# The RESTORE Act: What It Does and Who It Affects

The RESTORE Act creates a special review board to examine how the military handled religious exemption requests related to COVID-19 vaccines. Specifically, it looks at service members who asked for religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate and either stayed in the military or left because their request was denied. The bill's main goal is to determine whether these service members faced unfair treatment in their careers—like being passed over for promotions, receiving bad performance reviews, or being forced out—because of their vaccine refusal or religious accommodation request.

If the review board finds that a service member was treated unfairly, the bill allows for significant corrections. This could include backdated promotions to the rank they would have reached if the vaccine issue hadn't interfered, restoration of lost pay and benefits going back years, correction of their official rank date to match their peers, and even reinstatement for those who left the military. The bill also requires that all negative marks related to vaccine refusal be removed from their permanent military records, including reprimands, bad evaluations, and promotion denials. Service members can request a review if they believe their careers were harmed, regardless of whether their original religious exemption was approved or denied.

The timeline is fairly aggressive: the review board has one year to examine all affected service members' cases, and those found eligible for compensation must receive it within 60 days of their review being completed. Congress will receive regular quarterly updates on how many cases have been reviewed, how many service members received back pay or promotions, and what adverse actions were removed from records. Additionally, the Department of Defense Inspector General will conduct an independent audit within 18 months to verify that the military applied religious freedom protections fairly and consistently across all branches.