A controversial amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress’s yearly defense policy package, would have required young women to register for the draft. On Tuesday night, Armed Services Committee staffers made known that this “draft our daughters” amendment, as critics call it, had failed in committee negotiations.
The version of the defense bill that the Senate passed in June included the Selective Service expansion. But it was California representative Duncan Hunter who had initially proposed it in the House Armed Services Committee—hoping to spark a discussion.
“The person who opposes expanding Selective Service to women the most is Duncan Hunter,” a House Armed Services aide told TWS earlier this year. “He opposed his own amendment to provoke the debate, but his amendment passed.”
Although the House-passed version of the bill replaced Hunter’s amendment with a proposal to study the implications and necessity of expanding—or continuing—the Selective Service at all, gender-neutral draft registration won overwhelming support in the Senate.
Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, led support for the provision. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who chairs the Armed Services personnel subcommittee, said, “When it’s time to get ready to inventory the nation to supplement the all-volunteer force, leaving half the population out makes no sense to me.” Then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also supported the measure, which divided feminists.
Nebraska senator Ben Sasse led the opposition. A coalition of conservative senators, 12 more than had voted against the bill in June, joined him in a letter to both Armed Services Committees earlier this fall. In a statement Tuesday, Sasse hailed the removal of the draft language as a return to common sense. “This year, the big story is that both sides will put national security ahead of unnecessary culture-warring.”
The final version of the bill asks for a GAO study to determine, cautiously, what a Selective Service expansion might entail, or if the Selective Service should continue to exist. This study will now replace the Selective Service expansion in the bill’s final language. Currently, votes for the 2017 NDAA are set to take place this week and next.
