WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a national defense authorization bill praised for giving military pay raises but condemned by Democrats for targeting transgender children in military families, sending the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk.
The senators voted 83-12with five dissenting votes, to approve the $884.9 billion National Defense Authorization Act, which has drawn bipartisan praise for its pay raises, military housing upgrades, and investments in artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies.
But annual legislation aroused anger Democrats this year for a provision that would prohibit the military health program from including certain treatments for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, defined by doctors as a discrepancy between a person’s sex assigned at birth and the gender he or she experiences in everyday life.
All Democrats present at the December 11 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives opposed the defense package, which passed along party lines under a Republican majority.
The White House did not offer its position on the bill, as it usually does with legislation ready for the president’s signature.
Wednesday’s Senate vote marks the 64th consecutive year that Congress has passed a defense package, a historically bipartisan process.
This year’s vote tally did not differ from the Senate results regarding defense legislation over the last five years.
The bill does not free up funds for the Pentagon, but rather outlines how any defense money will be spent. Congress will need to approve the allocation of dollars under separate appropriations legislation.
Gender care
A tiny section at 1,800 pages policy action plan for 2025 prohibits TRICARE military health insurance for children of service members who seek “medical interventions to treat gender dysphoria that may result in sterilization.”
Democrats maintain that the ban would affect thousands of military families, although the Pentagon declined to comment on any data. The Pentagon also did not respond to a second inquiry from States Newsroom about whether the Department of Defense monitors the number of transgender children of service members.
Treatment for gender dysphoria may include mental health measures, hormone therapy, and surgery.
This law was introduced after more than 20 states banned or narrow gender-affirming care for transgender minors, According to to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law found that 113,900 adolescent people aged 13 to 17 live in states that prohibit such procedures.
While the bill does not detail the types of interventions it seeks to prohibit, it is publicly available abstract of the House Armed Services Committee under the leadership of the Republican Party called it “hormones and puberty blockers.” The summary, titled “Restoring Our Military’s Focus on Lethality,” also highlighted language in the regulations banning certain racial education in defense institutions and a freeze on any diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, hiring in the Pentagon.
Sen. Jack Reed, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he shared the frustrations of his Democratic colleagues and called the transgender youth care ban, which he voted against during the committee’s proceedings, “misguided.”
“Ultimately, however, we have before us a very strong national defense authorization bill. I am confident that this will provide the Department of Defense and our military and service members with the resources they need to meet and defeat the national security threats we face,” Reed, of Rhode Island, said on the floor before the vote.
Sen. Roger Wicker, the committee’s ranking member, praised the “tremendous achievements” in the defense package, including a 4.5% pay raise for all service members and an additional 10% raise for the most junior soldiers.
“We have made investments in Junior ROTC and recruiting opportunities that will lend a hand solve the Army’s staffing crisis. This bill stops the Department of Defense from paying for puberty blockers and hormone therapies for children. We blocked the teaching of critical race theory in military programs and imposed a hiring freeze based on diversity equity and inclusion,” the Mississippi Republican said before the vote began.
“Cheap political points”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the first openly LGBTQ person elected to the Senate, announced on the floor Tuesday that she would oppose the annual defense bill for the first time in her 12 years in the Senate.
The Wisconsin Democrat, who voted against the bill on Wednesday, said the commitment to a historically bipartisan exercise was broken because some Republicans found it more valuable to eviscerate the rights of our service members to score low political points.
“Some estimate this will impact 6,000 to 7,000 military families. “I, for one, trust these health care workers and their families to make their own health care decisions without politicians interfering,” she continued.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer asked that the Baldwin amendment to remove this language from the legislation be withdrawn. The motion was approved immediately before Wednesday’s vote without opposition. The leader’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the withdrawn amendment.
Initially, twenty Democratic senators supported the amendment. They include Alex Padilla of California, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith of Minnesota, Cory Booker and Andy Kim of New Jersey, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Patty Murray of Washington.
Kim, a former U.S. representative who was sworn in as a senator on Dec. 9, said House Speaker Mike Johnson’s insistence on a transgender provision in the bill “undermines confidence in the negotiations and sets a unsafe precedent for what is widely viewed as the last a real space for classic bipartisan legislation.
“We are putting politics in the bill where it simply has no place,” Kim said on the floor Tuesday.
Kim ultimately voted in favor of the bill.
The chairman of the GOP-led House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, he said Capitol reporters last week, Johnson did not consult with him before leaving the language in the final version.
Last updated at 14:56, December 18, 2024
