Franken anti-rape amendment

In 2005 Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped in Iraq by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers. Afterward she was locked in a shipping container for over a day to prevent her from reporting the attack.

The assault occurred outside U.S. criminal jurisdiction, so the rapists could not be prosecuted. She tried to sue her attackers in civil court, but was stymied there, too, because her contract with Halliburton explicitly prohibited her from suing for sexual assault. Instead, the contract said, she'd have to submit to binding closed-door arbitration.

We're not talking about harassment via off-color jokes at the water cooler, but felony rape, which ought to be addressed in criminal court, not in arbitration. Consequently Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment this year (SA2588) that would restrict funding to military contractors who commit employees to arbitration in the case of sexual assault.

The amendment passed by a vote of 68-30. Every female Republican Senator voted for the amendment, and the dissenting Senators were entirely male Republicans. What should we make of this picture?

Jeff Kane

Nevada City