McCaskill and Gillibrand are unsuccessful in adding their proposals to the defense bill. | AP Photos Sexual assault fight 'long from over'

Sens. Claire McCaskill and Kirsten Gillibrand duked it out for much of this year over how best to stymie military sexual assault.

Their high-profile battle is ending in a draw — for now.


The two prominent Democratic women were both unsuccessful in adding their leading proposals to a pared-down defense policy bill that Senate Armed Services Committee leaders hope to soon get signed into law. But neither senator is defeated — or even bruised — heading into the next round, set to unfold next year.

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“It’s long from over,” said Sen. Dean Heller, a Nevada Republican and recent supporter of Gillibrand’s controversial proposal to remove the chain of command from prosecuting military sexual assaults and other major crimes. “I’m certainly hoping that reasonable people will come together and we’ll get a vote.”

There’s little dispute that both McCaskill and Gillibrand sit in even stronger positions after shaping what’s become a high-profile political fight with political winners all around. For starters, consider how quickly their work has helped to make this a front-burner issue in Congress. A year ago, victim groups were voiceless in the Senate and were begging for a House hearing on an unfolding sexual assault scandal involving Air Force trainers and recruiters.

Or look at the details in the defense bill that emerged Monday with the two senators’ fingerprints all over it. The legislation has more than two dozen reforms to the Pentagon’s World War II-era military justice system, including stripping commanders of their authority to overturn a jury verdict or reduce a sentence and an overhaul of the preliminary hearing process, in which victims often face humiliating and deeply personal questions about their sexual habits.

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But the fight is far from over.

“This places a pause on the amendment wars but not on the pressure on the Pentagon to … make substantial and measurable progress in the war on sexual harassment,” said Arnold Punaro, a former Senate Armed Services Committee staff director and retired Marine Corps major general.

For Gillibrand, a New Yorker with national ambitions, her quest isn’t finished by a long shot. She’ll keep playing the part of liberal crusader by zeroing in on a commander’s power to determine which sexual assault cases proceed to a court-martial.

Gillibrand said she spoke “at length” Monday with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a recent supporter of her legislation, and extracted a promise that she’ll get a floor vote during this session of Congress. Until the roll call, Gillibrand said she’ll keep doing what she’s already been doing to amass 53 public supporters: lobbying undecided senators during floor votes and in private meetings.

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Her focus now is on introducing former military members and sexual assault victims to about eight Senate Republicans who haven’t taken a position, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

”We’re very close to 60,” Gillibrand said in an interview. “There is a pathway to get there. But you have to be able to get each one to vote yes and they’re deciding.”

Gillibrand is also keeping tabs on the House, where a diverse group of more than 180 lawmakers — from libertarian Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) to liberal Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida — have already signed on as co-sponsors of a pair of bills that make some of the same changes to the Pentagon command structure.

On Tuesday, Gillibrand held a strategy session over lunch in the Senate dining room with Michigan GOP Rep. Dan Benishek, a lead co-sponsor of her companion legislation who carries his own list of undecided lawmakers whenever he visits the House floor. “I think we have a good shot at getting this done,” Benishek told POLITICO after the meeting, adding that he would push for about 30 more supporters before making his case to House Speaker John Boehner and the rest of GOP leadership.

Gillibrand also has a powerful platform to keep the issue in the spotlight as chairwoman of the Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee. She said that she would “without a doubt” insert the same chain of command language into the next defense authorization bill if she hasn’t won yet, thereby forcing Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to strip it out again, as he did in the spring.

More hearings on sexual assault are also on Gillibrand’s schedule for next year, including a look into the high suicide rates among sexual assault victims, as well as the prevalence of male victims. That’s something Gillibrand said has been a surprise to many senators who don’t deal on a daily basis with the armed forces.

“My colleagues need to understand that these predators are recidivist and these are crimes that are incredibly violent and brutal as a way to exert power,” she said. “I want to establish that record because there’s still a misunderstanding that this is a woman’s issue solely and also that it’s about dating. It has nothing to do with dating or hormones or the hook-up culture.”

McCaskill, a Missouri moderate, said Tuesday that she is “disappointed” she couldn’t get a floor vote on her amendment to the defense bill that she’d peddled as an alternative to Gillibrand. She said she had the votes to pass her proposal that would have set new rules for how military sexual assault victims and defendants should be treated. But McCaskill also praised what she called “historic reforms” that did make it into this year’s defense bill, saying they will drive “a real sea change in terms of the way victims of this crime have been treated and the ability to put these perpetrators in prison where they belong.”

“This will be the most victim-friendly organization in the world,” she said.

Both Gillibrand and McCaskill downplayed their personal clash over sexual assault, even as their aides and supporters off the Hill have been quick to highlight the differences. Several victim groups on Tuesday complained that Senate procedure had railroaded Gillibrand’s attempts to get a floor vote as an amendment to the defense bill.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous they didn’t include this” in the defense bill, said Tom Tarantino, chief policy officer at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “Without this, they’re missing an opportunity to make a huge dent in military sexual assault.”

Anu Bhagwati, executive director of Service Women’s Action Network, said Congress “has chosen to sidestep the most important military justice reform to come across its desk in history.”

But military sexual assault doesn’t look to be dropping off the media’s radar. Three separate profiles on Gillibrand published last weekend, including a front-page article in The New York Times and a seven-page spread in The New Yorker. Media coverage will also certainly pick up next month during sexual assault-related court proceedings for two former Naval Academy football players accused of rape and Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, just the third Army general in a half-century to face a court-martial.

The Pentagon’s own performance in the coming weeks and months also matters. If the new defense policy bill and all of its sexual assault provisions do become law, Punaro said “the burden [sits] squarely on the shoulders of the commanders and their non-commissioned officers, which is what the Pentagon recommended.” As military leaders implement its provisions, he expects a reduced number of sexual assault incidents and better reporting.

“If they don’t, then Sen. Gillibrand’s approach will garner even more support,” he said. “This is not a fire-and-forget issue. It will remain on the front burner in the Pentagon and Congress.”