National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I thank Senator Levin and Senator McCain for their leadership, including their leadership on this very issue last year when the Defense Authorization Act was on the floor. Last year we made some improvements.

Here is the issue. According to the Veterans Affairs Administration, a full one in five female veterans at VA facilities across the country says she has had an issue with sexual assault or harassment. In 2010 the Department of Defense cited more than 3,000 reports in the military. We know that the vast majority of our soldiers are law-abiding and would not engage in this kind of behavior, but this is clearly an issue, and we have seen an increase.

I would like to again take the time to recognize Senator Levin and Senator McCain, who last year supported the inclusion of the amendment that I introduced to preserve records of military sexual assault in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Until that time, it was really a patchwork of rules for each branch of the military as far as how long those records would be preserved. Thanks to the support of every woman Senator, we were able to get this changed, and so now these records are preserved.

But there are still some additional changes that can be made. Those are the amendments that I submitted. There is a records retention amendment--and I am working with the chairman and ranking member on this issue--that once again tackles this issue. Unfortunately, not all records are being stored for 50 years, as was our agreement last year. Documents filed in a restrictive reporting setting are stored for just 5 years, and this amendment changes that.

Our second amendment, No. 3103, addresses another area of records retention, and its purpose is to target the issue of repeat offenders. As we all know, sex offenders are often repeat offenders, and what this does is target it and makes clear that only substantiated charges of sexual offenses would be preserved in the permanent personnel file of the perpetrator.

The third amendment, No. 3104, involves sexual assault reporting and expands the data the Department of Defense reports on sexual assault incidents in the military.

The fourth amendment, No. 3105, tackles one of the key precursors to sexual assault--sexual harassment.

The fifth and final amendment involves the disposition of sexual assault cases. It makes a statement about what the U.S. policy should be regarding the disposition of sexual assault charges in the military.

All of these requests came from women in the military. My office has been working with these women. They signed up to serve. They performed their service well and honorably. In the course of their service, if they experienced an assault that could have been prevented, an assault that would not have been experienced had they not volunteered for the service, then our country owes them the basic decency of ensuring them a fair trial, fair access to health benefits, and the promise of justice. That is the goal of our amendments.

I appreciate the leadership of Senator Levin and Senator McCain in not only working with me last year to dramatically alter this policy so these records are now preserved for 50 years but for working this year on improvements to that policy once again.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source