[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 101 (Thursday, June 10, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4031-S4033]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Vote on Quraishi Nomination

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is, 
Will the Senate advise and consent to the Quraishi nomination?
  Mrs. MURRAY. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith), 
is necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran).
  The result was announced--yeas 81, nays 16, as follows:

[[Page S4032]]

  


                      [Rollcall Vote No. 230 Ex.]

                                YEAS--81

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boozman
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Kaine
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lee
     Lujan
     Lummis
     Manchin
     Markey
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--16

     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Braun
     Cassidy
     Cruz
     Hawley
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Lankford
     Marshall
     Paul
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Tuberville

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Burr
     Moran
     Smith
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Van Hollen). Under the previous order, the 
motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and 
the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1520

  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise for the seventh time to call 
for this entire body to have the opportunity to consider and cast their 
votes for 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 or other serious crimes get the 
justice they deserve.
  In the 8 years that I spent advocating for this reform, with many 
other Senators, I have heard some criticism from those who would rather 
not see change to our military justice system. I wanted to take this 
time to briefly respond to a few of those criticisms.
  First, I have heard that the bill will add bureaucracy to the 
process. The fact is, this bill actually cuts redtape. Instead of 
needing to find time on a commander's busy schedule for a military 
prosecutor to brief them on the case, the prosecutor's recommendations, 
instead, become the prosecutor's decision.
  Under this law, prosecutors who understand complex military justice 
concepts like unlawful command influence and evidentiary standards make 
the decision, rather than a commander whose time is better spent 
focusing on warfighting than on learning the evidentiary rules. I have 
to wonder if these critics have actually read the bill, since it 
specifically requires the services to use existing resources that we 
have already provided to accomplish this reform.
  Second, detractors worry that this law will result in fewer 
prosecutions. The opposite is true. Under the current system, only 
about one-third of survivors are willing to even come forward to report 
a crime. When 64 percent of victims are retaliated against for coming 
forward and less than 1 percent of victims actually sees a conviction, 
who can blame them?
  When we put complex cases in the hands of impartial, professional 
prosecutors, both victims and the accused will have more faith and more 
confidence in the system. The more confidence survivors have in the 
system, the more they are likely to come forward. And the more 
survivors who come forward, the more offenders we can prosecute.
  Third, those who would rather push off this reform to maintain the 
status quo sometimes say that there is a lack of data to support the 
policy and worry that it would somehow collapse good order and 
discipline. There is no lack of data on justice systems to pull from.
  Our major Western allies have implemented systems like this, and in 
country after country, this type of reform, just like other military 
justice reforms, has improved good order and discipline.
  In Israel, for example, this system brought survivors out of the 
shadows and gave them confidence to report. From 2012 to 2017, the 
Israeli military saw a 91-percent increase in willingness to report 
crimes. During that same period, the U.S. military saw an increase of 
only 33 percent. Despite the success of the #MeToo movement, we are 
still lagging so far behind in fostering a military climate where 
victims feel safe to come forward.
  Year after year, detractors have had the same dogmatic response: 
Commanders will be unable to maintain good order and discipline if we 
make this change. Well, I have talked to commanders who have seen the 
need for change, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same. They can 
start with my cosponsor, Senator Joni Ernst. If commanders feel this 
authority is essential to their ability to lead, then they have a lot 
more to learn about leadership.

  Last, we have the argument that is developing that, if we do make 
this change, to just make it a little bit. Let's just do it for one 
crime. Let's just do it for the crime of sexual assault.
  Well, we have an editorial today that was published in The Hill. The 
headline is, ``Military justice reform, `pink court' and unit 
cohesion.'' These were four military experts who wrote this editorial, 
and I will read a quote from it.

       President Biden, Secretary Austin and members of the House 
     and Senate may be tempted to settle on a compromise under 
     which only sex offenses would be subject to prosecution 
     decision making by lawyers rather than non-lawyer commanders. 
     After all, they may believe, it's those offenses that have 
     given rise to this entire controversy, so let's just fix 
     that.
       That may be the way the process unfolds from here, but it 
     would be a mistake--and a tragic one, given the difficulty of 
     getting Congress to focus on military justice in a sustained 
     way. It would take years for the military justice system to 
     recover if Congress takes the wrong path at the current fork 
     in the legislative road.

  It goes on to talk about two reasons this would be harmed. The first 
lies with the fact that there is bias in the system and that this bias 
cannot be eradicated by just taking out one crime, that it should be 
for all serious crimes.
  I will read from the text again.

       Second, even though men as well as women in uniform are 
     victims of sexual assault, public concern has chiefly focused 
     on the women. It is concern over them and their willingness 
     to come forward without fear of retaliation that has given 
     the reform issue such potency. As a practical matter, if a 
     parallel system is created for the disposition of sex 
     offenses, that system will be understood as having been 
     created chiefly for the benefit of women in uniform. Congress 
     will, in effect, have created ``pink courts''--courts for 
     women.
       Creating ``pink courts'' will destroy unit cohesion. It is 
     difficult to imagine a surer way of turning back the clock on 
     all the progress our country has made in integrating women in 
     uniform, including opening occupational specialties, 
     admission to the service academies, qualification as pilots 
     of warplanes and commanders of naval ships and Coast Guard 
     cutters, and promotion to flag and general officer ranks.
       Congress should transfer the charging power for all felony-
     level offenses by military personnel to uniformed prosecutors 
     independent of the chain of command. Limiting the transfer to 
     sex offenses makes no sense.

  One argument that was not included in here is that, if you do limit 
it to just one crime, you don't address the issue of defendants' 
rights. Now, with so much data we have available about racial biases in 
prosecution and conviction and punishment, it is right that we care 
about both plaintiffs' rights and defendants' rights and reform the 
entire system.
  These unfounded arguments are nothing more than delay tactics. Every 
day we delay this vote, we deny justice to our servicemembers--the 
people who do so much for us and so much for this country. There is no 
reason to wait any longer.
  Mr. President, 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 Committee on Armed Services be 
discharged from the further consideration of S. 1520 and the Senate 
proceed to its consideration; that there be 2 hours for 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?

[[Page S4033]]

  The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I object.
  We look forward to having a very healthy and serious debate on this 
issue in the Armed Services Committee so that we can resolve many 
claims by both sides about the best way to deal with this.
  I think, through Senator Gillibrand's great efforts, we have moved a 
long, long way in terms of addressing the issue of sexual assault 
through the UCMJ, but there are still significant issues that have to 
be thoughtfully discussed. In the context of that discussion, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered