An ill-considered and unworkable proposal by the Selective Service System to try to “automatically” register all men ages 18-26 for a possible future military draft has been removed from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025.
The proposal for “automatic” draft registration was included in both the House and Senate versions of this year’s NDAA – without hearings, budget review, or debate – but was removed during closed-door House-Senate conference negotiations.
A proposal to expand Selective Service to young women as well as young men, which was included in the Senate version of the NDAA but not in the House version, was also removed by the House-Senate conference.
The conference proposal for the FY 2025 NDAA has yet to be considered by either the House or Senate, although it is likely to be one of the highest priorities for the brief “lame-duck” sitting before the end of this session of Congress. The conference proposal could, in theory, be amended during floor consideration in either or both chambers. In practice, however, members of Congress probably have higher priorities for last-minute compromises on the NDAA. The proposals for expansion and attempted automation of draft registration are unlikely to be reinstated in this year’s NDAA before it is enacted.
This doesn’t mean that Congress has put a stake through the heart of either of these proposals. That would happen only if Congress ended Selective Service registration entirely. The latest version of the Selective Service Repeal Act, S. 4881 in the 188th Congress, never made it out of committee and seems destined to die at the end of this session. Urge your U.S. Representative and Senators to reintroduce it in the new Congress!
In the meantime, as long as Selective Service registration and stepped-up contingency planning and preparation for military conscription continue, proposals for automation and/or expansion of draft registration are likely to be renewed every year in Congress, in some form or other.
It’s unclear from the terse report on the closed-door conference negotiations (see image above) why these proposals were removed from this year’s NDAA. They seem to have been lumped together, even though they originated from different sources. We suspect that the proposal to “automate” registration was only removed from the bill because it was perceived by participants in the conference as somehow linked to the proposal for registration of women.
The proposal to expand Selective Service registration to women was strongly opposed by some (pro-military and sexist) members of the Senate and House. It seems unlikely to be approved by the next Congress, given its even more sexist composition and ideological leanings.
The proposal for automatic draft registration is more of a threat to watch out for, at least in the next few years. Even though it’s a recipe for a fiasco, it’s the last, best hope of the Selective Service System (SSS) to save itself from increasingly obvious and abject failure that threatens the agency’s existence and its employees’ civil service sinecure jobs.
As long as compliance with the self-registration requirement of the Military Selective Service Act continues to plummet, lobbying for a switch to “automatic” registration is likely to remain the highest existential priority for the SSS. The SSS will keep pitching this dumb idea to Congress every year. This could happen regardless of who’s in charge of the SSS.
In his first term, President Trump appointed an incompetent political sycophant, Don Benton, as Director of the SSS. Benton tried to impose a dress code for SSS staff (the staff rebelled), and proposed to move the headquarters of the SSS from near the Pentagon in northern Virginia to Benton’s hometown of Spokane, WA, presumably to get the SSS away from the Washington, DC, “swamp” and closer to his home. Congress demurred on the cost and lack of justification for the move. Benton resigned as soon as Biden was elected President, presumably because he knew he would otherwise have been replaced.
After Benton’s resignation, President Biden never appointed a Director of the SSS, leaving the agency under a career civil service incumbent, Joel Spangenberg, as “Acting Director of the SSS” throughout the Biden Administration.
It remains to be seen who, if anyone, President Trump will appoint as Director of the SSS during his second term. Appointment of the Director of the SSS by the President does not require consultation with, or approval by, Congress. Until a change in the law in 2011, the appointment of the Director of the SSS was subject to confirmation by the Senate. The Senate version of the NDAA for FY 2025 included a provision that would have reinstated that requirement for Senate confirmation of the Director of the SSS, but that provision was also removed from the NDAA by the House-Senate conference.
Like the current failed self-registration system, the proposal for “automatic” registration would not withstand in-depth impartial scrutiny. It’s critical to continue to expose and call attention to the fact that the Selective Service emperor has no clothes and to insist that any renewed proposal for “automatic” Selective Service registration not be buried in a 2,000-page omnibus bill voted on as a single package, like the NDAA, or considered without being the subject of a full Congressional hearing on Selective service with independent witnesses on both sides and consideration of the alternative proposal to repeal the Military Selective Service Act.
Edward Hasbrouck maintains the Resisters.info website and publishes the “Resistance News” newsletter. He was imprisoned in 1983-1984 for organizing resistance to draft registration.