Political Quotes

“Madam President, I wish to reiterate my strong support for Senator Gillibrand's reforms to the military justice system. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of this act, and I should add it has been a pleasure working with Senator Gillibrand on the issue. Her passion and commitment to rooting out sexual assault in the military ought to be inspiring to all of us, and watching how she negotiates and how she lobbies for her ideas can teach all of us a good lesson. I should also add that I appreciate the work of the Armed Services Committee, which added a large number of commonsense reforms to the underlying bill. In fact, some of them are so commonsense that one has to wonder why the military hasn't adopted them already or, if need be, asked for legislation to do so before now. For instance, the bill before us provides that people convicted of certain sexual assault offenses may not join the Armed Forces--common sense. It requires mandatory discharge from the Armed Forces of any member convicted of certain sexual assault offenses--common sense. It directs a comprehensive review of the adequacy of training pertaining to sexual assault prevention and response--common sense. The underlying bill also has a number of provisions to address certain concerns about commanding officers not handling sexual assault charges properly but still keeps this judicial process in the chain of command. That is inappropriate; hence, this amendment. We have tried working within the current system.…”