Tell your Senators: Stand Fast! Filibuster the NDAA!

SenateFederal LevelTop ActionCurrent Action

Aug 4

Written By Kathy Lass

Call BOTH of your Senators.

Featured

Senator Adam Schiff

SF Office:‍ ‍415-393-0707

DC Office: 202-224-3841

Email: Sen. Schiff’s email contact form

Senator Alex Padilla

SF Office: (415) 981-9369

DC Office: (202) 224-3553

Email: Sen. Padilla’s email contact form

Call Script

My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.

Thank you for voting last July to sustain the filibuster against the atrocious, MAGA-written, NDAA27 defense bill. I and other members of Indivisible SF urge you to stand fast and continue filibustering against any NDAA bill that:

Includes a huge 28% increase in defense spending.
Includes language creating a special U.S-Israel military relationship that limits the ability of Congress to approve, oversee, or set political limits on U.S-Israel military aid, cooperation, and joint endeavors.
Includes any portions of the House-passed SAVE Act in any form.
Fails to include language enforcing Constitutional and War Powers Act congressional authority over Trump's personally-declared Iran War.

Background

Last July, Democrats (including our own senators Padilla and Schiff) filibustered in the Senate to block an outrageously bad National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Good for them.
Year after year, the annual 500+ page NDAA bills always contain many provisions that we and other progressives fiercely oppose. But this year's NDAA is the first one that is entirely the product of the Trump/Vance MAGA regime and it contains four provisions that are beyond all precedent that we must oppose in every way that we can:
1. Huge increase in defense spending. The current House and Senate NDAA bills set a 28% overall increase in defense spending. This money-grab raises the defense share of congressionally-appropriated federal spending to 63% (the current share is 52%). If enacted, this enormous and unprecedented shift will reduce non-defense federal spending to just 37%. Which will inevitably result in draconian cuts to domestic health, education, housing, environment, justice, and other programs – which, of course, is a core element of the MAGA political agenda.
2. Israel-U.S. military integration and circumvention of congressional oversight. The current NDAA language would create a unique military relationship with Israel that no other nation has – not even the United Kingdom or NATO. Military aid and cooperation with foreign nations normally requires congressional oversight and authorization, but the current House NDAA bill contains policy provisions that appoint a Pentagon "Executive Agent" with broad authority to approve and coordinate "integration" of U.S. and Israeli defense matters. In the view of many observers, if the Senate concurs, this would limit (or entirely eliminate) the ability of Congress to approve, oversee, or set political limits on U.S-Israel military cooperation.
3. SAVE Act. The current House NDAA bill now contains highly-partisan SAVE Act provisions that will suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning demographic groups through targeted voter-ID requirements, restrictions on mail-in voting, and other stratagems that favor the Republican Party. MAGA senators will try to insert those provisions in the Senate version. Even if the Senate version does not contain SAVE Act language, when the House and Senate versions are merged for final enactment vote, the Republican-dominated committee controlling the merge could easily insert the House SAVE Act language.
4. Iran War Policy. A portion of the new increases to the Pentagon budget mandated by these NDAA bills will go towards increased funding the Iran War. Democrats tried to add provisions requiring the president to follow the Constitution and the War Powers Act, but Republicans blocked them. The absence of limitations permits the Trump/Vance administration to wage and expand their personal and unconstitutional war and will without oversight.
We must urge our senators to not only continue standing fast against this NDAA but to work with other Democratic senators to do the same.
This won't be easy. Year after year, powerful special interests and incumbents of both parties want the NDAA to pass no matter how vile it is because that's what their big Defense Industry donors and the AIPAC lobbyists want. Republicans believe they can get enough Democratic votes in the Senate to enact the final merged bill regardless of what it contains. We need to make sure they cannot do that.