Downstream of culture war

What happens when the floodgates really open

The Defense Bill

Well, that went worse than I expected.

Last week I told you how the annual defense bill moved through a committee I’m on, and how the job of the Chair was to block the most controversial amendments.

Then I told you the next stop for the bill was the whole House, where members would get another shot at loading it up with culture war amendments.

My hope was the Speaker would be able to prevent that, as the Chair had.

Here’s what happened:

The Speaker met with the far-right caucus.

They told him they were going to file amendments about abortion, critical race theory, Pride flags, diversity programs, library books on military bases, etc. 

The Speaker asked them not to file those amendments.

The far-right threatened to vote against the bill.

The Speaker caved. 

At which point, the floodgates opened and a river of culture war amendments made it into the bill.

Here’s my attempt at using an A.I. image generator to depict the scene:

A.I. prompt: “a group of politicians open the floodgates”

The abortion amendment, in particular, was a major moment. I was on the House floor and as soon as that amendment passed, it was like a balloon deflating. It meant a lot of people who wanted to vote for the bill simply couldn’t bring themselves to anymore. 

One amendment that notably failed would have halted the process of renaming military bases that are currently named after Confederate generals. 41 Republicans voted against the amendment to halt the process, which, combined with all the Dems, was enough to sink it. The renaming will continue. 

When the full bill itself finally came to a vote, it passed, but just barely.

I voted against it.

And it’s dead-on-arrival in the Senate. Because of all the culture war stuff, now it’s just another set of talking points that won’t become law.

Now we’re waiting for the Senate to pass their version of the defense bill. They’re in the driver’s seat.

The Senator from Alabama

I was hoping this would get resolved before I needed to update you about it, but it hasn’t been.

There’s a Senator from Alabama who disagrees with the military’s travel policy when it comes to abortion, and the way he’s chosen to react is something you should know.

In protest, he has blocked the nomination of every single general and admiral in the military.

That means the entire top leadership for our military is frozen. If there’s a vacancy, it stays vacant.

We’re at 275 nominations blocked this year. If he keeps it up, by the end of the year, it’ll be 650. 

The way this works is that the Senate gets to confirm any new general or admiral that’s moving up into a new position - but if one Senator objects, that process grinds to a halt and it’s really hard to work around it. It would take several months of doing nothing else for the Senate to clear the backlog because of this Senator’s objection.

He sees that as leverage, and he’s using it.

Last week, it became more serious. The head of the Marines retired and the person who was supposed to replace him was blocked by this Senator. Now the Marines don’t have a confirmed leader for the first time in a hundred years.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is retiring soon. After that, it’s the head of the army. Half of our Joint Chiefs will be vacant within the next few months.

Why is he doing this?

Because after Roe was overturned, the military was worried it was going to affect the recruitment of women who could be stationed in states that no longer allow abortion.

So they put in place a travel policy that would accommodate women who needed to travel to get an abortion or in vitro or other pregnancy care the military doesn’t cover. The policy doesn’t pay for abortion, but it allows service members to take leave and apply for reimbursement for their travel, as is typical with receiving medical care not covered by the military.

The military wasn’t trying to be pro-abortion; they were trying to be pro-recruitment.

By the way, remember the abortion amendment on the defense bill I referenced earlier? It was about this. It was an attempt to override the Defense Department’s policy and it made it into the bill, but will be blocked by the Senate.

That’s the latest. Next week I’ll have an update for you about some A.I. legislation I’m working on. We’ve got some bipartisan support and things are looking good.

Best,

Jeff