Political Quotes

“I rise for the 15th time, today, to call for every Senator to have the opportunity to consider and cast their vote for the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act. This bill would move serious crimes like sexual assault out of the chain of command and put them in the hands of the most capable people in the military: independent, impartial, highly trained prosecutors. I began calling for the full floor vote on May 25. That was about a month ago. In that month, an estimated 1,736 servicemembers will have been raped or sexually assaulted. More will have been victims of other serious crimes. Many will not even report those crimes because they lack faith in the system where cases are decided by their commanders, not by trained lawyers. And yet this vote continues to be delayed and denied day after day, week after week. I have heard proponents of this bill argue that we can't make this change because the military lacks the lawyers necessary to carry out the work. Today, I would like to address this one unfounded claim. Let's look at the numbers. The Navy, for example, has an Active Duty population of just over 330,000 members. Their military justice system has 935 military lawyers, or judge advocates known as JAGs. That number includes more than 100 special litigators and 85 at the 06-level JAG, which means the colonel or above commanders.…”