List of Democrats Who Voted for Defense Act With Ban on Transgender Care
Joe Biden's desk after the legislation cleared both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support.Senators voted 85 to 14 in favor of passing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Wednesday, despite the bill including a provision on transgender care for children age 18 and younger of military members.
Only 10 of the 47 Democrats in the chamber voted against the act.The House voted on the defense policy bill last week, with 81 House Democrats joining in support.The NDAA, which normally receives wide bipartisan support, sparked controversy earlier this month after House Speaker Mike Johnson amended the legislation with language that restricted the use of federal funds from TRICARE—the health care program for active-duty service members—to exclude gender-affirming care for children of military personnel.According to a report circulated by the American Civil Liberties Union, there were 2,500 minors receiving such health care through the military's TRICARE health system in 2017.The move was met with fierce criticism from Democrats, including Senator Tammy Baldwin, who said she would vote against the NDAA—which sets Pentagon and U.S.
national security policy for the year ahead—for the first time in her career because of its inclusion. Baldwin led a group of 21 Democratic senators in a largely symbolic effort to strike Johnson's language on Monday, but the effort failed.Still, a number of congressional Democrats signaled they were not prepared to sink the entire bill over the inclusion of Johnson's provision.
The bill has received bipartisan support for its authorization of a significant pay increase for junior enlisted U.S. service members, of $3 billion to improve military housing and of a child care expansion.Here's the full list of Democrats who voted in support of passing the NDAA:John Fetterman, Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, said in a Wednesday statement: "I'm unapologetically supportive of our national defense and the trans community.
