I am trying to find out the names of the two US Senators who voted against the National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate Armed Services
I am trying to find out the names of the two US Senators who voted against the National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate Armed Services last week (June 10). I couldn’t find the transcript of the hearing. The Congressional digest only provides summary. Do you know where I can find the information?
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/20-06-10-full-committee-markup-for-fiscal-year-2021 (Does it mean it’s a “closed session” or this is a closed event.) Is it possible to have a “closed session?”
Congressional Daily Digest
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2020/6/10/daily-digest/article/d482-1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22National+Defense+Authorization+Act+for+Fiscal+Year+2021%22%5D%7D&s=5&r=8
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FY%2021%20NDAA%20Summary.pdf
Answer
Both the House and Senate are authorized to hold closed hearings in matters affecting national security, trade secrets, confidentiality of expert witnesses, and under other circumstances (for the Senate Armed Services rules on this matter, see Rule #4 at https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/about/rules for example). To provide a possible timeline for the fiscal year 2021 NDA, we can look at last year's, introduced in mid-June, signed into law just before Christmas 2019.
It appears that this year's legislation, drafted, passionately debated, and voted on favorably in Committee by Senators, has not yet been formally introduced or numbered. The Committee provides an executive summary only, not the draft bill itself https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FY%2021%20NDAA%20Summary.pdf -- frustrating!
The best summary of action I have found comes from a privately-published source (CQ.com) to which I have access but is unfortunately not available the open internet. In my experience as a documents librarian, it is the votes on the main floor that are publicly recorded. Committee voting is generally expressed simply as a numeric outcome (25-2) with no names attached.