Section 707 of the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014, P.L. 113-146 , enacted on August 7, 2014, creates new authority for removing an individual in a senior executive position in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Section 707(a) of P.L. 113-146 adds a new Section 713 to Title 38 of U.S. Code. Section 713(a)(1) authorizes the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to remove an individual employed in a Senior Executive Service (SES) position if the Secretary determines that the individual's performance or misconduct merits removal. The Secretary may remove the individual from federal service or transfer him or her to a General Schedule (GS) position for which the individual is qualified and determined appropriate. Section 713(g)(1) defines an "individual in a senior executive position" as not only a career appointee in the Senior Executive Service, but also a departmental SES equivalent (i.e., a health care professional such as a physician or dentist in an administrative or executive position in the Department's Veterans Health Administration who was appointed under 38 U.S.C. Sections 7306(a) or 7401(1)). Sections 713(d)(2)(A) and (B) provide that any removal or transfer may be appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB or Board) if an appeal is filed not later than seven days after the removal or transfer date. The Board is required to refer any appeal to an administrative judge, who must expedite it and issue a decision not later than 21 days after the appeal date. If an administrative judge cannot issue a decision within that time, the Secretary's removal or transfer decision is final. Under Section 713(e)(4), the MSPB or administrative judge may not stay (i.e., suspend) any removal from federal service or transfer to a GS position. A senior executive who is transferred to a GS position, beginning on the transfer date, receives the annual pay rate applicable to that position only if he or she reports for duty. While an appeal is pending, the senior executive may not be paid if placed on administrative leave or any other category of leave which otherwise would be paid. During the period beginning on the date that the senior executive appeals a removal from federal service and ending on the date that an MSPB administrative judge issues a final decision, he or she may not receive any pay, awards, bonuses, incentives, allowances, differentials, student loan repayments, special payments, or benefits. Authority provided by 38 U.S.C. §713 does not preclude the Secretary from using other authorities to transfer career SES members to GS positions or remove them from federal service; Section 713(f)(1) states that authority provided by Section 713 is in addition to authority provided by 5 U.S.C. § 3592 or §§ 7541 , 7542 , and 7543 , which relate to removing career members from the SES or adverse actions to remove them from federal service, respectively. Nevertheless, Section 713(d)(1) provides that if the Secretary exercises authority under 38 U.S.C. §713 rather than regular adverse action authority for removing a career member of the SES from federal service, the procedures in 5 U.S.C. §7543(b) shall not apply. This subsection entitles a career SES member to (1) at least 30 days of advance written notice; (2) a reasonable time, but not less than seven days to answer orally or in writing; (3) representation by an attorney or other representative at the senior executive's expense; and (4) a written decision from the agency with specific reasons therefor at the earliest practicable date. Moreover, a career senior executive may appeal an agency decision to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). A decision of the MSPB may be subject to judicial review under 5 U.S.C. §7703. Section 713(b)(2) provides that Section 3592(b)(1) of U.S. Code Title 5 shall not apply to the expedited removal procedure. This paragraph, designed to apply to situations including changes in administrations, states that a career senior executive may not be removed involuntarily from the SES within 120 days after an appointment of an agency head or the career appointee's most immediate supervisor if that supervisor is a noncareer SES appointee and has authority to remove the career appointee. Section 707(b) of P.L. 113-146 directs the Merit Systems Protection Board within 14 days after enactment to issue regulations to implement Section 713's authority. On August 19, 2014, the Board published Part 1210 of Title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations as an interim final rule with request for comments. It published a technical correction on August 21, 2014. MSPB responded to comments, rejected them, and adopted the interim final rule, as corrected, as a final rule on October 22, 2014. MSPB's regulations address practices and procedures such as discovery, hearings, and standards of proof. They provide that an administrative judge may uphold or reject a Secretary's decision to remove or transfer a senior executive based on the reasonableness of the Secretary's decision, but may not mitigate it. Section 707(c) of P.L. 113-146 authorizes the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to initiate an adverse action under the regular procedure in 5 U.S.C. §7543 to remove an individual from the Senior Executive Service, notwithstanding 5 U.S.C. §3592(b) or any other provision of law. Subsection(c) of Section 707 of P.L. 113-146 waives the time limitation on removing career senior executives. As noted above, Section 3592(b) prohibits removing a career senior executive within 120 days after the appointment of an agency head or the career appointee's most immediate supervisor if that supervisor is a noncareer SES appointee and has the authority to remove the career appointee. Section 707(d) of P.L. 113-146 provides that nothing in Section 707 or 38 U.S.C. §713, as added by Section 707(a), shall be construed to apply to an appeal of a removal, transfer, or other personnel action that was pending before that public law was enacted. It adds that the authority provided in 38 U.S.C. §713 is in addition to authority provided by 5 U.S.C. §3592, which relates to removing a career SES member from the Senior Executive Service, or subchapter V of U.S. Code Title 5 Chapter 75 (i.e., Sections 7541-7543) which relate to adverse action removal from federal service or suspension of more than 14 days of a career member of the Senior Executive Service. Because Section 713 of Title 38 authorizes the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to remove an individual in a senior executive position from that position or from federal service, it appears to raise a constitutional question. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution provides, in relevant part, that, "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law;.... " Some Supreme Court cases have interpreted this language to determine (1) whether a nonprobationary government employee who is removable for cause, as distinguished from at-will, has a constitutionally protected property interest in continued government employment; (2) whether due process applies to deprivation of such an interest; and (3) if due process applies, what kind of process is constitutionally sufficient? In Board of Regents v. Roth , the Court noted that, "To have a property interest in a benefit, a person must ... have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.... Property interests, of course, are not created by the Constitution. Rather, they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as ... law—rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits." The Court acknowledged that a public employee under some circumstances has a property interest in continued employment that is safeguarded by due process. In Arnett v. Kennedy , a nonprobationary federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) employee in the competitive service named Kennedy was removed from federal service in an adverse action proceeding under the standard in the Lloyd-La Follette Act: "such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service." He allegedly slandered his supervisor by accusing him of bribing or attempting to bribe a community organization's representative with an OEO grant in exchange for signing a statement against Kennedy. Kennedy argued that removing him from federal service before OEO held a hearing deprived him of a property right to continued employment that was protected by the Due Process Clause and that the "such cause" standard was vague because it did not apprise him of the kind of speech that could result in removal. The Supreme Court upheld Kennedy's removal, reversing a decision by a three-judge district court that had accepted his constitutional challenge. The district court in Kennedy v. Sanchez held that Kennedy had a property right to continued employment that was protected from deprivation by the Due Process Clause because he was a nonprobationary employee in the competitive service who was removable for cause. It added that to comply with the Clause, OEO should have granted Kennedy a hearing before removing him from federal service. The district court based its conclusion on the Supreme Court's decision in Goldberg v. Kelly , which held that a recipient could not be deprived of welfare benefits before receiving a hearing on eligibility for continued benefits. It also held that the "for such cause" standard was vague. All Supreme Court justices agreed with the district court that Kennedy had a property right in continued employment subject to the Due Process Clause.