Jeanne Shaheen

Will you commit to ensuring these 43 cases are thoroughly reviewed and processed in order to make sure that these individuals and companies are not funneling U.S. taxpayers' dollars to our enemies?

Secretary McHugh, on March 27, 2013, I joined a bipartisan group of Senators in a letter to you...

I thank my colleague Senator Isakson. I was a Governor for three budgets, and we were able to balance them every other year every cycle because biennial budgeting gives us an opportunity to prioritize scarce resources and provide more…

Thank you. So I hope my colleagues will support the amendment. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.

I just wanted to applaud the suggestion that this is a conversation that we really need to have...

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent it adjourn under the previous order. There being no objection, the Senate, at 6:49 p.m., adjourned until Wednesday, March 13, 2013, at 9:30 a.m.

This evening cloture was filed on the motion to proceed to the continuing appropriations bill. If no agreement is reached, the cloture vote will be Thursday morning. ____________________

I was hoping to learn that this session because unfortunately we have not had a lot of regular order in terms of moving appropriations bills and the budget through the Senate. As I talk to my constituents, they really want to see us do…

Mr. Taylor, General Patton, what role will you play in aligning the Services discharge policy for sex offenders?

How do you evaluate the overall effectiveness of this training to determine if what is being done is truly the best course of action in changing military culture?

Is the member given the opportunity to change career paths to one that he/she can perform given the new set of circumstances brought on by this traumatic experience?

Victims of sexual assault can request an expedited transfer, which allows them to be moved from the command they were assigned at the time of the incident.

As the percentage of women in the military now is close to 15 percent, it has not reached the critical mass where it will begin, hopefully, to have more of an impact on how sexual assault is treated.

The old boys' club, which I was referring to earlier, is very much alive and well within each Service branch.

Rape and sexual assault are not about sexual activity. They are about power, control, and intimidation.

We passed an amendment that was introduced by Senator Jeanne Shaheen and that was based on our legislation, the Military Access to Reproductive Care and Health for Military Women (MARCH) Act.

My view is that emphasizing institutional accountability and the prosecution of cases is needed to create a real deterrent to criminal behavior.

A system where less than 1 out of 10 reported perpetrators are taken to trial for their alleged crimes is not a system that is working.

This could become an issue of recruitment, and as we look at how we attract the best and the brightest people to our military, obviously this is an issue when it comes to both women and men that is going to greatly affect our ability to do…

It seems to me that that is a pretty basic bar that we should think about as we are looking at people who have been convicted of rape and sexual assault.

I certainly hope that we will do our utmost in Congress to address those automatic cuts from sequestration.

Finally, gentlemen, I do want to raise my concerns... about sexual assault in the military.

Particularly in these challenging economic times, I think it's prudent for you to continue proceeding down this path, and hope that we can provide you as much support in the Senate as possible.

I share Senator McCain's frustration and outrage that this Congress hasn't yet addressed sequestration.

If the law governing the benefit defines the term 'dependent' to be a spouse, then the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits us from extending the benefit to a same-sex domestic partner.