Association of Administrative Law Judges Survey Finds No Confidence in Social Security Admin. Leadership
This week, the Association of Administrative Law Judges/ IFPTE Judicial Council 1 (AALJ) released the results of a membership survey that found that the administrative law judges of the Social Security Administration (SSA) have no confidence of the agency's leadership.
In a press statement, Judge Melissa McIntosh, president of AALJ, said, “Our country knows its Administrative Law Judges to be fair and make accurate decisions after a thorough review of the facts…they’ve done so in this case and the result couldn’t be clearer. We have no confidence in the top political appointees at Social Security as well as the leadership over its hearing operations.”
The reasons behind the the broadly-shared view "is a result of Social Security official's efforts to eliminate independent reviews of Americans' disability claims," Says Judge McIntosh. SSA leadership has recently moved to allow non-ALJ's to hear disability claimants' initial hearings, which is a policy decision which would undermine judicial independence of the disability claims adjudication process and threatens due process rights of Americans with disability claims. To that end, a bipartisan group of Congressional Representatives and Senators has expressed objection to the plan.