Military mental health crisis gets a strategic plan—finally.
H.R. 6383 — Brandon Act Training and Protocol Act · Filed by Gilbert Cisneros (D-CA) · 7 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 3, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill directs the Secretary of Defense to create a strategic plan addressing military suicide and mental health services. The plan must establish uniform protocols for self-initiated mental health referrals, standardized training for all service members (with specialized training for commanders and medical staff), and ensure service members know how to access mental health care through workplace communications.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a mandate to develop and enforce mental health protocols and training across the Armed Forces. It is a public-health and suicide-prevention measure, not a commemorative, appropriations, or deregulatory bill.
What the text implies
- Uniform protocols may require policy changes at individual military installations, potentially affecting command discretion in mental health referral processes.
- Certification requirement for mental health training creates an ongoing compliance and documentation burden on military departments.
- Bill does not specify funding mechanism or appropriations; implementation depends on DoD budget allocation and may compete with other defense priorities.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Service members and their families gain concrete protections: clearer pathways to mental health care, standardized training to identify distress, and uniform protocols reducing barriers to self-referral. Military suicide is a documented crisis; this bill addresses it directly without imposing costs on the public or restricting rights.
Named in the bill
Secretary of Defense, Military departments, Defense Health Agency, Armed Forces, Title 10 United States Code Section 1090b(e)
Where it stands
7 cosponsors: 5 Republicans, 2 Democrats.
- Dec 3, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Dec 3, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Armed Services · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Armed Services”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $140,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 48 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Gilbert Cisneros, the sponsor, reported $386,150 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- With Honor Action, Inc. — $140,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,445 characters) on Aug 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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