“The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case Monday that could have upended the Rule of Two’s priority over the AbilityOne program for U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ procurements.”
“The denial of a petition for a writ of certiorari—that’s Supreme Court-ese for a request to hear the appeal—ends a saga that has been several years in the making and effectively cements the supremacy of the Rule of Two over the AbilityOne program when the VA is purchasing goods and services.”
“The case, Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind v. PDS Consultants Inc., involved the conflicting language between the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act (or JWOD) and the Veterans Benefits, Healthcare, and Information Technology Act (the VA Act) …”
“There the government argued that the Rule of Two applied only to competitive awards, not the non-competitive awards to AbilityOne contractors. The Federal Circuit disagreed in part because the Kingdomwear decision said that the Rule of Two applied to all VA contracts.”
“Further, the Federal Circuit said that where statutes conflict, the specific statute controls over the broad rule. The court held that the Rule of Two was more specific than JWOD because it is limited to the VA while JWOD applies to all federal agencies.”
“Likewise, when statutes conflict, the more recent of the two controls, according to the Federal Circuit, because the lawmakers are presumed to be aware of the older rule when they adopt the new one. JWOD dates back to 1938 while the VA Act is from 2006…” Read the full post here.
Source: Supreme Court declines to hear VA Rule of Two challenge – By Matthew Moriarty, January 15, 2020. Koprince SmallGovCon.
