{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20141017030122/http://coffman.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/america-may-never-have-a-draft-again-but-we-re-still-punishing-low-income", "America may never have a draft again. But were still punishing low-income men for not registering", "2014-10-16", "2014", "2014-10", "Republican", "House", "CO", "Mike Coffman", "C001077", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "The last time Danieldevel Davis got out of prison it was 2012 and he was 38.\n\u201cI ain\u2019t going back into no man\u2019s prison again,\u201d he vowed.\nHe\u2019d been locked up for six years, which was the longest he\u2019d ever lived in one place. Davis grew up in foster homes, dropped out of school in the 11th\u00a0grade and then hit the revolving door: streets, juvenile detention, streets, prison. He\u2019s never possessed a driver\u2019s license. He\u2019s never had a bill in his name.\n\u201cI\u2019ve never had anything in my name,\u201d he says.\nSo, this is what happened when Davis went to fill out his financial aid paperwork at a Virginia Beach technical college.\n\u201cHave you registered for the Selective Service?\u201d the financial aid officer asked.\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d Davis said.\n\u201cDid you register to be drafted?\u201d\n\u201cHuh?\u201d\nThis may be a nation with an all-volunteer military, one that ended conscription more than 40 years ago, but federal law still requires men ages 18 to 25 to register for a draft that does not exist. There are few exemptions and no second chances.\nDavis never registered with the Selective Service System and so learned that he was looking at potentially lifelong consequences. No access to federal student loans or grants. No federal job training money or certain government jobs. And, in Virginia, no driver\u2019s license.\n\u201cI didn\u2019t know I had to register and now I can\u2019t get anything,\u201d Davis says. \u201cI can\u2019t do nothing.\u201d\nThe odds of this country returning to a draft are almost zero, but the price for failure to register is high and is largely born by the men who can ill afford to pay it: high school dropouts, disconnected inner city residents, ex-offenders and immigrants \u2014 legal and unauthorized \u2014 who do not know that failure to register can jeopardize citizenship. In other words, those precisely in need of the type of job training, education and citizenship opportunities that could help move them from the margins to the mainstream.\nIn California, the Selective Service System estimates, men who failed to register were denied access to more than $99 million in federal and state financial aid and job training benefits between 2007 and April of this year. Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts saw $35 million in combined lost benefits between 2011 and spring 2014.\n\u201cWhy are we setting up these barriers?\u201d says Regina Tyler, director of Virginia State University\u2019s Upward Bound program and the Education Opportunity Center, which helps adults return to school. \u201cWhy are we attaching them to financial aid? We don\u2019t have a draft, so what is the point?\u201d\nThe point, supporters of registration long have argued, is that almost-zero odds of conscription are not zero odds.\n\u201cYou can never say never,\u201d says Lawrence G. Romo,\u00a0 director of the Selective Service System. \u201cWe are a deterrent. We want to make sure our adversaries understand that if we had an extreme national emergency, we would have the draft.\u201d\nA fair and equitable draft, which would include alternatives to military service, requires 100 percent compliance, he argues. \u201cWe need to have some type of penalty in order to help us get that compliance.\u201d\nThe agency grants few exceptions, but, Romo emphasizes, it is ultimately up to the financial aid officer or the workforce specialist \u2013 the agency dispensing the benefit \u00a0\u2013 to decide whether someone \u201cknowingly and willfully\u201d violated the law and therefore should be denied.\n\u201cThe door may have closed, but the window may still be pried open,\u201d agency spokesman Matthew Tittmann puts it.\nA majority of men do register \u2013 2.5 million in 2013 alone. The agency casts a huge, largely effective dragnet in high schools, motor vehicle departments, post offices and elsewhere. The average compliance rate nationally among 19-year-olds who registered last year was 89 percent.\nSo, how many run into the sanctions as Davis did? There\u2019s no good way to track, but the Selective Service System\u00a0estimates it\u2019s in the tens of thousands every year. \u00a0Men such as Davis also make up part of a larger group of suspected violators \u00a0of the law whose names the agency turns over every year to the Department of Justice, which hasn\u2019t prosecuted anyone for the offense since 1986. The potential for\u00a0punishment is there, however: A fine of up to $250,000 and/or up to five years in prison.\nThe federal sanctions are just the half of it. According to the Selective Service System, 32 states now have made registration a prerequisite to a variety of benefits, from state financial aid to state jobs to tuition breaks. Tennessee requires males who failed to register to pay out-of-state tuition to attend the University of Tennessee system \u2013 even if they are state residents and citizens.\nSelective Service registration raises two separate but related issues, the larger of which is whether it is necessary in the absence of a declared war or national emergency, and if so, whether it is discriminatory in an age of expanded roles for women in military combat. (Short and hotly-debated answers: Maybe and yes. Neither of which will be decided by the Selective Service agency itself.)\nBut the concerns of Davis and men like him are more immediate: how to move forward when his education path is blocked. Davis is working part-time as a janitor for $7.50 an hour and cannot pay for school without help.\n\u201cThe job part I understand because I put myself in this position, that\u2019s the bed I laid in,\u201d he says. \u201cBut as far as the Selective Service goes, I don\u2019t feel as though I should be punished. I am someone trying to rehabilitate myself and go to school.\u201d\nBy far, the agency\u2019s most successful tool to enforce compliance lies in the issuance of state driver\u2019s licenses. Forty states, the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories now tie issuance or renewal of driver\u2019s licenses to Selective Service registration. Most of those have moved to an automatic registration. Other have opt-in or opt-out provisions. Agency spokesman, Mr Tittmann, indicated that Selective Service strongly favors state laws for automatic registration when getting a driver\u2019s license because it helps those most in need of the benefits linked to registration \u2013 young men out the mainstream, the disadvantaged, minorities, and immigrants.\n\u201cThis is absolutely unfair,\u201d Rep. Mike Coffman, a veteran of both Iraq wars, says of the sanctions. Coffman, a Republican from Colorado, is among the most outspoken critics of the system. Earlier this year, he co-sponsored a bipartisan bill that would abolish the $23 million agency, suspending registration \u2013 and sanctions \u2014 except by executive order in a time of national emergency.\n\u201cThe Selective Service is a bureaucracy that needs to die because it no longer serves a viable purpose,\u201d he said in an e-mail. \u201cEven during the height of the War in Iraq and Afghanistan the Department of Defense never considered using the draft.\u201d\nSays Romo, \u201cYou have 435 congressmen and so you have 435 opinions on the Selective Service.\u201d\nOne of them, he notes, belongs to Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, who earlier this year introduced two bills related to the draft. The first would require women to register with the Selective Service. The second calls for all citizens and residents between 18 and 25 to perform two years of military or community service and would reinstate the draft only when a clear threat to the nation is present and Congress formally has declared war or the president proclaims a national emergency.\nRangel has long argued that the burden of fighting war has fallen unfairly on the shoulders of a few, and that a more-inclusive draft \u201cwould compel everyone in the nation to stop and think about who we sent to wars, how we fight \u2013 and why we fight them at all.\u201d\nBut, Rangel says, until the day comes that the United States is\u00a0engaged in a declared war and the nation\u2019s security is violated \u2014 or Congress passes his National Service Act \u2014 there is no reason for the Selective Service System. \u201cHaving people penalized for not registering is a fraud,\u201d he said.\nRangel emphasized that registration is current law and should be followed, but said he now intends to introduce a\u00a0 draft-related bill \u2014 one abolishing the service.\nRomo argues that if the system were abolished, the nation would lose time it could not afford in reactivating it in the event of national emergency. \u201cIt would take a minimum of two or three years to get the system going,\u201d he said. It\u2019s about readiness, he says, \u201cand the Selective Service is a very inexpensive insurance policy.\u201d\nThe agency, he says, is engaged in constant public outreach, particularly to those most in danger of falling through the cracks. That includes education sessions in inner-city neighborhoods, the Bureau of Prisons, halfway houses and groups working with immigrants and minorities. \u201cWe are trying to ensure that a man does not ace himself out of potential opportunities down the road because he was ignorant of the fact he had to register,\u201d Romo says.\nUntil a few days ago, Davis did not realize that in the phrase \u201cknowingly and willfully\u201d lies his hope. He thinks he can prove to a financial aid officer that he did not deliberately evade his duty. He\u2019s calling his former probation officer to get his juvenile and adult criminal records and is trying to figure out how to get his school records. Davis is building his case.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://web.archive.org/web/20141017030122/http://coffman.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/america-may-never-have-a-draft-again-but-we-re-still-punishing-low-income"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7310830987989902, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}