Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) successfully opposed a Democratic amendment to a defense legislature that would have made defense contractors be required to reveal the ethnic, racial, and gender make-up of all of their board of directors and lay out their diversity initiatives.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who has long fought against wokeness in the military, joined up with Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) to defeat the proposal, which was put forward by Rep. Anthony Brown (D-MD). The legislation would have imposed a requirement on Pentagon suppliers with contracts worth more than $150,000 to provide these reports to Congress.
“This is a magnified wokeness in the military,” Gaetz added. “It extends the wokeness in the military to a private sector requirement that aids the purpose.”
He recounted the time he asked a local Democrat who works in RDT&E:
“I asked him, ‘At your firm, what did you guys do for Pride Month?’ And he laughed at me and said, We’re in the business of munitions and missiles testing; our primary goal is to complete the job.’ So I asked him if he was ready to answer what he’d done for pride bond. How will you achieve a certain percentage or ratio of minority board members by 2050? It’s just madness whether it’s in our military or the private sector.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) issued a stern warning to fellow Republicans:
“This is the kind of amendment that should push you off this bill. It’s true. We will be surrendering if this becomes law. And I don’t want to have to explain to our colleagues on the floor how something like this got into a legislative measure before them. We should not do it. We should resist it with all of our might. There are so many wonderful things we can accomplish without attempting to force wokeism on everyone in the defense industry, from both sides.”
When HASC Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) called for a vote on the amendment, it failed 29-30, with Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), as well as Elaine Luria (D-VA), siding with Republicans against it.
