Senate names defense bill negotiators

The Senate on Thursday announced the lawmakers who will go to a conference committee with House members to iron out differences on an annual defense policy bill.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) were named as the Senate’s negotiators.

Sen. Ted Cruz was one of 10 members of the Senate Armed Services Committee not included as part of the conference committee. The Texas Republican, and 2016 presidential candidate, has come under fire for his sparse attendance of committee meetings, as well as missing Senate roll call votes.

{mosads}The naming of conferees comes after the Senate voted to go to conference with House lawmakers on the National Defense Authorization Act, where they’ll be responsible for working out key differences between the two versions of the bill. 

McCain has previously said that the conference would be able to wrap up its work this month.

Democrats tried to pass a motion that would have instructed conferees to strip out an extra $38 billion tucked into the Pentagon’s war fund. 

The push is the latest attempt by Senate Democrats to try to remove the additional Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) money and force Republicans into talks on rolling back congressionally mandated budget caps. 

Reed said ahead of the vote that the push to include the instructions on the war fund “effectively represents what we’ve heard from the secretary of Defense. … We are using OCO as a device to avoid real budgeting.” 

But Republicans rejected Reed’s logic, with Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) saying, “we’ve had this discussion a number of times. This defeats the budget.” 

Senators defeated the motion by a 44-52 vote, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, breaking from Democrats and voting with Republicans against the motion. 

His office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the vote.