Gillibrand is turning to forces outside Capitol Hill to help her proposal. Gillibrand gains on command changes

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has secured more major support in her bid to change the way the military prosecutes sexual assault cases, despite last-minute intervention by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

The New York Democrat won over the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services on Friday just a few hours after Hagel met with the panel and urged it to delay a vote while more studies are done on her controversial legislation.


Also last week, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which just concluded a yearlong investigation on sexual assault in the military, split along party lines on whether the Pentagon’s criminal justice system needs a shakeup along the lines of Gillibrand’s proposal.

( Also on POLITICO: Chuck Hagel's sexual assault panel may be too late)

Martin Castro, the commission’s chairman, and his three Democratic colleagues called for such an overhaul, concluding in a statement attached to their panel’s larger report: “Congress should pass, and the president should sign, legislation creating an authority outside of the military in which is vested the power to investigate, prosecute, try and impose sentence upon conviction in all sexual assault cases which arise within the military’s ranks.”

Nonetheless, Gillibrand faces an uphill climb on her plan, which is expected to get a Senate vote later this year as an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill. She counts 45 public supporters besides herself, including Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

But it’s still unclear if Gillibrand’s Senate opponents will force her to find 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. And even if she is successful in the Senate, Republican-led opposition in the House could kill the proposal in conference.

With that backdrop, Gillibrand is turning to forces outside Capitol Hill. She has garnered letters of support from retired military brass and now can count on her team the Democratic members of the commission, which last examined military civil rights issues shortly after its creation in the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

( Also on POLITICO: Ex-generals back Gillibrand's bill)

Overall, the panel divided sharply along party lines, and its final report stopped well short of issuing recommendations on Gillibrand’s legislation. Instead, it called for the Defense Department to do a better job collecting information and analyzing trends on sexual assault within the ranks.

Several Republican and independent commission members also issued statements questioning whether the media and some members of Congress are sensationalizing poor Pentagon data to create a “crisis” atmosphere.

Both Gillibrand and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) made in-person pitches Thursday to the Defense Department’s advisory committee, a 1950s-era group widely known by the acronym DACOWITS. McCaskill urged the panel to reject Gillibrand’s amendment while supporting the underlying Senate Armed Services Committee bill, which makes more than two dozen changes to Pentagon sexual assault policies. On Friday, Hagel pleaded with the panel to conduct more research before voting.

“Many department leaders believe that the panel arrived at a conclusion too quickly, without doing the kinds of in-depth analysis and extensive consultations that this serious issue demands,” a senior Defense official said.

The 17-member panel is made up mostly of high-ranking retired military officials, including two pending Obama administration nominees: Deborah Lee James as Air Force secretary and retired Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps John Estrada, a Lockheed Martin senior manager awaiting confirmation to be U.S. ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago.

James didn’t attend the meetings, and Estrada was one of six members to abstain on the vote. But 10 members did endorse a recommendation challenging the Pentagon justice system, which they said has an “inherent conflict of interest” because commanders often supervise both victim and accused perpetrator.

“To ensure the strong military justice system that is essential to preventing sexual assault and other serious crimes, DOD should support legislation to remove these decisions from the chain of command and make decision-making in the military justice system more independent and impartial,” the committee’s resolution said.

In a statement, Gillibrand thanked the panel “for closely studying this issue and inviting witnesses of different points of view to testify to help them come to a thoughtful conclusion.”

Asked about the vote, Pentagon spokesman Nate Christensen replied, “As a matter of long-standing policy, we do not comment on pending legislation.”