"Don't Draft Our Daughters" ˗ What are the Facts?
Conference Committee Meeting Behind Closed Doors NOW
To: Rabbi David Eidensohn
Further to my note just prior to Labor Day, it's time to sound the alarm about legislation to "Draft America's Daughters," which members of a House/Senate Conference Committee need to remove from the massive National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2017.
As you may recall, after a surprise vote last May for House Armed Services Committee legislation mandating that young women register with Selective Service after their 18th birthday, we were successful in blocking this legislation from the House version of the NDAA bill. (HR 4909)
But then Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain insisted on putting similar legislation to Draft Our Daughters, plus a step toward mandatory National Service, into the Senate version of the NDAA. Chairman McCain did this without notice and behind closed doors. (SR 2814)
Now the Senate is back in session, trying to wrap things up in time for an early pre-election recess. Within a few days or weeks, members of the House/Senate Conference Committee will hammer out a combined version of the National Defense Authorization Act.The
only responsible thing to do is for Senate conferees to "recede" to the
House language, which calls for a study of Selective Service but does
not include a mandate co-ed conscription.
If you care about this issue, the time to act is NOW!
Will you do what you can to make sure the defense bill does not include a mandate to Draft Our Daughters?
We
need a storm of phone calls, letters, tweets, re-tweets, and thousands
of congressional office website messages to persuade Chairman McCain and
members of the Conference Committee that they must not pass legislation
to Draft Our Daughters.
The
articles about previous House and Senate actions which are embedded in
the links above, include abundant background information on the issue.
CMR has also prepared this updated, one-page, two-sided Summary to make
it easy for members of all interested organizations to
activate their own communication networks and social media contacts to
spread the news with urgency:
The Fact Sheet includes information on how the legislators voted and lists the seventeen senators who co-signed a "Dear Colleague" letter circulated by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE). All co-signers of the Sasse letter, which respectfully asked Chairman
McCain to reconsider and to drop his harmful Draft Our Daughters
legislation from the Defense Authorization bill, should be thanked.
Sen.
Sasse delivered his letter to Chairman McCain and other Conference
Committee leaders on Monday, September 12, but senators who did not
co-sign the Sasse letter should be encouraged to join Sen. Mike Rounds (SD), in sending their own messages to Chairman McCain and other members of the Conference Committee.
There is a great need for more grassroots pressure to persuade Chairman McCain to defer to the House version of the bill, which does not include a mandate to register young women.
The
Department of Defense registered objections to many provisions in the
Senate bill, but not to Chairman McCain's Draft Our Daughters provision.
This means that if the NDAA passes with McCain's language intact, President Obama will sign it, doing irreparable harm to military readiness as well as to young women.
We hope that you will encourage your members to contact their own
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. As you know, there are many ways to do this, listed here for your convenience:
- 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 PJNet.com Mark Prasec Live "Don't Draft Our Daughters" Twitter Action Page to tweet and retweet messages to senators marked "Yes" if they signed the Sasse letter and "No" if they did not.
Our
chances of success on the Draft Our Daughters issue are good but
trade-off decisions will be made behind closed doors and the situation
is unpredictable. Please consider doing whatever you can at this
critical time.
More information is available on our webpage,www.cmrlink.org. If you have questions or would like to share information, please call Elaine Donnelly at 734/464-9430.
Tribute to Phyllis Schlafly
The sad news that Phyllis Schlafly died on September 5 at the age of 92, only a few weeks after her vigorous activities at the Cleveland Republican National Convention,
hit the conservative movement hard. She was a constant, unfailing
friend of the military and an advocate for superiority in national
defense. These are some thoughts that Elaine Donnelly posted on
CNSNews.com:
Supportiong Our Military at the Values Voter Summit
CMR President Elaine Donnelly was pleased to participate in a panel discussion at the Family Research Council's nationally-known and influential Values Voters Summit on Friday, September 9. You can see the panel discussion titled The U.S. Military: Ready - Or Not? linked here, in the middle of many fine speakers at the popular event this year:
Also on the panel were host Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, USA (Ret.), Maj. Gen. Gary Harrell, USA (Ret.), and Rep. James Bridenstine(R-OK).
-- 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
No comments:
Post a Comment