The Tuesday session of the House of Representatives saw an overwhelming defeat of HR-163 by a vote of 402-2. This bill, introduced by Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) in January of 2003, sought “to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.” In other words, it was an attempt to reinstate the draft.

House Republican leaders called for the vote without advance notice in an attempt to quell rumors that the Bush administration plans to restore the draft immediately after the Nov. 2 election. Emails and Web sites about this issue have been spreading across the Internet. They are mostly targeted at young voters who are becoming increasingly worried over the prospect of a draft. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) stated on Tuesday that there is no “secret plan” and that the Democrats should not be spreading this “propaganda” to scare voters.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Rangel, said he pushed the measure to show that the burden of fighting in the war was falling on lower-income people. He criticized the Republicans for bringing up the bill without holding any hearings. 

The concern that the military is over-stretched and that there are not enough active members to adequately support the duration of the war on terror was addressed. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) said the bill was not about politics but rather about the growing need to have enough resources to fight the war on terror. Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) stated that the United States was “unprepared for war,” that the military is “overburdened” and that they should be looking at ways to expand the end-strength. Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ) said that the military had achieved 100 percent of its goal in 2003 with its 74,000 new soldiers and 2004 has seen all goals met to date. 

The war on Iraq has become an increasingly contentious issue between the two presidential candidates but both President Bush and John Kerry have said that they oppose re-establishing a draft.