The NPR Politics Podcast - Military Sexual Assault Prosecution Reform Likely To Pass Congress

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

The reform deal is one of many parts of this year's annual defense spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, which also includes raises for service members and a boost to federal firefighter benefits. A deal to fund the rest of the government remains elusive. Congress is expected to pass a stop-gap measure this week in order to provide time for negotiations to continue.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, and political reporter Ximena Bustillo.This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Juma Sei.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Andy in Nagasaki. I'm on a bicycle quest to visit 88 statues that were placed here by the feudal lord 170 years ago. I've just came up 1,000 steps to visit number 70. I left my bicycle at the bottom, but I will continue with the other 18 after this. This show was recorded at 106 p.m. on Tuesday, December 13th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. All right, here's the show. I hope by the time we hear this, you've completed your quest, Andy. Right. What a journey.

Amazing. What a journey. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Ximena Bustillo Davis. I cover politics. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Ximena Bustillo and I cover politics. And Congress is on track to approve the annual defense bill

before the session ends. This legislation sets the priorities for the Defense Department. And this year's bill authorizes $858 billion in spending, a new record. Claudia, this is a rare piece of legislation on Capitol Hill because year over year, it tends to bring together big bipartisan support behind it. Right. The defense bill, it's also known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or the NDAA, has drawn support from Congress for more than 60 years. And we saw that playing out in terms of that support last week in the House, where it passed overwhelmingly last week. And it essentially authorizes a whole swath of new programs for the Pentagon.

And this year's bill is about a $75 billion increase over last year. It directs aid to Ukraine. It better positions the military against China and Russia. It buys new aircrafts, ships, and weapons. And it includes pay raises of 4.6 percent, but we should note none of these increases will be paid for if a separate funding measure doesn't pass in time, and that could jeopardize some critical improvements when it comes to service member personnel issues like housing and child care, and those are areas that Ximena has dug into. Yeah, some of that can include money to improve child care centers, housing facilities, the pavement, the physical infrastructure on bases that impact how military and service

members and their families are able to live and what they can access. And so the part of the bill offers $18 billion, which is about $1.9 more than what the president asked for in order to make some of these material improvements. I mean, the scope of this legislation is so vast. As you point out, it includes everything from help with child care centers on military bases to actually buying weapons systems. I mean, it is the entire breadth of the Defense Department. And Claudia, this year's bill also includes a significant victory for at least one senator and many others who've also worked on it. But New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has been working for close to a decade now to change the way sexual assaults and other crimes, certain other crimes, have been handled in the military. What is the big structural change in this year's bill?

Right. As you said, Gillibrand has been working on this for years. And over this time, she's drawn this growing bipartisan support to push this plan through. But she's faced steadfast opposition year after year. Last year, we saw her on the Senate floor repeatedly, repeatedly fighting this out with the Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed. And the reforms fell short last year. But this year, the legislation does indeed take commanders out of these cases involving sexual assault and other crimes and puts them under the jurisdiction of a so-called special trial counsel, which would involve trained prosecutors, for example. And it pulls these

commanders out who don't have legal experience in a lot of cases. And Gillibrand says this has been at the heart of the military's issues combating sexual assault, where few of these cases go to trial or see a conviction. And that's a system that's had a chilling effect for victims who have been underreporting this crime as a result. And so the hope is this is going to be a big sea change that we'll see have an impact on these kind of cases going forward in the military. I mean, Gillibrand in her statement said that they believe that fewer than a quarter of the reporting has indicated that oftentimes the commanders could have been the perpetrators of the assault, leaving victims really with no alternative if it could only go through their commanders and up the chain. Right, exactly. And Claudia, there is the removal of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate that the president implemented, right? Right, exactly. This is a concession that Democrats gave up on. This is something that was led. The effort to take this mandate away, to repeal it, was led by Republicans, specifically Kevin McCarthy, the top GOP leader in the House. the military is that the vast majority of active service members are vaccinated. And while the administration opposes it, they called it a mistake. And we heard grumblings from Democrats

about this change. At the same time, it really is kind of past that point in terms of that urgent concern of getting these service members vaccinated because of a very active pandemic. We're at a different point in time. Also, however, some Republicans have said this raises a new question about what to do about members who were kicked out of the military who didn't get vaccinated. How do you make them whole? How do you go back retroactively and address this in terms of how they were discharged, etc.? So it does open up a whole series of questions on the next steps here, too. And Claudia makes a really good point that the White House is standing very strong against Congress's decision to make the concession and the compromise here.

They have called it a mistake multiple times. And when asked, they have hedged to say whether this will be a deciding factor on whether or not they even sign the bill into law. I mean, more likely they will, but the fact that they're not endorsing any one decision or another and coming down hard on Democrats that let this slide in. Yeah, although to me, it's also one of those early indicators of what divided government's going to be like next year. I think Republicans, especially in the House, feel more emboldened. I think in some ways, this was an easier than other concession for the White House to make. And I think Claudia is right. I think one of the things that the House Republican majority, and certainly members of it are going to try to focus on next year is those members of the military that were forced out of service because they refused the vaccine and if there is some sort of recourse for them. All right, well, let's take

a quick break. And we'll talk more about what's left to do on Capitol Hill when we get back. And we're back in him and the defense bill is considered must pass legislation, which on Capitol Hill often means it becomes the magnet for a lot of unrelated bills to hitch a ride on so they can get passed through Congress quickly, especially at the end of the term. In this year's defense bill, one of the other pieces of legislation that's been attached to it is legislation to help out firefighters. Can you sort of talk through what that would do? Yes. So you're right. This has become kind of like a quilt of potential laws of sorts. But sometimes they try to stick a little bit to the theme of national

security and defense. And you might not think about it, but federal wildland firefighters do kind of fit into that bucket since they are looking out for public lands and they're the first line of defense to back up any state and private outfits should there be a fire, whether that's a forest fire or even local, you know, instances as well. Now, the thing that is different is federal wildland firefighters, that includes Forest Service workers and Interior Department workers out of the BLM and BIA, they don't get... Hold on, I'm good on acronyms. BLM I know is Bureau of Land Management, but what's BIA? Bureau of Indian Affairs. Yes. Sorry. Alphabet soup for sure. They don't get a lot of the same benefits that state firefighter agencies or even private companies offer. And that ranges from

lower pay to missing health benefits as well. And that is one of the things that contributes to current big retention problems amongst federal wildland firefighters. Now, this bill is on track to provide firefighters with workers' compensation and retirement benefit under the assumption that if they are hurt or if they, you know, after they retire, they get cancer, they're diagnosed with cancer, they're diagnosed with a lung or a heart disease. It is assumed that their job in the line of duty of firefighting is what contributed and is what caused that disease. Now, that is something that at the state level, 48 states have already passed that medical presumptive law is what it's called. But at the federal level,

that doesn't exist. And so when these workers get hurt, oftentimes they report just starting GoFundMes or crowdsourcing to be able to pay for treatment or travel for treatment. So this is a big boost for those forces that are struggling to retain workers and losing them to other outfits just for health care benefits. Oh, wow. And Claudia, we still have another must-pass bill to get through. Congress still has to try to figure out how to fund the government. Stop me if you've heard this one before. A short-term funding bill is going to expire on Friday. Party leaders already say they're going to pass another week-long stopgap into late next week to try to work it through

and get a deal. You know, we hear this a lot. This isn't an unusual situation on the Hill. There's always sticking points. It always comes down to the wire at the end. But in this particular round of negotiations, what are the sticking points? Right. There's quite a few.

We still do not have a top-line number. Republicans don't want Democrats to go crazy, if you will, as some have said, in terms of non-military, non-defense issues. So they oppose domestic spending increases to a certain extent. And also there's some issues over how much to give Ukraine and what more can be added in terms of COVID funds. And so there's quite a few sticking points. We heard maybe as early as yesterday, there was some optimism that perhaps a deal could come together on a permanent funding plan, but we haven't seen any signs of it yet. There's a little bit of a joke on the Hill that nobody caves on a Monday. So maybe we're shooting too early. Maybe we hear something more.

Unless Christmas is on a Tuesday. Unless there's a holiday, there are caveats, exceptions to all that. Now, Christmas is coming up. And now these members with this temporary short-term funding bill are going to shoot to try and get this done right before Christmas. But it's a very tight schedule. It's going to take many days to push this through Congress. So it's going to be a tall order. And we'll see if they make it. You know, one of the reasons why I think this bill has a chance to pass more than other years is

earmarks are back on Capitol Hill. Earmarks are sort of individual projects that lawmakers can request into the spending bill. And there's about $16 billion of earmarks in this legislation that benefits a whole lot of lawmakers. So there's a lot of self-interest in getting it done. And I would note the two top appropriators on Capitol Hill, Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama and Democrat Pat Leahy of Vermont, are both retiring. And this is their last shot at writing and passing a spending bill. So I have to think that at least between the two of them, there's got to be a lot of bipartisanship on getting this done. Yeah, that's one thing I have heard. I heard from a Democratic aide who said, listen, Pelosi's in her last year's also must pass, could also be a magnet for some other legislation that lawmakers want to get done before the holidays.

What are lawmakers looking at to maybe stick on there? Yeah, there's a wide variety of items. Again, one of the things that people are looking out for is to see if this is finally one of those vehicles where some immigration policy might be able to hitch a ride on. And there are a couple of proposals floating around, but even that seems like its own long shot, just because you still need 60 votes in order to pass it, meaning that 10 Republicans and all Democrats, you know, on a good day, right, have to be on board with whatever's in this bill. And that is all of it in its entirety. So immigration, not likely. But Claudia, Electoral Count Act is something that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seems to indicate will be on the spending bill.

Right, exactly. As you were saying, there's only a few trains leaving the station this year, and the Electoral Count Act needs to hitch a ride. And right now, it looks like this permanent funding bill could be its home because we do see enough bipartisan support in both chambers in the House and especially the Senate, where it's especially crucial where they reach that 60 vote mark, to push this through and try and address some of the weaknesses that were exposed with the January 6 attack on the Capitol, including making sure that a vice president who oversees the count of electoral ballots remains in a ceremonial role and is not pressured to try and step out of it and overturn the results of a presidential election. And a good example of

legislation that has to pass this year because a new Republican majority in Congress has no interest in taking that up. All right, let's leave it there for today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. I'm Ximena Bustillo, and I cover politics. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.