Here’s how U.S. House members and senators voted on major issues during the legislative week of July 10-14.
House
$886 BILLION FOR MILITARY IN FISCAL 2024
Voting 219 for and 210 against, the House on July 14, 2023, authorized an $886.3 billion military budget (HR 2670) for fiscal 2024 that funds a 5.2 percent pay raise for uniformed personnel while approving more than $60 billion for active-duty and retiree health care and $300 million in military aid to Ukraine. The bill establishes the office of inspector general to monitor U.S. expenditures in Ukraine and eliminates the Pentagon’s position of chief diversity officer. The bill drew nearly unanimous Democratic opposition after the Republican caucus added hard-right social-policy measures (see amendments below) to traditional military operations, which concern areas such as supervising the nuclear stockpile, maintaining military bases, boosting recruitment efforts, paying and caring for service personnel and their families and funding air, land and sea weaponry.
Floor Debate, Pro & Con:
Supporter John Rose, R-Tenn., said the bill “gives our military the tools they need to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s aggression [and] increases oversight of the Biden administration after their disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan….[and would] return our military’s focus back on readiness and the defense of our nation, not wokeness and progressive posturing.”
Opponent Seth Moulton, D-Mass., said: “Targeting diversity, equity, inclusion, reproductive women’s rights and cutting off our assistance to the EU and Ukraine are [policies] I cannot support….Good luck recruiting women if they can’t get health care…. Good luck recruiting minorities if they think they won’t be respected in the service.”
A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate, where it was likely to fail.
DEFUNDING WAR ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
Voting 217 for and 216 against, the House on July 14, 2023, adopted an amendment to HR 2670 (above) that would prohibit the Department of Defense from funding seven executive orders by President Biden to respond to the global climate crisis domestically and abroad. In part, the orders are intended to cushion economic damages in areas including the disruption of supply chains; prepare for an influx of climate refugees from global hot spots; use the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 to speed clean-energy construction; invoke “environmental justice” measures to reduce the disproportionate impact of air and water pollution on poor neighborhoods, and advance the administration’s goals of achieving a carbon-free U.S. electricity sector by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions for the overall economy by 2050.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin calls climate change an existential threat to U.S. security, but Republican critics, calling Biden’s orders a “fetish,” say the Pentagon’s transition from fossil fuels to green energy undermines national security. This amendment was supported by 217 of the 220 Republicans who voted and opposed by all 213 Democrats who voted. The overwhelming consensus of scientists is that climate change is caused by human activity and that the planet is warming at a rate that will prove ruinous to civilization in coming decades if industrial nations fail to sharply reduce their discharges of greenhouse gases.
Floor Debate, Pro & Con:
Sponsor Chip Roy, R-Texas, said: “We should not be pursuing this politically motivated climate fetishization that undermines our national security.”
Opponent Adam Smith, D-Wash., said: “If 80 percent of the scientists believe that climate change could destroy the freakin’ planet, then it’s worth saying that’s a national security threat at least equivalent to China.”
A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.
ENDING MILITARY SUPPORT OF UKRAINE
Voting 89 for and 341 against, the House on July 13, 2023, defeated an amendment that sought to strip HR 2670 (above) of its $300 million in military aid to Ukraine. The sum would be in addition to about $75 billion America has provided in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022.
Floor Debate, Pro & Con:
Sponsor Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said: “No money funding…the Ukraine war belongs in our defense [budget] because this is for our nation, not for another nation, not for Ukraine….Sending money to fund a war in a foreign country against a nuclear armed nation does not protect our national security, it endangers our national security.”
Opponent Adam Smith, D-Wash., said: “If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he won’t stop at Ukraine….We are supporting, along with 53 other countries, an effort to protect a sovereign democracy against a dictatorship. Those are core U.S. interests. The Ukrainians are doing the fighting. All they’re asking for is our support.”
A yes vote opposed U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
ABORTION ACCESS FOR MILITARY WOMEN
The House on July 13, 2023, voted, 221 for and 213 against, to defund a Department of Defense policy bolstering the reproductive rights of servicewomen based in states that prohibit or sharply curtail access to abortion. Under the policy, servicewomen receive up to three weeks’ administrative leave and travel reimbursement when they find it necessary to travel to another state for an abortion. The amendment was offered to HR 2670 (above).
Floor Debate, Pro & Con:
Sponsor Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, said: “This illegal Biden-endorsed policy has no place in our military. We need not support the Biden administration’s radical and immoral pro-abortion agenda.”
Opponent Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., asked: “How am I supposed to recommend to young girls in my district that they should attend a service academy like I did when we know this amendment would mean they would be signing away their right to basic health care?”
A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.
TEACHING HISTORY OF RACE IN MILITARY SCHOOLS
Voting 227 for and 201 against, the House on July 13, 2023, adopted an amendment to HR 2670 (above) that would prohibit schools operated for U.S. military children from teaching U.S. racial history. Such instruction, which typically covers the Constitution’s denigration of Blacks, America’s embrace of slavery and the Jim Crow era, is labeled “critical race theory” by its critics.
Floor Debate, Pro & Con:
Sponsor Chip Roy, R-Texas, said “our education system is using `critical race theory’ outside of the Department of Defense, but in this case inside the [department], to turn schools into a propaganda machine dedicated to raising students up [to] judge one another by race and [to] hate our country’s founding principles…is wrong. It’s anti-American and it is societal suicide.”
Opponent Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said: “The Constitution said that Black people weren’t full people when it was written. Does [Roy] want to pretend it didn’t happen?…It wasn’t until the 14th Amendment that passed in 1868 that the three-fifths compromise was specifically repealed….I find it incredibly disgusting this [amendment] was made in order. This is wrong, racist and really offensive.”
A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.
MILITARY DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION
Voting 214 for and 213 against, the House on July 13, 2023 adopted an amendment to HR 2670 (above) that would eliminate funding for Department of Defense personnel, offices and programs charged with advancing “diversity, equity and inclusion” in the armed forces.
Floor Debate, Pro & Con:
Sponsor Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said: “We should be focusing on diversity of ideas and opinion, not race and genders….To sum up, a `woke’ military is a weak military.”
Opponent Jill Tokuda, D-Hawaii, said: “From the backwards, racially insensitive comments spoken on this floor, it seems “DEI” training would be good right here in the halls of Congress.”
A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.
GENDER CARE FOR MILITARY PERSONNEL
Voting 222 for and 211 against, the House on July 13, 2023, adopted an amendment to HR 2670 (above) that would prohibit the Department of Defense’s Tricare health plan from funding medical care including surgeries and therapies for transgender servicemembers and their families.
Floor Debate, Pro & Con:
Supporter Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said “the surgery alone cannot solve the root issue for these individuals,” and funding their health care is “nothing but a distraction and waste of valuable taxpayer dollars” in the military budget.
Opponent Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., said the amendment would impair recruitment “by pushing transgender service members out of the military…because gender-affirming care that gives you the ability to be your true authentic self is primary care and shouldn’t be something easily dismissed.”
A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.
CLUSTER MUNITIONS FOR UKRAINE
Voting 147 for and 276 against, the House on July 13, 2023, defeated an amendment to HR 2670 (above) to negate President Biden’s recent decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions, which rain large quantities of small bombs onto battlefields. More than 120 nations – but not the United States, Russia or Ukraine – have signed an international convention that prohibits the production, use or transfer of cluster munitions because their remnants often kill and maim civilians long after the fighting stops.
Floor Debate, Pro & Con:
Sponsor Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said: “Cluster bombs are inhumane weapons that cause lasting harm to civilians….Ukraine is not a NATO member nation. What is next [for them]? Chemical or nuclear weapons?”
Opponent Mike Quigley, D-Ill., said the goal of supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions “is to end this quickly. A protracted war will cost more lives and allow Putin to commit more war crimes.”
A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.
Senate
ROSEMARIE HIDALGO, DIRECTOR OF OFFICE ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Voting 51 for and 42 against, the Senate on July 11, 2023, confirmed Rosemarie Hidalgo as director of the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice. She was second in charge of that office during the Obama administration. An attorney, Hidalgo served most recently as a senior advisor to the White House Gender Policy Council, and before that she was a leader of Casa de Esperanza, an organization that combats violence against Latina women.
A yes vote was to confirm the nominee.