OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: Gillibrand bill defeated

The Topline: In a long-awaited vote, the Senate on Thursday defeated Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s bid to take military sexual assault cases outside the chain of command.

The Senate defeated Gillibrand’s (D-N.Y.) measure in a 55-45 vote, five short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

{mosads}The heated fight over the chain of command pitted Gillibrand against fellow Democratic Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.), as well as Pentagon leaders.

Thursday’s vote brings to a close Gillibrand’s nearly yearlong effort to get a vote on her legislation, which would take the decision to prosecute major criminal cases away from commanders.

The senator has vowed to fight on. She said the chamber failed victims of sexual assault on Thursday that but she would continue to push her proposal on this year’s Defense authorization bill.

“For a number of people an incremental step was more meaningful to them and they wanted to see what happens,” Gillibrand said. “I think there will be many more senators who will side with us [next time].”

Gillibrand’s bill divided senators in both parties. She had the support of 44 Democrats and 11 Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and 2016 hopefuls Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) implicitly criticized Cruz and Paul for backing the legislation, questioning their credentials as a potential commander in chief and vowing to raise the issue in 2016.

The fight was most intense among Democrats, however. Gillibrand won the support of more than three-quarters of Democrats, including every female senator besides McCaskill.

McCaskill said that the heated political fight has taken a toll, noting an advocacy group had taken out an ad in her hometown paper attacking her, but she said she never considered backing down.

“I was so confident that the policy was right, it is something that I couldn’t have slept at night if I would have folded on this,” McCaskill said.

There were a few surprises in the final vote. Gillibrand had said that she had 55 public supporters going into the vote, but she lost two senators: Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.).

Kirk said after the vote that he changed his mind because he was concerned with how broad Gillibrand’s language was. Her bill would affect all non-military-specific crimes that carry a punishment of one year or greater.

Kirk said that he was speaking with Gillibrand and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on the floor before casting his vote.   

Could Obama have made a difference?: After the vote, Gillibrand said that the support of President Obama and the White House would have tipped the scales in her favor.

Gillibrand said she lobbied the White House to come on board with her proposal, but in the end the White House mostly stayed out of the fight between McCaskill and Gillibrand.

After the National Defense Authorization Act was signed into law, Obama issued a statement saying that he was giving the military one year to show improvement on military sexual assault or he would support additional reforms.

“I made my greatest case,” Gillibrand said Thursday. “The president has been very clear he wants to end sexual assault in the military, and he wants there to be further study to see progress and whether it’s been accomplished.”

Sequestration ship not turning around: Lawmakers are coming to grips with a 2015 proposed defense budget that would cut the Army down to 420,000 active-duty soldiers and cut the number of aircraft carriers down to 10.

If defense budget caps known as sequestration are reversed, and the Pentagon is allowed to spend $115 billion above budget caps, it could keep the active-duty Army end strength at between 440,000 to 450,000 levels and keep 11 aircraft carriers. 

However, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday where Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey testified on the budget request, lawmakers admitted overturning sequestration is not likely. 

“I don’t see any way that it’s going away right now,” said Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.).

“That’s not going to happen. … So, we’ve got the number we’ve got,” echoed ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.).

McKeon said the only way sequestration would be overturned would be if the American people lobbied their lawmakers for additional defense spending. 

“If we’re going to be able to change sequestration, I think the American people are going to have to [get upset],” he said. 

But Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) placed the burden squarely on his fellow lawmakers.  

“We could have a larger budget if we had the courage to vote for it. We could find savings in other places. We could have additional revenues, but that’s what’s lacking, is congressional courage,” he said. 

“So, let’s not blame the witnesses [Hagel and Dempsey]. They’re doing the best they can under very difficult circumstances,” he said.  

Navy sends destroyer to Black Sea: The Navy announced Thursday it was sending a guided-missile destroyer to the Black Sea amid the crisis in Ukraine.

The move comes a day after the Pentagon decided to send six additional F-15s to Poland, to reassure NATO allies after Russian forces moved into the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. 

The Navy said in a statement that the deployment was “routine” and planned before the crisis unfolded. 

“While in the Black Sea, the ship will conduct a port visit and routine, previously planned exercises with allies and partners in the region,” the statement said. 

The USS Truxton left the Greek port of Souda Bay on Thursday to carry out joint training with Romanian and Bulgarian forces, the Navy said. 

The Truxton is part of the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier strike group, which is currently operating in the Mediterranean Sea. 

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