WASHINGTON -- Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who helped force the military to allow gays in its ranks, is determined to upend laws governing how the armed services handle an epidemic of sexual assaults.
The tenacious 46-year-old just may prevail.
"She has spunk. She is not afraid," says former New York Gov. David Paterson, who stunned the political world in January 2009 when he appointed the little-known, two-term congresswoman to replace Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was tapped by President Barack Obama to be secretary of state.
In a headline-grabbing turn of events, a child of Camelot, Caroline Kennedy, bowed out of contention. The Democratic governor settled on a child of tough Albany, N.Y., politics, and Gillibrand entered the Senate as its youngest member.
Four years later, she is locked in a ferocious fight with some of the Senate's more authoritative voices on the military.
Earlier this year, outrage over high-profile cases of sexual assault in the military and increasing numbers of service men and women fearful about reporting the crimes forced Congress to press for significant changes in military law and how the services deal with the victims.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, the six-term Michigan Democrat who is retiring next year, proposed far-reaching policy changes, with the support of the Pentagon's top brass.
But Gillibrand, chairwoman of the Armed Services personnel subcommittee, countered that the approach was wrong.
She is slowly and steadily building support for a proposal to strip commanders of their authority to prosecute cases of sexual assault, instead handing responsibility to seasoned military lawyers. She now has 44 backers, including Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who signed on last week, as well as conservative Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
She's relentless in trying to attract support for the bill. Gillibrand telephoned Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on a Saturday. He hasn't taken a stand on either measure yet; nor has Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
As starting pitcher on the congressional women's softball team, Gillibrand used early morning practices to lobby her teammates.
The competing measures are set for a late summer showdown that already has deeply divided the Senate, pitting some of the newer Republicans and Democrats less deferential to the Pentagon's demands against Senate experts on defense. The fight crosses gender and party affiliations and in the last few weeks has touched off a furious competition, even by Capitol Hill standards, with dueling news conferences, testimonials from retired military and statements from former prosecutors-turned-senators.
The high-profile issue has helped add Gillibrand's name to chatter about 2016 presidential candidates, a notion she says she finds flattering. But in an interview, she says emphatically, "I hope I get to see Hillary Clinton sworn in as our next president, and I intend to help her get elected."
Earlier this year, lawmakers were furious after learning that a senior Air Force official had overturned the conviction of a lieutenant colonel after a jury found him guilty of aggravated sexual assault, and there was no further recourse, not even by top leaders at the Pentagon.
Other episodes at the U.S. Naval Academy and West Point, combined with a Pentagon report on a survey estimating that as many as 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, spurred lawmakers to act. The survey said thousands of victims were still unwilling to come forward despite new oversight and assistance programs aimed at curbing the crimes.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/29/3528572/senator-targets-military-law-over.html
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