GOP blocks provision to require women to register for draft

WASHINGTON (AP) — Buckling under conservative pressure, the Republican-led House Rules Committee pulled a legislative sleight of hand and stripped a provision from the annual defense policy bill that would have required women between the ages of 18 and 25 to sign up for a military draft.

Pressed about the Rules panel's change in the defense bill, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., declined at a news conference to comment, deferring to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas.

Six Republicans voted in favor of adding the provision to the defense policy bill that authorizes military spending for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

After gender restrictions to military service were erased, the top uniformed officers in each of the military branches expressed support during congressional testimony for including women in a potential draft.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the Armed Services Committee's top Democrat, decried the Rules Committee's decision to reverse the vote, calling it "a dead-of-night attempt to take an important issue off the table."

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted last week to include a draft registration requirement for women in its version of the annual defense policy bill.