Sunday, November 17, 2013

Senate showdown over military sexual assault bill

Senate showdown over military sexual assault bill
The Associated Press
By Donna Cassata
November 17, 2013

WASHINGTON — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has secured public support from nearly half the Senate, but not enough votes, for her proposal to give victims of rape and sexual assault in the military an independent route outside the chain of command for prosecuting attackers.

Gillibrand’s solution for a problem the military calls an epidemic appears to have stalled in the face of united opposition from the Pentagon’s top echelon and its allies in Congress, including two female senators who are former prosecutors.

Opponents of the proposal by Gillibrand, D-N.Y., insist that commanders, not an outside military lawyer, must be accountable for meting out justice.

Even so, major changes are coming for a decades-old military system just a few months after several high-profile cases infuriated Republicans and Democrats in a rapid chain of events by Washington standards.

“Sexual assault in the military is not new, but it has been allowed to fester,” Gillibrand said in a recent Senate speech.
Standing against the plan is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.; the panel’s military veterans John McCain, R-Ariz., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., and three of the committee’s women — Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., both former prosecutors, and Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb. read more here

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