WASHINGTON | The House passed a sweeping defense bill Friday that provides an expected 5.2% pay raise for service members but strays from traditional military policy with Republicans add-ons blocking abortion coverage, diversity initiatives at the Pentagon and transgender care that deeply divided the chamber.
Democrats voted against the package, which had sailed out of the House Armed Services Committee on an almost unanimous vote weeks ago before being loaded with the GOP priorities during a heated late-night floor debate this week.
The final vote was 219-210, with four Democrats siding with the GOP and four Republicans opposed. The bill, as written, is expected to go nowhere in the Democratic-majority Senate.
Efforts to halt U.S. funding for Ukraine in its war against Russia were turned back, but Republicans added provisions to stem the Defense Department’s diversity initiatives and to restrict access to abortions. The abortion issue has been championed by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who is singularly stalling Senate confirmation of military officers, including the new commandant of the Marine Corps.
“We are continuing to block the Biden administration’s ‘woke’ agenda,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.
COLORADO COMMENTS
CONGRESSPERSON KEN BUCK, R-WINDSOR — I am fully in favor of legislation that strengthens our military readiness and national security, but this bill is stuffed with harmful provisions that advance woke and Green New Deal policies at the expense of America’s military superiority. Rather than including provisions that sustain our national security edge, this bill prioritizes Diversity and Inclusion classes over combat training, locks up 1.2 million acres in Colorado from energy development, and fails to appropriate funds to address the raging crisis at the southern border. As the representative of thousands of military families, I cannot in good conscience vote for an NDAA that contains extraneous provisions antithetical to our national security. America and its service men and women deserve better.”
CONGRESSPERSON JASON CROW, D-AURORA — Every year, I’ve negotiated a bipartisan defense bill that protects our nation and supports our troops. Republicans chose a different path with an extreme measure to restrict abortion access for our troops, which I cannot support. Instead of addressing recruitment and retention challenges, they’re actively pushing partisan measures that will deter the best and brightest from joining our Armed Forces. Instead of addressing climate change, they’re ignoring science and threatening military readiness, our economy, and way of life. For the first time, I voted against the NDAA.”
CONGRESSPERSON DIANA DEGETTE, D-DENVER — House Republicans caved to the extreme demands of the far-right & loaded the traditionally bipartisan annual defense bill with poison pills – including attacks on LGBT servicemembers & provisions that put access to abortion out of reach for those in need. That’s why I voted NO.
CONGRESSPERSON BRITTANY PETERSEN, D-JEFFERSON COUNTY — The Republican party has once again been hijacked by extremists at the expense of the American people. They co-opted a crucial bill that authorizes funding for the military–which has had bipartisan support for the last 62 years–to advance their radical partisan agenda. Our service members and their families sacrifice everything to protect us and our country, yet Republicans in the House chose to include provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act to strip freedoms and health care from women and LGBTQ+ Americans serving in uniform. Their restrictions on abortion care will strand soldiers without critical services and could have serious health impacts on the people we are relying on to protect our country. The bill’s attacks on women and transgender service members, as well as the destruction of efforts to promote diversity and equality will have devastating effects on the military’s recruitment and retention crisis. Republicans are choosing to fight culture wars instead of supporting and equipping the brave individuals who defend us in actual wars. While I support many of the provisions in the bill, I could not vote yes on the full legislation because when you weaken the rights and freedoms of our service members, you weaken our military readiness and ultimately the security of our nation.
CONGRESSPERSON DOUG LAMBORN, R-COLORADO SPRINGS — HASCRepublicans ensured the largest uniformed pay raise in 20 years, codified the Space National Guard, & stopped the left from infiltrating our military with their radical social agenda.
CONGRESSPERSON YADIRO CARAVEO, D-ADAMS COUNTY — Every year this Congress successfully passes a bipartisan package in support of our servicemembers and our national security interests here and abroad. Sadly, Mr. McCarthy is now bending to the will of his most extreme Members with this poison-pill-filled package that limits abortion care, decreases troop readiness, and hurts our national security,” said Congresswoman Caraveo. I’m hopeful that when this package goes to conference, cooler heads in the Senate will prevail and the final outcome will be a commonsense package we can all support, including a healthy pay raise for our servicemembers.
Turning the must-pass defense bill into a partisan battleground shows how deeply the nation’s military has been unexpectedly swept up in disputes over race, equity and women’s health care that are now driving the Republican Party’s priorities in America’s widening national divide. During one particularly tense moment in the debate, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, spoke of how difficult it was to look across the aisle as Republicans chip away at gains for women, Black people and others in the military. “You are setting us back,” she said about an amendment from Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., that would prevent the Defense Department from requiring participation in race-based training for hiring, promotions or retention.
Crane argued that Russia and China do not mandate diversity measures in their military operations and neither should the United States. “We don’t want our military to be a social experiment,” he said. “We want the best of the best.”
When Crane used the pejorative phrase “colored people” for Black military personnel, Beatty asked for his words to be stricken from the record.
Friday’s voted capped a tumultuous week for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as conservatives essentially drove the agenda, forcing their colleagues to consider their ideas for the annual bill that has been approved by Congress unfailingly since World War II.
“I think he’s doing great because we are moving through — it was like over 1,500 amendments — and we’re moving through them,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. She told reporters she changed her mind to support the bill after McCarthy offered her a seat on the committee that will be negotiating the final version with the Senate.
Democrats, in a joint leadership statement, said they were voting against the bill because Republicans “turned what should be a meaningful investment in our men and women in uniform into an extreme and reckless legislative joyride.”
“Extreme MAGA Republicans have chosen to hijack the historically bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to continue attacking reproductive freedom and jamming their right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people,” said the statement from Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California.
The defense bill authorizes $874.2 billion in the coming year for the defense spending, keeping with President Joe Biden’s budget request. The funding itself is to be allocated later, when Congress handles the appropriation bills, as is the normal process.
The package sets policy across the Defense Department, as well as in aspects of the Energy Department, and this year focuses particularly on the U.S. stance toward China, Russia and other national security fronts.
Republican opposition to U.S. support for the war in Ukraine drew a number of amendments, including one to block the use of cluster munitions that Biden just sent to help Ukraine battle Russia. It was a controversial move because the weapons, which can leave behind unexploded munitions endangering civilians, are banned by many other countries.
Most of those efforts to stop U.S. support for Ukraine failed. Proposals to roll back the Pentagon’s diversity and inclusion measures and block some medical care for transgender personnel were approved.
GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, who served as a White House physician, pushed forward the abortion measure that would prohibit the defense secretary from paying for or reimbursing expenses relating to abortion services.
Jackson and other Republicans praised Tuberville for his stand against the Pentagon’s abortion policy, which was thrust into prominence as states started banning the procedure after the Supreme Court decision last summer overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade law.
“Now he’s got support, he’s got back up here in the House,” Jackson said.
But it’s not at all certain that the House position will stand as the legislation moves to the Senate, which is preparing its own version of the bill. Senate Democrats have the majority but will need to work with Republicans on a bipartisan measure to ensure enough support for passage in their chamber.
McCarthy lauded the House for gutting “radical programs” that he said distract from the military’s purpose.
Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee, led by Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, dropped their support due to the social policy amendments.
Smith, who is white, tried to explain to Crane and other colleagues why the Pentagon’s diversity initiatives were important in America, drawing on his own experience as a businessman trying to reach outside his own circle of contacts to be able to hire and gain deeper understanding of other people.
Smith lamented that the bill that the committee passed overwhelmingly “no longer exists. What was once an example of compromise and functioning government has become an ode to bigotry and ignorance.”
Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri, Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
GOP continues to show their true colors.
To get any thing done? They must all go!!