By Rep. Anthony Brown U.S. Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. was unanimously confirmed last month as the Air Force's chief of staff. Brown is the first African American to lead a U.S. military service and the first African American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff since Colin Powell -- 27 years ago. Brown's outstanding achievement gives African Americans a much-needed seat at the leadership table in the U.S. military. But even Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the second-highest-ranking officer in the American military, acknowledged it is "absolutely not right" that it has taken nearly three decades for it to happen. The Joint Chiefs is not the only sphere that suffers from a lack of representation. When it comes to congressional oversight of the United States' armed forces, our nation has a serious diversity problem. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees are two of the most powerful standing committees in Congress. They provide oversight and set funding levels for the Department of Defense and portions of the Department of Energy -- nearly half of the government's discretionary budget. The Senate Armed Services Committee has the distinguished mission of advising and consenting on the nominations of both senior military and civilian nominees for the Defense Department. But African American voices are almost nowhere to be found on those critical committees. Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.) is the only elected African American member of Congress on either the House or Senate Armed Services Committees. These committees decide on pay raises for service members, regulate their health and housing benefits and can even limit deployments or redeployments. Rep. Brown brings a distinguished military background to the committee, having retired from the U.S. Army Reserve as a colonel and having served both as an aviator and a JAG officer. In addition to his military service, he was Maryland's lieutenant governor, both of which make him a powerful voice in Congress. But one voice is not enough. The national defense authorization and appropriation bills from the 2020 fiscal year authorized $738 billion toward defense spending. The dearth of African American voices on civilian oversight committees is even more stark considering that 17 percent of our nation's 2.1 million service members, approximately 357,000, are black, yet they are the least represented on their oversight committees. There are many reasons for the lack of diversity in the U.S. national security establishment. The national security arena can be complex and exclusive, which creates a steep learning curve for those who wish to enter. One does not simply apply to be the secretary of the Army, Navy or Air Force; the most talented of individuals still need a senior-level person to sponsor and guide them through the pipeline with the end goal of gaining enough of a platform to prove their national security credentials on a large stage. For civilians, the Armed Services Committees are that powerful stage. But as things stand now, the utter lack of diversity at the top ranks makes it more difficult for a younger generation of women and racial minorities to visualize a clear pathway for success for themselves in the national security apparatus. Rep. Brown was the only African American voice present during committee consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, which will change the laws regulating the military's ability to disperse peaceful protesters and remove Confederate names and the display of the Confederate flag from Defense Department installations. Both Gen. Brown and Rep. Brown deserve better. Americans deserve more diversity in those rooms and on committees. As new African American members are sworn into the 117th Congress, they should strongly consider serving on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to give their constituents and African American service members more of a voice on these issues. It is unacceptable that these conversations and decisions about our racial history are being made about us, but without us in the room. African Americans have served in every war for the United States, dating back to our founding. African American soldiers are the largest and longest-serving minority group of the Armed Services. In a time when our country is reckoning with a dismal record of injustice for African Americans, it is utterly distressing that the health and safety of more than 350,000 African American service members are determined in part by a committee that includes only one person who looks like them. In a truly just society, congressional committees should reflect the rich composition of the service members they oversee. It is past time to right this wrong.

By Rep. Anthony Brown The killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests have compelled a righteous reckoning. Facing pressure from a large and diverse movement of Americans, many of our country's institutions are facing up to their role in perpetuating racial injustice. This reckoning should extend to our nation's armed forces. Congress has both the capacity and responsibility to ensure that the military, often a leader on racial equality since President Truman desegregated it in 1948, continues to set an example for the country. While one of us serves in Congress and the other leads a human rights organization, we both wore the uniform of our country as Army officers. We led soldiers into battle and lost some of them in combat. It is because of our commitment to the military that we wish to see it even more faithfully reflect our country's ideals. The most straightforward issue at hand is the rechristening of military bases currently named for Confederate leaders. Surely it is not too much to ask that the nomenclature of the military align with its mission. The purpose of the American military is to protect all of us, not the legacies of a small group of traitors. For a nation founded on ideas, symbols are substance, whom we choose to memorialize speaks to what values we honor. Our military should celebrate those who fought for freedom, not those who led the effort to tear our country apart in the name of chattel slavery and white power. There's no non-racist reason that our armed forces should be shackled to the symbolism of the Confederacy. Both the House and Senate version of the annual defense policy bill contain amendments that would rename bases. Each amendment passed in committee with bipartisan support, yet President Donald Trump says he will veto the entirety of the legislation based on this issue. The question is whether Republicans will side with the president or with racial progress. A more complex problem: Military culture and weaponry have crept into American civil society, especially policing. The rise of the "warrior cop" has obscured the crucial distinction between the police and the military. As more police officers see themselves as commandos and more police forces resemble occupying armies, Black people pay the heaviest price, sometimes in blood. With the support of Congress, our cities and states should institute training that teaches police to respect communities' cultures and to problem-solve rather than treat every interaction as a potential confrontation. In Washington state, for instance, Sheriff Sue Rahr (retired), executive director of the state's Criminal Justice Training Commission, has pioneered an approach that sees police as guardians, not warriors. When political leaders consider our public square "battle space" and threaten to use active duty military to quell protests, something has gone terribly wrong. In places where political leaders capriciously use the military against domestic unrest, major human rights problems arise -- and public support for the military suffers. While President Trump's threat to use military force against American protesters triggered widespread opposition, the problem of militarized policing remains. In the upcoming debate over the defense bill, Congress will vote on a crucial element of any solution: ending the Defense Department's 1033 program. Organizations meant to serve the public shouldn't be equipped like combat units, with M4 carbines and armor-piercing ammunition, grenades and launchers, mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, armed drones, or anything from the federal supply class of banned items. Yet through that program, the military gives these weapons of war at minimal or no cost to police departments around the country. The program also transfers military equipment and weaponry to agencies like Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). If we are serious about making law enforcement more just and our immigration system more humane, restricting and ultimately scrapping the 1033 program should be a top legislative priority. Those are two vital steps Congress can take. There are others, from reforming the Insurrection Act to restricting military deployments to the southern border and combating white nationalism among service members. Such steps would strengthen the military as well as the country. The military is among the most respected institutions in American society, and rightly so. Congress should both leverage and enhance the military's reputation by making sure it bolsters democracy at home. As the movement sparked by tragedy demands justice, Congress can put the military where it belongs: out of policing and on the forefront of progress.

By Reps. Anthony Brown, Tom Cole, Abigail Spanberger, and Don Bacon We come together as Republicans and Democrats to advance a common cause. We represent the north and the south, the coasts and the countryside. Some of us have served in Congress for nearly two decades -- but for some of us, this term is our first in the House. Together, we are united by a core principle: Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution makes clear that the authority to declare war resides with Congress and Congress alone. Today, we are introducing legislation based on our commitment to this fundamental belief. Our bill -- the Limit on the Expansion of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Act -- states that the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) cannot be used as the basis for sending our military into any country where U.S. armed forces are not engaged in hostilities today, thus halting the ever-expanding use of this authorization. In the nearly two decades since Sept. 11, 2001, this AUMF has been used to conduct military operations in dozens of countries. And each time this authorization was used as the legal justification for the deployment of American servicemembers into harm's way in a new country, there was neither a vote in Congress -- nor even a debate. Today's Congress is very different from the one that authorized the 2001 law, with only one of every six members of the House of Representatives who voted for it still in office today. The American people are long overdue for a public debate on the use of military force, and our bill helps make that happen. Different from other efforts to address challenges with the AUMF, this bill is neither an attempt to repeal the authorization nor a statement on current or previous U.S. military actions. Additionally, we are not attempting to replace the AUMF or prohibit the use of force against any nation or organization. Instead, this legislation would put constitutional guardrails on the further expansion of an almost two-decades-old authorization. Debating and enacting this bill would be an incremental and necessary step, one on which we have already achieved bipartisan agreement and one that could realistically happen in the short term. This legislation would not impact our ability to defend our nation, our citizens, and our allies from foreign threats. If enacted, our military operations under the 2001 AUMF could continue in the countries where we are operating today. Our armed services will continue to train and assist our partners and allies in order to advance our shared security priorities. And our president will retain his Article II constitutional authority as commander in chief and will not be prohibited from taking action against any country or organization. In the event that the president must act to defend the United States in a country where we are not operating today, he could do so under the terms laid out in the War Powers Resolution of 1973. The president would be required to notify Congress regarding the introduction of forces, giving Congress 60 days to debate and determine if an authorization for use of military force is appropriate. We have arrived at our legislation through deliberate discussion. If each of us were to have acted independently, we likely would have crafted very different legislation. However, the nature of our democracy is that we must find common ground. As such, we will continue to work closely with our colleagues as the U.S. House considers this legislation -- and we will do so through regular debate and order, in line with the principles of this bill. These are not the kind of decisions that should be made without rigorous and transparent consideration. We must do right by our constituents and the Constitution and fulfill our obligation to debate the grave decision of sending our servicemen and women into conflicts overseas. We are not determining where that debate will lead or which arguments will arise. Yet, we are unified in strongly stating that we must start by having the debate.