attorneys’ fees remain too high. “Senator Sullivan just doesn’t like trial lawyers, and that’s a big problem,” Ross said, adding that Republican senators representing military communities have supported the measure.
Advocates accuse Congress of abandoning families
For longtime Camp Lejeune advocates, the stalemate is personal. Retired Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger’s daughter, Janey, was conceived while the family lived at the base and died of leukemia at age 9. Ensminger has spent years pressing the federal government to compensate people exposed to the contaminated water.
Ensminger accused Sullivan, a retired Marine Corps Reserve colonel, of siding with the Navy and Marine Corps rather than affected service members and their families. “He's a retired full bird colonel out of the United States Marine Corps Reserves,” Ensgminger said, “He is an agent working for the Department of Navy and the Marine Corps on the Camp Lejeune issue.”
Sullivan’s office did not respond to a request for an interview.
Mike Partain, another longtime advocate who was exposed in utero, said repeated efforts to discuss the bill with Sullivan went nowhere. “Not one time has he ever reached out to us—Jerry, myself—even to discuss anything,” Partain said. He said staff for North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis also tried to arrange a conversation. “It’s been cloak and dagger ever since.”
While Sullivan consistently cites attorney fees as a basis for his opposition for the legislation, Partain pointed out that HR 4145 imposes Federal Tort Claims Act mandated fee caps at 20 to 25 percent for attorney’s fees. He said holding out for lower fee caps than the FTCA is unreasonable and is unsupported by his peers, and does not help the Camp Lejeune victims gain compensation for their injuries.
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The cost of compensation
Opponents have pointed to the potential cost of Camp Lejeune payouts. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated federal spending on settlements could exceed $21 billion. In a federal filing, the DoJ put the face value of initial claims at roughly $330 trillion—a figure advocates dismiss as misleading because it reflects the amounts listed on claims rather than expected payouts.
Partain said cost objections have followed victims for years. “Maybe you should have thought about how you’re going to pay for it when you didn’t follow regulations and you poisoned a million Marines and their families over 34 years by dumping these chemicals and allowing these chemicals in the drinking water,” he said.
Ensminger likewise blamed military leadership, saying officials failed to follow their own orders, tried to conceal the contamination after discovering it and knowingly continued to provide contaminated water.
Ross said the dispute reflects a basic question of responsibility. “How can you turn a blind eye to people who have served our country honorably and have been injured and died because of it?” she said.
The legal battle will continue in Washington, but the public push soon heads back to North Carolina. Survivors and advocates are planning a rally later this month, on August 19th. Due to a recent venue change, organizers say the gathering will now take place at Jacksonville’s Freedom Fountain instead of the Lejeune Memorial Gardens.
The Jacksonville rally is on August 19th from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Jacksonville's Freedom Fountain. More information is available at the Lejeune Veterans for Justice Facebook page. Anyone with questions can also reach out via email.