Political Quotes

“Madam President, the Senate takes another step forward in combating sexual assault in the military. Thanks to the leadership of Senators McCaskill, Ayotte, Fischer, and others, we can improve legislation which adds important new protections for victims of sexual assault and strengthens our ability to investigate and prosecute these crimes. This legislation we will be voting on bolsters and improves upon the provisions to combat sexual assault which were included in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014. Among the reforms included in that bill and are now law were provisions which make it a crime to retaliate against a servicemember for reporting a sexual assault; that require every servicemember who reports a sexual assault to get a special victims' advocate who works for them, not for the command or for the court; and also this recently enacted law requires a higher level review of decisions not to prosecute an allegation of sexual assault. The reforms in the bill we will be voting on shortly are significant additions to that recently enacted law. First, this bill will be making an important change in how we prosecute sexual assault crimes by amending the Military Rules of Evidence to eliminate what is known as the good soldier defense, which has allowed servicemembers to argue that their good military performance is evidence of their innocence when charged with a crime.…”