The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Police Departments (Executive Calendar)” mentioning Kirsten E. Gillibrand was published in the Senate section on pages S4577-S4578 on June 16.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Police Departments
Madam President, on another topic, I come to the floor today in support of America's police officers. Every weekend, I go home to Wyoming. Every weekend, people ask me about three issues: the President's attacks on American energy, the crisis at our southern border, and the Democrats' defunding the police.
People see the headlines. They see the images on the news. They have heard about looting and rioting, the violence in Democrat-run cities. They are deeply concerned.
Last year, 63 of America's 66 largest cities saw increases in one or more categories of violent crimes. On average, homicides are up by one-
third in just 1 year. Since President Biden took office, these increases have continued in Democrat-run cities. In the first 3 months of this year, homicides went up in Washington, DC; Oakland, CA; Philadelphia; Chicago; and Baltimore, just to name a few. It is no wonder that the American people tell pollsters that they feel less safe today than they did 1 year ago.
The Democratic crime surge is especially shocking because it is a reversal of a long-term trend. For a quarter of a century, crime in America had been going down. The violent crime rate was cut in half. The murder rate was also cut in half. It was a historic, bipartisan accomplishment.
Then, in 2014, Democrats began their war on law enforcement officers. After Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, MO, Democrats started attacking police. Crime suddenly went up in Democratic cities. In the final 2 years of the Obama-Biden administration, the murder rate went up by one-fifth. Violent crime overall went up by nearly 7 percent.
Then Republicans took back the White House and the Congress. We stopped the war on law enforcement, and crime went down again.
Last year, Democrats began a repeat of 2014. This time, it was on a much larger scale. Democrats began attacking police again. Crime went up again in Democrat-run cities. America's cities saw the largest increase in murder on record.
My Democratic colleagues might say it is a coincidence. Yet there is a very clear chain of events: Democrats attack police. They cut police funding. The number of police officers went down. Crime went up.
We had a chance to fix the problem in law enforcement. Senator Tim Scott introduced a police reform bill, which I strongly support. Yet the Democrats blocked it. Time and again, Democrats put criminals ahead of police and law-abiding citizens. Innocent people continue to pay the price.
Democrats spend trillions and trillions of our tax dollars. Yet they cut funding to police, to law enforcement. Last year alone, Democrats cut more than $1 billion worth of police funding. This includes cutting funding in cities where violent crime went up.
Police have been retiring or quitting in historic numbers. Fewer police officers means more crime, more destruction, and more fear in our cities.
The American people deserve better. The American people deserve safety and peace of mind. It is time for the Democrats to stop attacking the police. It is time for the Democrats to stop wasting taxpayer dollars on liberal spending. It is time for Democrats to start paying attention to public safety.
I say to my Democratic colleagues, the vast majority of police officers in this country are heroes. They put their lives on the line for us every day. It is time to treat them with respect.
When Democrats wage their war on the men and women who dedicate their lives to law enforcement, only criminals win. The rest of our Nation loses.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1520
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Madam President, I rise to once again call for this entire body to have the opportunity to consider and cast their votes on the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act. This commonsense reform would ensure that people in the military who have been subjected to sexual assault and other serious crimes get the justice they deserve.
I have been calling for a full vote on the floor on this bill since May 24. That was 23 days ago. Since then, an estimated 1,288 servicemembers will have been raped or sexually assaulted. Two in three of the survivors will not even report it because they know they are more likely to face retaliation than to receive justice.
Today I want to share the story of the kind of offender our bill would address.
On March 30 of this year, SSG Randall Hughes pled guilty to a series of rapes dating back to 2006 that he committed while the Army looked the other way. Staff Sergeant Hughes was only brought to justice after his brave daughter decided to come forward. Had the Army prosecuted him the first time one of his victims had come forward, his daughter may have been spared.
At a Super Bowl party in 2017, Staff Sergeant Hughes fed drinks to his host, a soldier under his care, until the host passed out. He then approached his host's wife while she was outside the house. He propositioned her for sex, and when she refused, he forced himself on her against their grill outside their house and then dragged her inside their house, where he raped her--all while the husband was passed out in the next room.
The survivor hid in her bathroom until she could report the ordeal to CID the next day. CID took a year to investigate a relatively straightforward rape allegation. The command did nothing to expedite the investigation or hold CID's feet to the fire.
CID determined that the allegations were credible, but the command did nothing. Instead of prosecuting him, the command put Staff Sergeant Hughes on the sergeant first class promotion list.
Hopeless, the survivor asked that something, anything, be done. The command reacted by putting an administrative remark in his record.
Staff Sergeant Hughes was transferred to a new duty station, Fort Dix. While at Fort Dix, after years of sexual abuse, his daughter bravely came forward to report that abuse. CID at Fort Dix then noticed the administrative remark in his record from the previous rape and began making inquiries. They learned he had raped two other women and physically abused his wife.
The command had every tool available to stop Staff Sergeant Hughes from his serial rapes, including the abuse of his own daughter, but instead they turned a blind eye and did nothing. Even after he admitted to his crime and pled guilty, the Army offered a plea deal of 13 years of confinement--13 years of confinement despite sexually assaulting three women, including a minor. This serial offender avoided justice for 15 years. Even when the command was forced to administer justice, he received a sentence less than we would give a drug offender.
This case is why we need a professional military justice system worthy of the sacrifices the men and women in our military make every day. Having leadership at the top that truly cares and that is truly passionate about prosecuting sexual abuse will have repercussions down the chain. Our bill does exactly this.
We have 66 Senators who have cosponsored this bill. It deserves a vote on the floor.
As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate Armed Services Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1520 and the Senate proceed to its consideration; that there be 2 hours of debate equally divided in the usual form; and that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on the bill with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. REED. Madam President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Madam President, once again, I object to the request from the Senator from New York for the reasons I have previously stated, and I will repeat again what I have said publicly and what I have committed to.
I support removing prosecution of sexual assault, the types of crimes that Senator Gillibrand discussed, from the chain of command. But her bill goes further to include crimes not related to sexual assault. The removal of sexual assault crimes from the chain of command will be an historic change in the military justice system and one which Senator Gillibrand can claim great responsibility for effecting. We must take care, however, that we do it thoughtfully, in a manner that does not break the military justice system.
The worst thing we can do to victims of sexual assault is to move a bill through that can't be implemented effectively or on time, creates too large a workload for too few qualified military judge advocates, imperils prosecutions, leads to convictions being overturned on appeal, or results in neglected cases because the necessary attention cannot be devoted to them.
According to the Department of Defense, the number of full-time colonels, lawyer disposition authorities required to execute the system as proposed, which would take effect 180 days from enactment, exceeds the number of judge advocates in that senior grade. And this doesn't account for her bill's requirement that these O-6 judge advocates have significant trial and criminal law experience or that they would not then be available for other important assignments reserved for O-6s, such as military judges and division, corps, or combatant command judge advocates.
The heads of the service Judge Advocate General's Corps have previously raised concerns about the implementation timeline, the resources necessary to execute, and a host of other inconsistencies with the current system that would have to be addressed to be sure of successful implementation. These are the very military lawyers that Senator Gillibrand's bill would empower to make prosecutorial decisions, which includes an evaluation of a far greater number of cases than simply those that end up in court-martial. These are the issues that we need discuss in the committee and not dispose of in an amendment on the floor. The committee will do this and do it faithfully. And I am very confident that we will be able to move legislation that does remove any crimes related to sexual misconduct from the current command to a system that Senator Gillibrand is proposing.
With that, I would reiterate my objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. As you heard from the chairman of the committee, he only intends on taking one crime out of the chain of command, and that is sexual assault. And the reason why that is so problematic is, No. 1, it will continue to undermine women in the military, marginalize them and isolate them, creating a ``pink court'' that all legal experts have agreed would be highly ineffective and would harm the military justice system.
Second, our allies have already made this move. They have taken all serious crimes out of the chain of command and given it to trained military prosecutors in the UK, Israel, Germany, Netherlands, and Australia. In those instances, they did it specifically for defendants' rights. And we have a similar problem in this country because right now we have a great deal of racial bias in who gets punished.
If you are Black or Brown in the U.S. military today, you are 2.5 times more likely to be punished. And most commanders are White commanders. There is further data that shows most Black and Brown servicemembers have either experienced or witnessed racism within the ranks.
If we want to fix this criminal justice system, you need a bright line, and it should be at all serious crimes. That is how we fix the military justice system. That is how we give justice to sexual assault survivors.
And for the chairman to say today that it would cost too much money or that they don't have sufficient resources or sufficient lawyers, it isn't true. And those are the same arguments that were used over the last 8 years about excluding sexual assault from the chain of command as well.
So I don't think these are legitimate arguments. I think they are brought up year after year as just a way to put an impediment in front of the reform that is needed to fix the system.
I now yield the floor to my colleague Senator Grassley.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Senator Gillibrand, as 1 of the 65 other cosponsors of this legislation, I think you are to be commended for every day coming to the floor, to be as consistent in being for this legislation as you have been since 2013. And every one of us thank you for your persistence. You need to be congratulated. And all the people who have been harmed by sexual assaults over the last decades owe you a great deal of gratitude for that.
So I am here to join Senator Gillibrand in asking for a vote on this crucial legislation. And, obviously, today we aren't going to get it, but eventually it is going to happen. You can't say no to 66 Senators that want this legislation. The Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act has that many bipartisan cosponsors, and it is past time for this bill to become law.
This legislation was first introduced by Senator Gillibrand and me and other Senators 8 years ago and has gained more and more support each year. Senators who previously were skeptical have come around and realized that the Department of Defense can't handle the pervasive problems of sexual assault on their own.
The Armed Services Committee and the Department of Defense have had more than enough time to consider this idea. They have told us that they have it under control and tried other approaches. Those approaches have not worked. Women and men in the military continue to face high rates of sexual assault and retaliation. It is clear this bill is needed.
By moving the decision to prosecute out of the chain of command, perpetrators of sexual assault and other serious crimes will be held accountable. Survivors will have more confidence in the process. Retaliation will be less likely. We have been waiting almost a decade. There is no need any longer to wait. I urge my colleagues to allow this bill to move forward today. And, obviously, it isn't going to move forward today, but Senator Gillibrand will be back here tomorrow, asking the same thing. And I applaud you for doing that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah
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