Senate Armed Services to draft defense bill in private

The Senate Armed Services Committee will hammer out its draft of the fiscal 2016 defense policy bill behind closed doors.

Panel members convened Thursday morning to vote on whether they should debate the legislation in public.

They voted against doing so, and Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters it “wasn’t close.”

{mosads}A committee spokesman later said the vote was 17-9 to keep the meetings closed to the public and the press.

The House Armed Services Committee is holding its markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in public, but the Senate panel has traditionally conducted its meetings in private, even as some members have pushed for public hearings to boost transparency.

McCain said he would leave it up to his subcommittee chairmen do decide if they want to work on their portions of the defense measure in open hearings.

The NDAA serves as a policy blueprint for all Defense Department programs and efforts.

Earlier in the week, McCain said there were “upsides and downsides” to crafting the legislation in the open. 

“With defense authorization you quickly get into classified programs. So you have to clear the room. You know, ‘All right, everybody out till we get that one done, now everybody back in,’ ” he told reporters. 

“We only get a couple days” and an open markup could impede “the process of getting the bill done,” McCain said. 

The last of the House Armed Services subcommittees finished their parts of the policy bill Thursday morning. The full committee will take up its draft on April 29.

The Senate Armed Services panel likely will roll out its version within the next three weeks.