I’m not calling for reinstituting the draft, but it’s good that they have stopped excluding women from Selective Service registration:

By a 85-13 vote on Tuesday, the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act for the next fiscal year. It did not include amendments that would have required greater authorization for conflicts, and did not include an amendment from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to end Selective Service. Instead, it welcomed women into Selective Service for the first time, starting in 2018, unless that policy is stripped when the bill goes to conference.

The vote contained some element of surprise, as Republicans had stopped the female draft provision in the House. In fact, its presence in that version of the NDAA was a kind of ruse gone wrong. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a military veteran opposed to women serving in combat, proposed the draft amendment during mark-up, to make a point. Expecting the amendment to fail, he voted against it, ready to argue that Democrats and other supporters of women in combat were hypocrites.

Hopefully this makes it to Obama’s desk.