Political Quotes

“my colleague has made some serious misstatements and allegations in his remarks. I never said White commanders are racist, nor would I ever. In fact, all I have done is cite 3 years of evidence published by the Department of Defense about disparities in sentencing and punishment, with the Marines, for example, having 2.61 times more likely to be punished for Black servicemembers versus White servicemembers. It is DOD data. It is DOD information. As the Senator knows, this bill was written 8 years ago, and the reason it was written with a bright line was for three reasons. The first is that our allies already have done this. They created a bright line of felonies for both plaintiffs' and defendants' rights-- the UK, Israel, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, and Australia. They did this because they believed servicemembers deserve basic civil liberties. The commander is not a trained lawyer. They thought a trained military prosecutor should make those decisions for serious crimes. We were told by every military justice expert available that to do anything less than a bright line would be a terrible disservice to the UCMJ, that bright lines work, that bright lines are necessary, and that having the bright line be a punishment of more than a year would serve the servicemembers better. Second, we heard from servicemembers, particularly female servicemembers.…”