ROA is leading the charge on a House-wide engagement effort to build cosponsor support for the Duty Status Reform Act (H.R. 6976), reaching nearly every House office not yet on the bill within a 48-hour window.
Introduced January 8, 2026, by Reps. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.) and Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), H.R. 6976 would consolidate and modernize the patchwork of statutory authorities under which Reserve Component members are ordered to duty. The bill aligns benefits across duty statuses, clarifies activation authorities for cyber incidents and other emergencies, and addresses long-standing inequities in how reservists accrue pay, retirement credit, and protections depending on the title under which they serve. The Reserve Components currently operate across more than thirty distinct duty statuses spanning Titles 10, 14, and 32, State Active Duty, and other frameworks — a structure that has accumulated over decades and that the bill is designed to rationalize.
ROA’s push, conducted in close collaboration with the office of Rep. Cisneros, the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States (EANGUS), the National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS), the Marine Corps Reserve Association (MCRA), and other Military and Veteran Service Organizations engaged in this fight, concentrated on House offices that had not yet signed on as cosponsors. The effort drew on ROA’s national network and reflected the organization’s long-standing position that Duty Status Reform is the single most important structural reform Congress can advance for the Reserve Components this Congress.
“The duty status system is the architecture on which every other Reserve Component policy rests, and it has not kept pace with how the Reserve Components are actually used,” said Maj. Gen. John B. Hashem, U.S. Army (Ret.), Chief Executive Officer of ROA. “We are deeply grateful to Representatives Cisneros and Bergman for their bipartisan leadership, and to every member who has stepped up to cosponsor. ROA will continue to press until this reform gets across the finish line.”
ROA has prioritized H.R. 6976 across its FY 2027 advocacy and will continue direct engagement with House and Senate offices, committee staff, and coalition partners to advance the bill. A Senate companion bill is expected to be introduced soon.
Members of ROA and the broader Reserve Component community are encouraged to be a part of ROA’s Minute Man Movement by contacting their representatives in support of cosponsorship.