Press Releases

Today, U.S. Congressmen Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after voting against the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (FY21 NDAA):

“Today I voted against the NDAA, keeping my promise to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. While I support the eventual passing of a National Defense Authorization Act for FY21, President Trump has rightly threatened to veto this draft. While the bill contains several substantive provisions, including key funding for Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and Yuma Proving Ground, I could not vote for the bill in its current form since it includes an unconstitutional gun confiscation program, backdoor access for Chinese Community Party members to buy U.S. visas, handicaps the Secretary of Defense’s border security efforts, restricts the President’s ability to restore law and order in times of unrest, contains many ‘green initiatives’ that are not relevant to national defense, and undercuts military readiness," said Congressman Gosar.

Congressman Gosar offered several amendments but only one was considered by Democrats. 

"I am thankful that my amendment ensuring the elimination of U.S. dependency on China for critical rare earth materials by 2035 passed. However, this NDAA is littered with a plethora of disconnected Democrat ‘priorities’ that place political correctness ahead of our national security and ahead of the men and women of our Armed Forces.”

Background:

Today, the House passed a $731.6 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). For the last 60 years, Congress has united in a bipartisan fashion to pass this legislation to ensure our servicemen and women receive the proper support and our nation remains safe from hostile powers, foreign terrorist organizations, asymmetric threats, and more. That was not the case this year. While an NDAA is necessary, this effort lost the support of conservatives as it quickly turned into a Democratic wish list politicizing the military.

Unfortunately, the bill includes the following:

• A Military Court Gun Confiscation Order (GCO) program—a disgusting violation of the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights of our armed service personnel who risk their lives to defend those same constitutional rights every day.
• An irrelevant immigration provision that allows backdoor access for Chinese Communist Party members to buy US visas, circumventing traditional safeguards. 
• Restricts the President’s ability to authorize the U.S. military to defend the U.S. border.
• Includes irrelevant and burdensome “green” initiatives.
• Requires the renaming of U.S. military bases that won two World Wars
• Authorization for non-defense spending at unnacceptable levels
• Undermines the authority of the President to deploy the National Guard to enforce law and order when states, territories, or Washington D.C. either cannot or refuse to.
• Provisions applying distractive social experiments and duplicative bureaucracy on our military. 

The National Taxpayers Union and Gun Owners of America opposed this bill.

President Trump issued a Statement of Administration Policy citing opposition to the immigration provision and many other concerns, stating: “If H.R. 6395 were presented to the President in its current form, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto it.”