Honoring Our Military Spouses
By Congressman John Carter

Every year we attempt to honor the sacrifices made by our military service members to our nation through multiple national observances - Veterans Day, Armed Forces Day, and Memorial Day.

But our military servicemembers aren’t the only ones who make sacrifices to defend America. The spouses of our men and women in uniform also provide very large contributions throughout the military career of their husbands or wives.

Since 1984, we have set aside May 8 as Military Spouses Appreciation Day to honor the wives and husbands standing behind our armed forces. But this year, instead of just recognition, we can do something that will actually make their burden a little easier to bear.

For the second Congress in a row, I have introduced the Military Spouses Residency Relief Act, HR 1182, to address a specific hardship borne by military spouses – and one that is easily remediated.

By the nature of their servicemember’s profession, military spouses must relocate every few years for decades, uprooting their families from school, work, church, family, and friends. They travel across the country and the world, experiencing the disruption of moving again and again.

In the process, they have to apply for new driver’s licenses, change their state and local income tax registration, register their children in a new school system, and change their vehicle registrations, tags, and insurance. Anyone who has moved out-of-state knows just how much hardship this causes. But our military spouses go through this time after time.

Years ago, Congress passed federal legislation providing some relief from these bureaucratic burdens for servicemembers. As a result, servicemembers themselves can claim one state as their permanent residence and avoid much of this burden. But we left out their spouses.

By correcting this oversight with HR 1182, we can provide significant relief from these hardships with no new federal costs.

94 Members of the House of Representatives have cosponsored this bill in the House. Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Dianne Feinstein have introduced identical legislation in the Senate, S. 475. 31 Senators have now cosponsored the bill in that body. In a time of frequently bitter partisan fights, this is one issue on which reasonable folks from both parties have found agreement.

Let’s make this Military Spouses Appreciation Day one to remember by passing this needed reform through both Houses as rapidly as possible, and this year, present our Military spouses with more than just words of appreciation.

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