Can Senators Get 60 Votes to Stop Sexual Assaults in the Military?
The Daily Beast reports:
Two powerful women senators, Claire McCaskill and Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats, took the lead on one of the most vexing problems facing the military: How to combat sexual assault and reform the system so perpetrators get punished, and victims are protected.
Each has worked aggressively for many months to win support from their colleagues, and they disagree on one key provision. Their bills will be tested next week in side-by-side votes that will allow either or both measures to proceed if they muster the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.
Gillibrand said she is confident she will have the necessary 60 votes. With 55 senators, including 10 Republicans, publicly supporting her legislation to move sexual-assault investigations to independent military prosecutors and away from the chain of command, Gillibrand has proved tenacious in taking on the big guns in her party. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, back McCaskill, who favors keeping the chain of command for these crimes, but with modifications to give victims more protection.
