To: U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Sign the petition to Claire McCaskill: Put sexual assault prosecutions in the hands of prosecutor...
There is an epidemic of sexual assaults in the military. Do not filibuster Sen. Gillibrand’s bill to give independent prosecutors the power to prosecute.
Why is this important?
Sen. Claire McCaskill is doing the unthinkable—caving to pressure from military brass and siding with Republicans like John McCain and Lindsey Graham to filibuster a bill that offer new protections to victims of sexual assault in the military.
There’s an epidemic of sexual assaults in the military, with over 26,000 cases reported in 2012 alone. Worse still, one in five women in the military has been the victim of unwanted sexual contact, but the majority of cases have gone unreported to the chain of command—a system that has repeatedly failed to stand up for victims.
A coalition of nearly 60 senators from across the political spectrum—from Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren to Rand Paul and Ted Cruz—have come together to tackle this crisis head-on. They support taking the power to prosecute sexual assaults out of the hands of military commanders and giving it to impartial and independent prosecutors, a system most of America’s allies already use.
But the powerful military lobby opposes major reform—and Claire McCaskill is siding with them.
There’s an epidemic of sexual assaults in the military, with over 26,000 cases reported in 2012 alone. Worse still, one in five women in the military has been the victim of unwanted sexual contact, but the majority of cases have gone unreported to the chain of command—a system that has repeatedly failed to stand up for victims.
A coalition of nearly 60 senators from across the political spectrum—from Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren to Rand Paul and Ted Cruz—have come together to tackle this crisis head-on. They support taking the power to prosecute sexual assaults out of the hands of military commanders and giving it to impartial and independent prosecutors, a system most of America’s allies already use.
But the powerful military lobby opposes major reform—and Claire McCaskill is siding with them.