Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) speaks during a press conference on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with members of the House Freedom Caucus on July 14, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
The House narrowly passed an annual defense policy bill on Friday after Republicans added provisions on abortion and transgender surgeries — measures that were a nonstarter for Democrats.
The laws, which may have to be reconciled with the Senate’s version, passed in a 219-210 vote.
4 Republicans voted against the bill: Ken Buck of Colorado; Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona; and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. 4 Democrats also voted in favor of the measure.
The amendments, adopted Thursday, would ban the secretary of defense from paying for or reimbursing service members for abortion-related expenses and transgender surgeries and hormone treatments.
The abortion amendment, sponsored by Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, was approved largely along party lines in a 221-213 vote. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, joined Republicans in voting to adopt the amendment, while two Republicans, John Duarte of California and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, opposed the measure.
The House also narrowly adopted an amendment sponsored by Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., that might bar military medical insurance and the Department of Defense from providing or covering transgender surgeries and hormone treatments for transgender people.
Two amendments were adopted Friday morning before final passage. One would bar military service academies from using federal funds to discriminate or establish quotas on the premise of race or ethnicity in academy admissions. The opposite would prohibit the Defense Department from carrying out President Joe Biden’s climate change executive orders.
House Democratic leaders said Thursday that members of their caucus will vote against passing the bill. In a joint statement issued by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., they accused Republicans of deciding to “hijack the historically bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to proceed attacking reproductive freedom and jamming their right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people.”
The defense laws will eventually have to be reconciled with a version of the bill into account within the Senate. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is searching for an identical measure to dam Pentagon payments or reimbursements for abortion services, which Senate Democrats are unlikely to back.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., said Friday that his members won’t give right into a bipartisan compromise.
“We should not going to back down. We’re not going to provide up on the cause that’s righteous and we’ll keep fighting for it,” Perry said at a press conference with members of the conservative caucus. “The military shouldn’t be the place for a social experiment. The military must be focused on readiness and lethality, and all these other things are distractors from that and harm our national security.”
The amendments within the House, championed by a few of the chamber’s most conservative Republicans, were approved for floor consideration by the House Rules Committee earlier this week in what was seen as a significant victory for the appropriate flank of the House GOP.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., told reporters on Thursday that he would vote against the NDAA, adding, “I do not think I’ve not voted for an NDAA.”
Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said the panel worked to pass a bipartisan bill “after which the far right hijacked this, hijacked our national security. And this makes our country less secure, less secure, and it’s an insult to all of our women in uniform. So I’m a no, and I believe just about all my Democratic colleagues shall be a no.”
