Defense bill add-on faces snag in Senate

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are insisting that negotiators drafting a final defense policy bill leave out a provision that would allow federal contractors to discriminate against workers on the basis of sexual or gender orientation.

“Our government should have no part in funding discrimination,” reads a letter by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and signed by 42 Democrats and independents — enough to filibuster the defense bill if they hold the line. It was to be delivered to the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

The letter comes just two weeks before lawmakers are expected back in Washington for a lame-duck session, when Congress will be under a time crunch to pass the annual legislation that authorizes military programs. Negotiators came close to striking a deal on the measure before Congress left town in September ahead of the election, but they came up short on a handful of provisions, including how to handle protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Democrats are not explicitly threatening to filibuster the bill if it contains the provision, but the number of senators signing on to the letter makes it clear that it’s an option.

“This letter sends a message about how strongly and widely held our belief is that this amendment would seriously jeopardize existing important workplace nondiscrimination provisions,” said Blumenthal, a member of the Armed Services Committee and the conference committee negotiating the final defense bill.

The dispute started in April, when the House Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment from Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., exempting religious organizations with government contracts from federal civil-rights law and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The amendment would effectively override President Barack Obama’s 2014 executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against workers based on sexual or gender orientation. Democrats also worry it could allow for discrimination against women based on their reproductive health choices.

The provision was never part of the Senate bill. But the House GOP appears to be digging in over the amendment, the latest stage in a half-year effort to make sure it becomes law.

Earlier this year, House GOP leaders muzzled an effort to excise the Russell amendment from that chamber’s version of the defense bill. For a bill to fund energy and water programs, House Democrats led a successful effort to include language banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT individuals, but the victory was short-lived because that bill failed to pass in the House.

The back-and-forth played out as Republicans and the Obama administration faced off over the president’s executive order mandating that public schools accommodate transgender students, a struggle that strikes similar political themes as the fight over the defense bill’s provision. GOP members suggested earlier this year that the House would try to undo Obama’s executive order on transgender bathrooms, as well.

Obama’s veto warning against the House’s defense bill, which names the Russell amendment among its objections, has not dissuaded Republican negotiators from insisting the provision be included in the final defense bill. Many religious conservatives in the party see efforts to remove the amendment as an assault on religious freedom.

Blumenthal’s letter is the latest effort to label the Russell amendment as a poison pill that Democrats will not swallow.

Opponents of the provision have been directing their efforts toward Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz. This week, the Human Rights Campaign’s government affairs director, David Stacy, again called on McCain to “stand with the majority of fair-minded Arizonans — and Americans all across the country — and drop this discriminatory provision.”

Last month, 89 House Democrats signed on to a letter similar to Blumenthal’s, appealing to House Armed Services Committee leaders to remove the language. The Senate’s letter carries more weight because of the threat of a filibuster.