The Senate rejected a bill to ban military commanders from making decisions about sexual assault cases on Thursday. The rejection is a setback for supporters who say the bill will help address the high number of military women who are raped, The New York Times reported
Several legislators said the bill's main supporter, Democrat Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand from New York, is wrong in thinking it would help women in the military.
"What Senator Gillibrand is doing is way off-base," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, from South Carolina, said according to The Times. "It will not get us to the promise land of having fewer sexual assaults."
The bill received 55 votes out of the 60 needed for a floor vote, despite the fact that most of the Senate supported Gillibrand. Tensions ran high between the 20 women of the Senate during a debate before the bill was voted on.
"The only reason some are forcing a filibuster on the Gillibrand vote is because they know we have a majority," supporting Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, said according to The Times.
At the center of the debate is whether or not the military can handle the surmounting number of sexual assault cases. The Pentagon previously released a report saying that at the end of the 2013 fiscal year, nearly 1,600 sexual assault cases were waiting to be investigated or decided on by commanders, The Times reported.
Gillibrand argues that only one in 10 rape cases are reported, and that making victims report to their commanders for help is tantamount to making a woman go to her father about being raped by her brother, The Times reported.
Bottom line, commanders in the military are not equipped to deal with women who have been assaulted.
"The Defense Department has been promising the American people for a long time that they're working on the problem of sexual assault," Charles Grassley, a Senator from Iowa, said according to The Times. "Enough is enough."
