Pentagon Backers Will Outnumber Reform Advocates at Hearing on Sex-Abuse Crisis

The Pentagon’s staunchest defenders in the Senate are prepared to deal a potentially brutal blow this week to legislation aimed at protecting victims of sexual assault in the military, despite an expanding crisis in the armed services.

Reform advocates, who were already facing an uphill battle to overhaul the military justice system and arrest the scourge of sexual assaults, are bracing to be significantly outgunned by the opposition at Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. One side will have 18 witnesses. The other will have two.

That session, billed as a hearing to review potential legislative reforms, will offer a first peak into the panel’s expected direction. Both Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and the panel’s former ranking member, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have said they hope to include a package of measures to address sexual assault in the National Defense Authorization Act, although neither has said what kind of reforms he might support.

But the hearing, designed to pave the way for such action, is stacked 18-2 against victim advocates who support significant reforms, with the bulk of witnesses representing the military—which is adverse to reform that strips it of authority over abuse cases.

Indeed, no actual victims of sexual assault are testifying, despite repeated headlines about the problem plaguing the armed services. In two recent high-profile cases, leaders tasked with responding to and preventing sexual assault were themselves accused of perpetrating such crimes. Meanwhile, the prevalence of sexual assaults in the military has steadily expanded over the past 20 years from an average of one a day to 70.

Reform advocates and their supporters in Congress, who fought to hear more from survivors of the trauma throughout the debate and lost, are expecting senior military leaders to tout prevention-training efforts and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s recent recommendation to remove the power of commanders to overturn convictions. It’s anticipated that military brass will vow to take the problem seriously, while holding the line on significant additional changes in law.

“If you just look at the number of votes that the Department of Defense has—the number of people they are pushing into that room and onto that panel against two advocates, they are going to win. Congress is going to cave,” said Paula Coughlin, the Tailhook sexual-assault scandal whistle-blower, who serves on the advisory board of Protect Our Defenders, one of the two victim-advocacy groups testifying.

Reform advocates in Congress “need to push back harder,” she said. “If they are bartering for some sort of middle ground, then they need to keep pushing harder, because the Department of Defense is coming in force to shove [inaction] down their throats, and they need to be ready.”

What’s more, military leaders might do more than just speak against reform proposals. They could stoke simmering frustrations among victims’ advocates, and perhaps appear out of touch with the crisis at hand, by walking out of the hearing before any reform supporters speak. They did just that earlier this year after testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, which buried victims’ advocates on the last panel.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he understands concerns about the witness roster but stated that it is important to put senior military leaders on the record to explain their opposition and lay out what changes could be made to gain their support for reform.

“The question really is how to meaningfully and significantly change the military justice system to provide greater justice and elicit more reporting of sexual abuse,” he said. “I’ll want specific responses on specific proposals.”

The bill with the best chance of survival is a modest measure offered by Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, that would remove powers of commanders to overturn convictions, a move that military commanders support and Hagel recommends. It also would strengthen penalties for offenders.

But the more sweeping reforms are likely to be pushed aside, including a bill from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., that would take the decision whether to prosecute sexual-assault cases out of the chain of command.

Greg Jacob, a policy expert with the Service Women’s Action Network, the other victim-advocacy group slated to testify, said he takes a longer view. He reasons that debate now can help build momentum for reforms that will likely take several years to pass into law.

“This hearing lays the groundwork for future work. I don’t think this is going to get solved in the 113th, or 114th, or 115th Congress,” he said. “This is an ongoing issue that is going to require cooperation and work between all the parties to put a fix into place here.”