Top House Democrats to bar military draft plan

[Ron Burgundy]

Reuters - Leading Democrats who soon will control the legislative agenda in the Congress rejected on Monday a colleague's call for reinstatement of the U.S. military draft.

"I don't favor it," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, who is set to chair the Senate Armed Services Committee when Democrats take over both houses of Congress from Republicans in January.

"I don't think we need it," added Levin, whose panel oversees military programs. He spoke to reporters after meeting with Robert Gates, President George W. Bush's choice to replace retiring Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The top two Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives also voiced their opposition to a plan being pushed by Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record), a New York Democrat, for drafting soldiers into the army for the first time since 1973. The idea is not supported by Republicans either.

"We did not include that" in legislative plans for early next year, said Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland, who will be House majority leader when the new Congress convenes in January.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California noted her opposition to the draft in remarks to reporters. She said Rangel was trying to underscore that the U.S. war effort should be a "shared sacrifice" and his legislation was "a way to make that point."

Rangel, who is in line to chair the House Ways and Means Committee next year, has renewed his call for the draft, saying the war in Iraq is being fought by American soldiers who disproportionately are from low-income families and minorities.

Over the weekend, Rangel said he would seek passage next year of the universal draft legislation he has long sought. "If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft," Rangel said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

As Ways and Means panel chairman, Rangel will have a significant role in U.S. tax and health-care policy. That post will not necessarily give Rangel an effective forum for pursuing his military draft legislation, Pelosi observed.

Previewing next year's legislative agenda, Pelosi emphasized pocketbook issues, saying Democrats will try to ease the "middle-class squeeze."

"We want to take the country in a new direction, not just for privileged America," Pelosi said in a jab at Bush and his fellow Republicans who had been in control of Congress.

Among Democrats' top priorities are increasing the minimum wage, expanding aid for college education and further lowering prescription drug costs for senior citizens.