The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

2/13/2024 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / Draft Resistance News - A bill to require applicants for California driver’s licenses ages 16 through 25 to consent to registration with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft, SB 1081, has been introduced again in the California legislature.

The sole initial sponsor of SB 1081 is state Senator Bob Archuleta (D-Pico Rivera), who represents Senate District 30 in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

With no legislation on Selective Service under active consideration in Congress, this California bill is the most significant legislative proposal related to Selective Service currently under consideration anywhere in the U.S. It will be the highest lobbying priority this year for the Selective Service System nationally and for its state director John A. Arbogast, local and state draft board members, and military reservists assigned to Selective Service support duty in California.

California is overwhelmingly the most populous state that doesn’t already require (or provide as a default) Selective Service registration for driver’s licenses for draft-age men. (Other such states include New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oregon, and several other less populous states.) Since the repeal in 2020 of the former Federal requirement to register for the draft to receive Federal aid for higher education, the Selective Service System has relied almost entirely on state driver’s license laws to drive (pun intended) any limited compliance it is able to obtain with draft registration.

"California does not share driver’s license [information with the Selective service System] — so, hey, move to California and you’re basically exempted from being drafted."

[Testimony of Dr. Bernard Rostker, Director of the Selective Service System 1979-1981, to the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, 24 April 2019.]

Like similar laws in some (but by no means all) other states, SB 1081 would allow applicants for driver’s licenses to “opt out” of being registered with the Selective Service System. But opting out would be incriminating official written evidence of knowledge of the registration requirement, which would otherwise be the hardest element for the government to prove in a criminal prosecution for “knowing and willful” failure or refusal to register for the draft. That makes the putative “opt out” option largely meaningless.

February 1, 2024 / Janie Ekere /  The Daily Yonder - Center for Rural Strategies - Activists remain concerned about the costs and ethics of school military recruitment, despite the potential educational and career opportunities it can offer, said Scott Harding and Seth Kershner, co-authors of “Contested Terrain: School Militarism and the Battle for Hearts and Minds.”

But in response to funding challenges, some rural schools have allowed military recruiters to assist with coaching sports or classroom instruction, said Kershner, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of History. 

According to a 2023 article from TIME Magazine, the military has had varying degrees of difficulty recruiting since the abolition of the draft in 1973. The story attributed the most recent recruitment slump to several factors like low unemployment, lack of eligible recruits, and a growing cultural divide between civilians and the military. 

A 2017 report from The RAND Corporation proposed extending military recruitment efforts to more rural schools to reach more eligible young people. The RAND Corporation report primarily focused on the JROTC program, which is the military’s most common method of youth recruitment.