Gillibrand renews push for military sex assault reform

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is renewing her years-long effort to pass a military sexual assault reform bill.

Gillibrand is offering the proposal, which would remove military sexual assault cases from the chain of command, as an amendment to an annual defense policy bill. 

{mosads}The amendment marks Gillibrand’s latest attempt to pass her legislation, after failing to get it through the Senate, either as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) or separately. 

The New York Democrat said her bill would “ensure that the survivors of military sexual assault have access to an unbiased military judicial system.”

Gillibrand contrasted her legislation with the “many incremental changes” she said Congress has approved in the past. 

“After two decades of complete failure, and lip service to ‘zero tolerance’ — the military now says, essentially, ‘Trust us this time, we got it,’ ” she said from the Senate floor. “The system remains plagued with distrust and does not provide the fair and just process that survivors deserve.” 

Critics of Gillibrand’s legislation have previously argued that prosecution of military sexual assault cases should stay within the military’s chain of command. 

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, also voted against the bill last year, when it failed to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a procedural hurdle. 

But Gillibrand said “enough is enough with the spin, with the excuses, and the promises throughout the last year, we have continued to see new evidence of how much farther we have to go to solve the problem of sexual assault in our military.” 

She added that it took the Defense Department a year to turn over 107 sexual assault case files for her office to review, adding that “these 107 files are a snapshot of the thousands of estimated cases that occur annually.”