Now
that the last weekend of summer is here, it's time to re-engage in
major battles that are critical to the future of our military. As you
know, the Center for Military Readiness has been working hard to keep legislation to "Draft America's Daughters" out of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017.
We were successful in blocking it from the
House version of the bill after a surprise vote in the
House Armed Services Committee (HR 4909), but
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain insisted on putting the legislation into the
Senate version of the NDAA without notice and behind closed doors.
(SR 2814)
Within days, members of the House/Senate Conference Committee will hammer out a combined version of the National Defense Authorization Act.
Will you do what you can right now to make sure the defense bill does not include a mandate to Draft Our Daughters?
There
is a plan to remove the offending language from the bill, but we need a
storm of phone calls, letters, tweets, re-tweets, and maybe some Moms
banging spoons on pans to persuade Chairman McCain and members of the
Conference Committee that they must not pass legislation to Draft Our Daughters.
The
articles embedded in the links above include lots of details and
background on the issue, but to make it easy for you, your friends,
family, and contacts to act, CMR has prepared this single-page,
two-sided Summary that provides everything you need to know:
The Fact Sheet includes information on how the legislators voted and which ones have signed onto to a "Dear Colleague" letter being circulated by Sen. Ben Sasse
(R-NE). As of now there are 17 signers, and all should be thanked. More
will be needed, however, to persuade Sen. McCain to drop his harmful
legislation to Draft Our Daughters from the defense bill. If it passes
as is, irreparable harm would be done to military readiness as well as
to young women.
There
are many ways to contact members of the Senate and House, particularly
Armed Services Committee members who will be involved in the
House/Senate Conference to reconcile both versions of the NDAA:
- Call U.S. Capitol Switchboard to reach all offices: 202/224-3121
- Write your Senator, Senate Office Building: Washington, D.C. 20510
- Write your Congressman, House Office Building: Washington, D.C. 20515
- Send a message on his/her webpages for constituent messages. Congress.gov
- Use the very easy "Don't Draft Our Daughters" Twitter Action Page to tweet and retweet messages to senators marked "Yes" or "No" on Sasse letter.
Join Elaine Donnelly at the Values Voter Summit
CMR President,
Elaine Donnelly, was pleased to accept the invitation of FRC President
Tony Perkins, to speak at the
Family Research Council's nationally-known and influential
Values Voters Summit. The event will take place in
Washington, D.C.,
next week,
September 9-11, at the
Omni Shoreham Hotel. There is still time to
register for this exciting event:
Elaine is looking forward to participating on a panel that will discuss The U.S. Military: Ready - Or Not? It will be during the September 9, Friday Afternoon Plenary Session, 2:00-5:00 PM, starting at about 3:00 PM.
Please
share this message and the one-page Fact Sheet with your friends,
family, email contacts, Facebook Friends and Twitter groups using the
hashtag #Don'tDraftOurDaughters.
Our
chances of success on the Draft Our Daughters issue are good but
everyone will have to do their part. More information is available on
our webpage,
www.cmrlink.org.
If you support CMR's work, please consider sending a generous, tax-deductible contribution. You can do that easily by clicking
here.
We hope to see you next
Friday at the Values Voter Summit. If you can't be there, check the Family Research Council
website to see live streaming of the
Friday afternoon session.
With thanks and best wishes,
-- CMR
* * * * * *
The
Center for Military Readiness, founded in 1993, is an independent,
non-partisan, 501(c)(3) public policy organization that reports on and
analyzes military/social issues. Nothing in this article should be
construed as an endorsement of any candidate. More information on all
issues discussed is available on the CMR website, www.cmrlink.org
.
