“It never used to be this way.” I’ve heard those words from my experienced colleagues time and again since joining the House of Representatives. The vitriol, I’m told, is at an all-time high in the Swamp with very few things not succumbing to the partisan divide.

One of the historically bipartisan pieces of legislation is the National Defense Authorization Act, commonly known as the NDAA. This is arguably the largest piece of legislation that must pass Congress every single year. Thankfully, the NDAA has historically never been a partisan issue as both Republicans and Democrats have agreed on providing the very best training and equipment for our men and women in uniform. Sadly, this year, House Democrats broke from tradition and tried to use the NDAA to push their woke agenda on our military.

The first version of the NDAA which passed the House on September 23rd was a leftist wish list full of provisions that distract from national security and readiness. This version of the bill included provisions to draft our daughters, implement red-flag laws, create a mandatory $15 minimum wage for DoD contractors, and establish an ‘Office of Countering Extremism’ within the military. Especially harmful to the Third District, the NDAA even included Rep. Diana DeGette’s Wilderness and Rep. Joe Neguse’s CORE Acts even though they have nothing to do with national defense and aim to lock up significantly more land in Colorado.

I voted against this version of the bill.

I’m for funding our military, but the bad outweighed the good in the original House version of the bill. And I could not, in good conscience, support legislation that would ultimately ruin our military with woke policies.

Read the full article at VailDaily