The House narrowly passed its annual defense policy bill Friday after spending the week adopting several partisan amendments that hemorrhaged Democratic support for the legislation.
In the end, only six Democrats voted for the bill, which passed 217-199 mostly along party lines. Three Republicans opposed the measure.
The bill, named the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act, authorizes the Defense Department to spend $895 billion in fiscal 2025, a 1% increase over the previous year. It includes several provisions to improve pay, housing, health and child care for military members.
Democrats complained that Republicans transformed a bipartisan bill that advanced in committee on a 57-1 vote into a GOP messaging bill that has no shot at becoming law with “poison pill” amendments targeting abortion and transgender health care access and diversity and climate initiatives.
“They have hijacked the National Defense Authorization Act in order to jam their extreme right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told reporters Friday.
Republican leaders allowed votes on many — although far from all — of the amendments their members pushed for in an effort to keep conservatives from blocking the bill and to incentivize more members to vote for it.
Many conservatives argue that the House passing more GOP-favored policies in their version of the defense bill will give them more leverage in negotiations with the Senate. But the leaders who handle those negotiations acknowledge that most of the culture-war provisions added in the House will be stripped out in the bicameral version, as they were last year.
“The fact is as long as the Democrats control the other chamber, they’re not going to accept contentious partisan issues,” House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican, told The Washington Times.
The Senate Armed Services Committee marked up its version of the defense policy bill this week, mostly behind closed doors. A summary of the bill was scheduled to be released Friday.
The amendments the House adopted to its bill that Democrats objected to include one to repeal a 2022 Pentagon memorandum that authorized paid leave and reimbursement of travel costs for service members seeking abortions. Another would ban military health plans from covering hormone treatments for transgender individuals or sex reassignment surgeries.
Other GOP amendments adopted would prohibit funding authorized in the bill from being used to implement President Biden’s various climate-related executive orders and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion positions in the Defense Department.
“I don’t understand why we have all these cultural conflicts manifesting in a defense budget,” Rep. Ro Khanna, California Democrat, told The Times. “What does any of this have to do with national security?”
Mr. Khanna was the sole vote against the previous bipartisan version of the bill that passed the Armed Services Committee. Although he supports some of the provisions in it, like those improving quality of life for service members, he said overall the bill reflects an antiquated national security strategy that doesn’t use taxpayer dollars efficiently.
“We need to move to a modern national security strategy that is focused on semiautonomous vehicles, that’s focused on AI, advanced technology, naval superiority in the Pacific, but that doesn’t have the same waste,” he said. “It’s not about how much we spend but how much we’re getting out of what we’re spending.”
Mr. Rogers said he would have preferred the House reject the partisan culture war amendments because they’re not productive and distract from more important policies in the bill, like those designed to improve quality of life for service members.
Those provisions include a 19.5% pay raise for junior service members and a 4.5% increase for others. The measure would also boost the housing allowance to cover the average local area rental rate, fund improvements to military housing units, and expand access to medical and child care.
“This is a historic piece of legislation because of what we’re doing on quality of life. We’re putting more into that area than we have in seven decades,” Mr. Rogers said. “It is historically significant what we’re doing, and that will be overshadowed by the cultural things.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.