Moran: Tuesday Vote Vs. Draft 'Symbolic' & 'Without Debate'
Northern Virginia U.S. Rep Jim Moran joined an overwhelming number of his colleagues to vote down a measure to reinstate the draft brought to the House floor by the GOP Tuesday. “The bill was rushed to the floor by the Republican House leadership with no hearings or committee consideration. Nor did it receive the necessary two-third majority vote required to be considered under a suspension of the rules,” a Moran statement said. It failed, 402 to 2.
Moran made headlines by commenting on the prospect of a draft in a Falls Church town meeting last week.
“Bringing this important issue up on the suspension calendar does not facilitate the kind of serious discussion and national debate it so deserves,” Moran said. “The Bush-Cheney administration's decision to start a preemptive, unilateral war has stretched our troop levels thin, used the Guard and Reserves beyond their capacity and thus greatly increased the probability that the U.S. may be forced to reinstate the draft sometime in the future to sustain the required troop levels in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.”
The bill the GOP rushed to the floor for a symbolic vote was authored by Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) and was aimed at highlighting the fact that a large percentage of the enlisted servicemen who have been sent off to fight in Iraq are minorities and young people from lower socio-economic brackets. “The legislation was introduced as a symbolic effort to make a statement on the issue of the current demographic makeup of the military,” a Moran statement said.
“Moran is firmly opposed to a reinstitution of the draft,” but does not rule out an “incentivized universal service program, allowing for community service as an alternative to military service,” as an alternative should a demand for a draft become prevalent.
|
