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WASHINGTON — Alaska Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola voted against the U.S. House of Representatives defense package Friday, which included Republican-led amendments she condemned for limiting abortion access for military personnel.
The House defense package authorizes $874.2 billion for fiscal year 2024 and includes a 5.2% pay raise for service members, in addition to amendments targeting military abortion access and gender-affirming care. The bill passed the chamber Friday morning 219-210 with four Democrats in favor and four Republicans opposed. Peltola voted no, calling the decision “one of the most difficult votes I’ve ever had to take.”
“The defense bill on the floor today was not the same bipartisan bill that came out of committee,” Peltola said in a prepared statement. “House leadership let the most extreme members of Congress load it up with amendments designed to create political attack ads while removing access to health care for millions of Americans who are employed by the Department of Defense, and their families.”
The amendments Peltola objected to were part of a series of 28 amendment votes she didn’t participate in Thursday evening, according to the House clerk’s record. Peltola spokesman Sam Erickson said the representative was ill Thursday and unable to attend the amendment votes.
“She did receive information on them as the votes were proceeding which helped inform her vote today,” Erickson said in a statement.
One of the amendments passed Thursday blocks the Defense Department from reimbursing abortion out-of-state travel expenses.
“I will always support our brave servicemen and women. I also believe that they are equal citizens, just like the rest of us,” Peltola said in her statement. “That means they have the same rights to privacy and choice in their medical decisions that any other American should have.”
“We shouldn’t be pitting pay raises that they deserve against the reproductive freedoms that they also deserve. That is a false choice, created for purely political reasons,” she added.
Other amendments that Peltola missed voting on include one that limits gender-affirming care for transgender troops, and another that eliminates Pentagon diversity, equity and inclusion staff and programs. The latter amendment passed by just one vote Thursday.
The bill as amended is a nonstarter in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’s hoping for a floor vote on the Senate defense package in July. Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan voted to advance the Senate’s legislation out of the Armed Services Committee last month.
Once both chambers have passed the legislation, a bicameral conference committee will negotiate a final iteration of the bill.
Peltola said she looks forward to the negotiations with the Senate and she will “advocate strongly to return to the bipartisan, policy-focused bill that came out of committee, and will gladly vote for a bill that fully protects our troops and their families.”
Peltola supported the final passage of the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act last December.
National Republican campaign groups, who are seeking to oust Peltola in the 2024 election, attacked her vote against the House defense bill Friday.
“Mary Peltola is following an extreme and dangerous agenda led by the fringe elements of her party that is entirely out of touch with the American people,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Ben Petersen said in a statement. “She needs to answer for why she is willing to put our national security risk for her woke agenda.”