Expansion of Draft Registration Threatened by Congress

: Rick jahnkow; Articles Archive; 05 November 2024; Hits: 280

Expansion of Draft Registration Threatened by Congress

From Draft NOtices, October-December 2024

-- Rick Jahnkow

In early November, Congress will be voting on final language for the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains proposals that would dramatically change contingency planning for any future military draft.

Both the Senate and House have passed their own versions of the annual NDAA, which are now being considered for consolidation into a single final version. Both versions have language that would, for the first time, require automatic draft registration of 18-year-old men with the Selective Service System, the agency tasked with managing any military draft callup.

Up until the present, men have been legally required to register themselves and have faced potential non-judicial forms of punishment if they failed to comply. Such punishments include the loss of eligibility for federal civil service jobs and job training. Some states have also found ways to link draft registration to the process of applying for a driver’s license. Despite these methods of coercion, Selective Service has admitted that at least 10% of young men who are required to register have still not done so by age 26. Furthermore, many more who have registered have failed to notify Selective Service of changes in their addresses, which would make them unreachable in the event of a draft.

If automatic registration survives in the final NDAA vote, it is assumed that existing federal records could be used to register people. However, no one federal agency collects all the information on individuals that would meet the requirements for draft registration (e.g., status of people with temporary visitor visas, gender at birth for trans people, current address). Automatic registration may, therefore, prove to be both unreliable and impractical. But it will also remove the moral dilemma that many people find themselves confronting when asked to cooperate with a system that forces participation in unsupported wars.

In addition to automatic registration, the House version of the NDAA would require expanding the draft registration requirement to include women. This particular proposal has been introduced repeatedly with the argument that it is needed to achieve a greater degree of equality for women. However, some opponents of it are arguing that it would be more just to eliminate draft registration for men and repeal the Selective Service System entirely. Opposition to female registration has also come from anti-feminist conservatives in the Senate, who were instrumental in killing the proposal in the past.

According to the online publication Roll Call, the House and Senate will resume work on the NDAA on November 12th. House Armed Services Committee Vice Chair Rob Wittman (R-VA) thinks it is realistic to have a final version ready by the end of November.