National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I strongly oppose this effort. If you care about our military commanders, listen to them. Every one of them opposes this. If my colleagues believe that the military legal community knows what they are talking about, listen to them. Every JAG of every service opposes this. A 29-percent decrease in sexual assault incidents, a 70-percent increase in reporting. Senator McCaskill, Senator Ayotte, Senator Fischer, and many others, along with Senator Reed--we have reformed the military justice system in an appropriate manner. But here is what we should never allow to happen:

Commander, last night there was an alleged rape in the barracks.

Oh, I don't care about that anymore; send that over to the lawyers.

Let's never let that happen. Never let a commander avoid responsibility for what happens in their unit. It is their job to make sure we have good order and discipline. Don't let them off the hook. Reinforce good commanders and fire bad ones. Do not disenfranchise the best military leadership in the history of the world. And that is exactly what this does. We will solve the sexual assault problem. We are not going to dismantle the infrastructure that has given us the finest military in the history of mankind. That is why everybody who knows what they are talking about opposes this.

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