The House on Tuesday stripped the requirement for women to register for the draft out of the fiscal 2017 defense policy bill when it voted to approve the rule for debate.
The House approved the rule 234-181.
Last night, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and chairman of the House Rules Committee, introduced an amendment to erase language from the bill requiring all 18 to 26-year-old women to register with the Selective Service, which he tied to passage of the rule. The adoption of the rule meant Sessions’ amendment was adopted without any further debate, despite a bipartisan vote in the House Armed Services Committee that added the text last month.
Dems hit the move by Sessions as a “dead-of-night” workaround to avoid a tough conversation.
The House Armed Services Committee last month debated and approved an amendment 32-30 from Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., that would require women to register for the draft now that the combat ban has been lifted.
Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., who controlled the rules debate for the Democrats, said it is “an offense” to the committee to get rid of the language without any further debate. Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., also said that she was against the rule because it got rid of the draft language.
“This rule precludes Congress from having an open and transparent debate about this very important issue that impacts women’s equality. If we want a full hearing, is there no better place than on the floor of this House?” Tsongas said during debate on the rule.
Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., said he supported removing the draft language from the bill since he didn’t feel the American public had had enough time to weigh in on the issue through public hearings.
“For us to bring up an issue of that magnitude without having gone through the process of letting the American people be truly heard here, that’s not appropriate,” he said.
But Polis countered that many of the hundreds of amendments raised during the all-night committee mark up were added to the bill without full hearings, and no one was trying to get rid of those.
A spokesman for Hunter, who voted against his own amendment in committee but said he raised it to force a conversation on a tough issue, said the congressman supported the proposal to strike his language, saying that the committee, not the House floor, was the place for the debate.
The Senate Armed Services Committee draft of the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act still includes a provision to draft women. It is unclear if that will survive a vote on the Senate floor or where the two chambers will compromise during a conference committee with the House.
