WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Mary Miller (IL-15) released the following statement on her opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2022 as H.R. 4350 continues to be considered in the US Senate.
Miller voted "no" in September, as did Illinois Democrats Danny Davis, Chuy Garcia and Jan Schakowsky.
“I was the only Republican member of the Illinois delegation to vote against the Biden Defense Authorization in September, just three weeks after President Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, because no one had been held accountable for the massive national security failure that cost 13 American service members their lives and brought more than 20,000 unvetted Afghan nationals to US soil.
The Biden NDAA included gun confiscation provisions, created a new requirement for teenage girls to register for the military draft, and imposed a federal COVID vaccine mandate on healthy service members, including those who naturally recovered from COVID and have antibodies.
"Tonight, I was once again the only Republican from the Illinois delegation to vote against the Biden Defense Authorization because to this day, no one in the Biden Administration has been held accountable for the withdrawal in Afghanistan that allowed 5,000 ISIS and al Qaeda prisoners to be released, $85 billion in military equipment to be seized by the Taliban, and 13 service members to be killed," Miller said in a statement Thursday night. "The NDAA still creates a federal vaccine mandate that allows President Biden to discharge healthy active duty service members from my district. The bill also includes leftist Critical Race Theory 'equity' training requirements for the military that my constituents strongly oppose.
"I am proud that as a result of hard work by conservatives, the gun confiscation and draft for teenage girls provisions were removed from the bill. I will always oppose radical leftwing policies being rammed through Congress by President Biden, and I will never vote for policies opposed so strongly by the constituents I represent.”