Today, House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith made the following statement about the Rules Committee’s move to overturn a vote by the Armed Services Committee and strip the provision including women in the Selective Service from the FY 2017 NDAA:

“This is an exceptional situation. The Rules Committee chairman is so concerned about a vote on women's equality in the military that he has created a provision ‘considered as adopted’ that overturns a measure voted on by the Armed Services Committee, ignores the mandatory scoring requirement, and passes itself, avoiding a separate vote by the full House. This is a dead-of-night attempt to take an important issue off the table, and I think people will probably see through this tactic.”