Military

House Committee Votes To Require Women To Register For Military Draft

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Michael Ginsberg Congressional Correspondent
Font Size:

The House Armed Services Committee voted to approve an amendment that would require women to register under the Selective Services Act (SSA).

The amendment, introduced by Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, passed 35-24 on Wednesday night. It will be included in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the omnibus package that funds the Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. military.

A similar amendment passed the Senate Armed Services Committee in July. Republicans killed an effort to require women to register under the SSA in 2016, the last time Congress seriously considered amending it. (RELATED: Congress Abandons Plan To Force Women To Sign Up For Draft)

The NDAA passed out of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday night, 42-17, and will now be considered by the full House. Although the NDAA also passed the Senate Armed Services Committee in July, neither chamber has fully approved the package.

“Women make up over 50 percent of our population, and not including them in the Selective Service is not only a disservice to these women, but also to our nation as a whole,” Houlahan said, adding that the SSA is “unconstitutional” because it “discriminates based on sex.”

Houlahan, an Air Force veteran, is a member of the Congressional Veterans Caucus.

The provision could galvanize Republican opposition to the NDAA.

“I support our military’s efforts to offer more opportunities for women who want to volunteer to serve,” Republican Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker told Roll Call in July, when the Senate amendment passed. “But when I think of my own daughters and granddaughters, I could not in good conscience support an amendment that would compel their military service.”

“We don’t need to draft women in order for women to have equality in this nation,” Republican Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler told Politico. “Women are of worth and of value right now and we are equal with men without having to pass a new law that would require 50 percent of this country — our daughters and our sisters and our wives — to have to be drafted.”

The U.S. military has not used a draft since 1973, when opposition to the Vietnam War made the process politically untenable. However, 18 year-olds are still required to register under the SSA, in case of a national emergency.

Republican Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, who supported the amendment, argued that if the DOD decided to bring back the draft, the U.S. military would need women to serve.

“If it’s so grave that we have to go to a draft, we need everybody,” he said. “We need man, woman, gay, straight, any religion, Black, white, brown. We need everybody, all hands on deck.”

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel