A group of 45 Senate Democrats sent a letter Thursday urging leadership to reject the 55+ anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ measures that Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives have attached to must-pass FY25 spending bills, while also arguing that the “poison pill” policy riders must be kept out of the appropriations process moving forward.

The letter was addressed to the Senate’s Democratic and Republican leaders, Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.), along with the chair and vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). Among the signatories are 11 of the committee’s 14 Democratic members — including Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), and Cory Booker (N.J.), who led the effort.

The House, meanwhile, voted on Wednesday to approve the major annual defense funding bill, with a provision that would prohibit the children of U.S. service members from accessing gender-affirming health treatments under the Pentagon’s TRICARE program.

From here, the National Defense Authorization Act will face two major roadblocks that, for the past two years, have doomed other appropriations bills that were packed with partisan policy riders and passed by the House under the Republican leadership: first, the Senate’s Democratic majority, and second, President Joe Biden and his promise to veto legislation that would undermine reproductive rights or target trans and LGBTQ communities.

Of course, a path forward for these bills will become far clearer and easier next month when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House and the 119th Congress is seated with Republicans reclaiming control of the upper chamber.

In their letter, the senators explained that appropriations funding in recent years has typically been passed by the Senate in committee, usually with wide bipartisan margins, but the process is undermined when their conservative counterparts in the lower chamber pack the bills with right-wing policy riders.

Relative to concerns about harms to the legislative process, however, the authors placed a greater emphasis on the case for rejecting these measures because they are “partisan, discriminatory, and harmful.”

For instance, the letter notes that as House Republicans seeking to use the appropriations process as a vehicle for opening the door to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, or to ban access to transgender medical care, LGBTQ Americans are facing an unprecedented onslaught of legislative attacks, with 42 state legislatures introducing more than 574 anti-LGBTQ bills this year alone.

Additionally, the senators wrote, policy riders that would further restrict access to reproductive healthcare come as Americans are reeling from the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs, which overturned protections that were first established when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1933. As a result, the letter notes, total abortion bans are now enforced in 13 states with a handful of others setting early gestational limits.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to pass the annual military appropriations bill with a rider that would prohibit the children of U.S. service members from accessing gender-affirming health treatments under the Pentagon’s TRICARE program.

After clearing the floor vote with a comfortable margin of 281-140, the bill’s future is uncertain provided that Senate Democrats are unlikely to move on a National Defense Authorization Act that contains a discriminatory, partisan policy advanced by House Republican leadership and President Joe Biden promising to veto any legislation that targets transgender rights.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reportedly insisted on amending the NDAA to add the anti-trans policy after a final version of the bill had already been negotiated by the chairs and ranking members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees over the weekend, earning a sharply worded rebuke from the later committee’s top Democrat, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.).

“Blanketly denying health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a biased notion against transgender people, is wrong,” the congressman wrote. Johnson is “pandering to the most extreme elements o this party to ensure that he retains his speakership,” he said, and in the process the GOP leader has upended “what had been a bipartisan process.”

Just after the NDAA was passed, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson shared a statement with the Washington Blade.

“Military servicemembers and their families wake up every day and sacrifice more than most of us will ever understand. Those families protect our right to live freely and with dignity — they deserve that same right, and the freedom to access the care their children need.

Today, politicians in the House betrayed our nation’s promise to those who serve. Not since the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ passed almost 30 years ago has an anti-LGBTQ+ policy been enshrined into federal law.

For the thousands of families impacted, this isn’t about politics. It’s about young people who deserve our support. Those who have courageously stepped up to serve this country should never have their families used as bargaining chips.

Now, the Senate has the opportunity to reject this and any bill that includes these dangerous anti-trans, anti-military family provisions, and remember the fundamental promise of our democracy: That everyone deserves dignity, respect, and the right to healthcare.”

House Republicans added a provision to the annual must-pass military spending bill, filed over the weekend, that would prohibit the children of U.S. service members from accessing gender-affirming healthcare interventions.

President Joe Biden has promised to veto legislation that discriminates against the trans community, and the likelihood that the bill would pass through the U.S. Senate is uncertain with Democrats controlling the upper chamber until the 119th Congress is convened on Jan. 3.

Nevertheless, the GOP’s National Defense Authorization Act was passed along party lines by the U.S. House Rules Committee on Monday night, and a floor vote could come as early as Tuesday.

During the hearing yesterday, the committee’s top Democrat, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.) said the NDAA negotiated by the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees did not include this provision barring gender-affirming care and it was House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) who insisted that it be added after the fact.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is urging House Republicans to attach the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which is aimed at college campuses, to the NDAA, but Johnson reportedly wants the Democratic leader to put the bill to a floor vote on its own — a move that would inhibit his party’s ability to confirm as many judicial nominees as possible before control of the upper chamber changes hands.

Smith’s office published a statement objecting to the anti-transgender language added by the Republican leader:

“For the 64th consecutive year, House and Senate Armed Services Committee Democrats and Republicans worked across the aisle to craft a defense bill that invests in the greatest sources of America’s strength: Service members and their families, science and technology, modernization, and a commitment to allies and partners.  

Rooted in the work of the bipartisan Quality of Life Panel, the bill delivers a 14.5 percent pay raise for junior enlisted service members and 4.5 percent pay raise for all other service members. It includes improvements for housing, health care, childcare, and spousal support.

House Armed Services Democrats were successful in blocking many harmful provisions that attacked DEI programs, the LGBTQ community, and women’s access to reproductive health care. It also included provisions that required bipartisan compromise. And had it remained as such, it would easily pass both chambers in a bipartisan vote.

However, the final text includes a provision prohibiting medical treatment for military dependents under the age of 18 who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Blanketly denying health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a biased notion against transgender people, is wrong. This provision injected a level of partisanship not traditionally seen in defense bills. Speaker Johnson is pandering to the most extreme elements of his party to ensure that he retains his speakership. In doing so, he has upended what had been a bipartisan process.

I urge the speaker to abandon this current effort and let the House bring forward a bill — reflective of the traditional bipartisan process — that supports our troops and their families, invests in innovation and modernization, and doesn’t attack the transgender community.”

The Congressional Equality Caucus spoke out against the Republican NDAA with a statement by the chair, openly-gay U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who said “In the last 72 hours, brave Americans who serve our nation in uniform woke up to the news that Republicans in Congress are trying to ban healthcare for their transgender children.”

Pocan continued, “For a party whose members constantly decry ‘big government,’ nothing is more hypocritical than hijacking the NDAA to override servicemembers’ decisions, in consultation with medical professionals and their children, about what medical care is best for their transgender kids. The Congressional Equality Caucus opposes passage of this bill, and I encourage my colleagues to vote no on it.”

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson also issued a statement, arguing that “This legislation has been hijacked by Speaker Mike Johnson and anti-LGBTQ+ lawmakers, who have chosen to put our national security and military readiness at risk for no other reason than to harm the transgender kids of military families.”

“The decisions that families and doctors make for the wellbeing of their transgender kids are important and complex, especially so for military families, and the last thing they need is politicians stepping in and taking away their right to make those decisions,” she said.

“When this comes up in the full House, lawmakers need to vote down this damaging and dehumanizing legislation,” Robinson added.

“This is a dangerous affront to the dignity and well-being of young people whose parents have dedicated their lives to this country’s armed forces,” said Mike Zamore, national director of policy and government affairs at the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Medical care should stay between families and their doctors but this provision would baselessly and recklessly inject politics into the health care military families receive,” he said. “Nobody should have to choose between serving the country and ensuring their child has the health care they need to live and thrive. Members of Congress must vote against the defense bill because of the inclusion of this deeply harmful, unconstitutional provision.”