Hard Right Presses Culture War Fights on Defense Bill, Imperiling Passage
Hard-right House Republicans are pushing to use the yearly bill that sets the United States military budget and policy as an opportunity to pick fights with the Biden administration over abortion, race and transgender issues, imperiling its passage and the decades-old bipartisan consensus in Congress around backing the Pentagon.
Republican leaders have scheduled votes beginning on Wednesday on the $886 billion measure, but as of Tuesday evening, they had yet to dissuade their ultraconservative colleagues from efforts to load it up with politically charged provisions to combat what the G.O.P. calls “wokeness” in the military.
Those proposals — including rolling back a Pentagon policy providing service members access to abortions and defunding the military’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs — would alienate the moderate Republicans and Democrats whose votes would be needed to get the bill through the narrowly divided House.
The situation has turned the annual defense policy bill into the latest test of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s leadership since the far right revolted over the debt ceiling deal he forged with President Biden, grinding the House to a halt to demand more influence over its agenda. Right-wing lawmakers have threatened to do so again if their priorities are not met, and this time, their tactics could ensnare what is widely seen as one of the few must-pass pieces of legislation before Congress each year, normally drawing broad support across the political spectrum.
Source: The New York Times
