In his push to ensure that Congress — not the president, not the Supreme Court — has the sole power to reconsider women’s eligibility for the draft, Mike Lee has found support from fellow senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
Spokespeople for Cruz and Rubio confirm that both presidential candidates will cosponsor Lee’s legislation when it is introduced.
Though Rubio made clear in last Saturday’s Republican debate that he supports opening up the draft to women, Alex Burgos, the Senator’s spokesman, affirmed his support for leaving that decision up to the legislative branch. “Senator Rubio agrees with Senator Lee that Congress needs to determine the future of the Selective Service system and is working on legislation to codify that role and plans to support it,” Burgos said.
Cruz has stated on the campaign trail that he would ardently oppose any attempt to change the current law. “The idea that we would draft our daughters to forcibly bring them into the military and put them in close combat, I think, is wrong. It is immoral,” he told a New Hampshire audience on Sunday.
Lee’s legislation is an attempt to preempt a scenario in which the Supreme Court takes up another challenge to the selective-service law and decides to “rewrite it like they did for Obamacare,” says Conn Carroll, the Utah Senator’s spokesman.
The bill, which Lee had originally intended to drop Thursday, will now be rolled out closer to February 23, when Congress returns from a week of recess. “The senator has no voice — as in [he’s] sick,” says a source close to Lee.