The Senate rejected an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act Wednesday that would reinstate military service members who were discharged for violating the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
That mandate was repealed as part of last year’s NDAA. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) advertised his amendment as building on that repeal.
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The final tally was 46 votes in favor to 53 against.
“The brave men and women who join our military to serve their country deserve respect and support, regardless of their COVID-19 vaccine status,” Cruz said in a statement earlier this year. “We successfully worked to repeal the Department of Defense’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate from the last congress, but the work is not over. This amendment would reinstate servicemembers who were wrongfully discharged due to their COVID-19 vaccine status, and give justice to servicemembers punished in other ways due to COVID-19 vaccine status.”
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) countered Wednesday night that the amendment conflicted with two important tenets of the military: readiness and obeying lawful orders.
Reed said a COVID-19 infection affected military personnel’s readiness to fight. He also argued that those who refused the vaccine when the mandate was still in effect were violating a lawful order, noting it is not the only inoculation the armed services require.
Some 8,400 service members were discharged over the mandate before it was repealed.
The amendment needed 60 votes in the Senate to pass. Instead, an outright majority voted against it. The chamber has a narrow 51-49 Democratic majority, though some Democrats defected last year to back the mandate repeal.
This time around, some Republicans voted against the amendment, though the vote was mostly along party lines.
“While the DOD’s authoritarian COVID vaccine mandate ended last year, we cannot leave behind the brave men and women who were wrongfully discharged, or otherwise punished, for refusing to take the vaccine,” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) said in a statement earlier this month. “These servicemembers deserve to be made whole, and our amendment would both right this historic wrong and prevent it from ever happening again.”
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The Senate is racing to make progress on the NDAA, generally viewed as must-pass legislation, ahead of the August recess.
The vote comes after the Republican-controlled House passed amendments to the NDAA that were related to social issues and face a more difficult path in the Democratic Senate.