In 2005, 19 year old Jamie Leigh Jones was allegedly gang raped by some of her Halliburton/KBR co-workers. Her attackers locked her in a shipping container for more than 24 hours to prevent her from reporting the rape. Jamie has been denied the right sue.
According to the Huffington Post:
The rape occurred outside of U.S. criminal jurisdiction, but to add serious insult to serious injury she was not allowed to sue KBR because her employment contract said that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration–a process that overwhelmingly favors corporations.
Junior senator from Minnesota, Al Franken, recently proposed an amendment that would deny defense contracts to companies who made employees sign away their right to sue. Seems simple enough, but not to 30 Republican Senators. The amendment passed but there were 30 NAY votes.
The most egregious remarks came from Senator Jeff Sessions who said:
… he opposed the amendment because it “would impose the will of Congress on private individuals and companies in a retroactive fashion, invalidating employment contracts without due process of law.” However, because the amendment applies to the fiscal year 2010 defense bill, it would not apply retroactively.
Sessions added one more reason for opposing it. “I think we should listen to the Department of Defense and vote no on this amendment,” he said.
[ED. Note: Elena and I decided to add the Franken floor speech. It is critical to the discussion]
Jon Stewart goes on the war path over these 30 NAY votes as only Jon Stewart can:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Rape-Nuts | ||||
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The senators have had a lot to say about fake prostitutes and ACORN but apparently real RAPE doesn’t count. There are just some things that should not be political. Rape is one of them.
There are some mighty surprising names on the list of 30 senators who voted NAY. I hope they will be able to explain this to voters next time they are up for re-election. I am shocked at some of them!
See Al Franken’s presentation on the floor of the Senate. It is horrifying that any woman serving overseas should have to endure what this young woman has gone through.
