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ChampionedVeterans

Pass the Ernest Peltz Accrued Veterans Benefits Act (his first bill as a U.S. Senator) to stop the VA from retroactively clawing back already-approved pension benefits from a veteran's family after the beneficiary dies.

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ChampionedFact-checker reviewConfidence: 85%

Adversarial re-check confirms the prior rating. Independently verified by live fetch: (1) Kim's own Senate office release of Dec 17, 2024 states the Ernest Peltz Accrued Veterans Benefits Act, introduced with Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), is 'the first bill Senator Kim has introduced as a U.S. Senator,' and describes it exactly as the promise does - preventing the VA from retroactively collecting already-approved pension benefits from a veteran's family after the beneficiary's death. (2) Daines's office confirms Kim co-introduced the successor measure in the 119th Congress on Jan 28, 2025 (S.274, Next of Kin Collections Protection Act of 2025; Daines sponsor, Kim original cosponsor), so Kim kept the effort alive across Congresses rather than dropping it. (3) The companion House bill carrying the Peltz name, H.R.3123 (Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY-21, introduced Apr 30, 2025; House Report 119-339 verified on govinfo), passed the House 405-1 on Feb 2, 2026 and was received in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs on Feb 3, 2026. No version has become law; S.274 remains in committee and no Senate floor action or enactment could be found through July 2026. Outcome test: Kim did not merely cast a supporting vote - he authored and introduced the bill as his signature first act and reintroduced it, which is squarely 'actively LED/sponsored/drove the effort' under CHAMPIONED, and the rubric permits CHAMPIONED without enactment. FULL and PARTIAL are excluded because nothing has been enacted; ATTEMPTED understates documented lead sponsorship. Party-neutrality check: a Republican senator with an identical record (bipartisan first bill, reintroduced next Congress, House companion passed near-unanimously, still stalled in Senate committee) would receive the same CHAMPIONED label, so no partisan leniency or harshness is present. Source hygiene: the prior rating's congress.gov citation returns HTTP 403 to automated fetch, so it is replaced here with the govinfo House Report and a bill-tracking corroboration; two quotes in the prior rating could not be reproduced verbatim and have been replaced with quotes confirmed in this session. None of these corrections change the outcome or confidence.

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