Rep. Craig Statement on Her Vote Against the National Defense Authorization Act

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Representative Angie Craig released the following statement on her vote against the Republican-led National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“While I appreciate my Democratic colleagues’ work over the past few months to strip the original House version of some of its most egregious Republican poison pills and implement important provisions, like a well-deserve pay raise for our troops, I am still deeply concerned that this bill abandons our country's LGBTQ+ veterans and servicemembers, immigrants and civil servants. 

“By including language that would expand the Trump Administration's authority to use the military to enforce immigration laws, Republicans have rubber stamped the President’s dangerous immigration agenda and disregard for due process. Not to mention, by failing to restore collective bargaining rights to the Department of Defense’s civilian workforce, they have doubled down on the President’s attacks on federal workers and turned their back on our nation’s civil servants.

“These provisions don’t make our country safer, nor do they implement necessary checks on the President’s executive power – power he has used to undermine our global standing and violate the civil rights of those who have dedicated their lives to defending our freedoms. I am not enabling this President’s anti LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant and anti-worker agenda, and I am certainly not signing off on a blank check to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to continue putting our national security and servicemembers at risk.”

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