{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/press/release/murkowski-alaskan-examples-bear-witness-to-need-for-military-culture-change-pushes-need-for-transparency", "Murkowski: Alaskan Examples Bear Witness to Need for Military Culture Change, Pushes Need for Transparency", "2013-11-20", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "AK", "Lisa Murkowski", "M001153", "www.murkowski.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "11.20.13\n\t\t\t Murkowski: Alaskan Examples Bear Witness to Need for Military Culture Change, Pushes Need for Transparency \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tSenator's Floor Speech: This is Not What Zero Tolerance Looks Like\r\nWASHINGTON, DC  With the United States Senate debating S.1197, the National Defense Authorization Bill, Senator Lisa Murkowski today spoke on the Senate floor to continue her advocacy for S.967, the Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA) to deliver the culture change on sexual misconduct within the Armed Forces that the Secretary of Defense himself has acknowledged is necessary.\r\nCo-sponsored by Senator Murkowski in May, the bill would eliminate many obstacles faced by victims of military sexual assault who often decide not to report the crimes due to the bias and inherent conflicts of interest within the military chain of command. Repeatedly, Murkowski called for more transparency in the meting out of justice  saying that the MJIA would provide a breath of fresh air' in the culture.\r\nThe United States Senate is presently weighing a number of approaches to dealing with this problem, but Murkowski is backing the effort that has attracted broad political support from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)  the bill's sponsor  to Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX).\r\nIn a floor speech meant to encourage more Senate colleagues to consider the approach taken by this bill, Senator Murkowski laid out this legislation's advantages:\r\nThe currentsystem of military judgmentrelies upon the individualdecisions of commanders for adecision on whether or not anoffense is to be punished andwhich charges are to be brought.In our complex military, thereare many, many commanders and while our code ofmilitary justice, may beuniform  we'reseeing strong evidence that itsimplementation is anything butuniform.\r\nSenator Gillibrand's approachensures that charges will beinvestigated and that thecharging decision will be madeby disinterested militaryprosecutors whoseonly interest is that theperpetrators account for theiractions, that victims'interests are protected and thatintegrity in the chargingdecisions is really paramount.\r\nI think that this is veryimportant.I think this is actually abreath of fresh air because therecent experiences that I havehad as a Senator from Alaskawith the transparency ofdecisions made within the chainof command I believe leave muchto be desired.\r\nMurkowski lays out advantages of Military Justice Improvement Act  Click image to watch excerpt.\r\nSenator Murkowski then used the example of the recent fraternization and adultery investigation at Fort Greely as key reason that more transparency be introduced into how the military justice system operates. Murkowski called for a closer look at this incident where an Alaskan Guardsman was detained by his Chain of Command in order to deny his visitation rights of his child in the midst of a child custody dispute involving another Guardsman. Murkowski referred the matter to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), but it was subsumed into the chain of command. Murkowski questioned this approach, asking:\r\nAre wesupposed to call this militaryjustice?Maybe it's frontier justice.Maybe it's military justice inthe last frontier.I don't like it, and I don'tthink that we should ever acceptit.I asked the U.S. Army CID tolook into this incident becauseit was my impression that anunlawful denial of one'sfreedom is a criminaloffense.I understand the complaintfrom my office was forwarded up,but not to Army CID. It was pursued by the Space and Missile Defense Command.\r\nI am most appreciative thatan investigation was pursued.But you might legitimately askthe question, so how did it end?What's the outcome of thisstory?I don't know.I don't know.Alaskans don't know.We don't know.Neither I nor the individual whosought the investigation hasbeen informed of the outcome;just we were told that the chainof command had looked into it.\r\nWhere is the transparency here?\r\nMurkowski: Where is the transparency here?  Click image to view excerpt.\r\nSharing a personal anecdote, Senator Murkowski later went off her prepared remarks and shared the story of an anonymous woman who approached her at the recent Sochi Sendoff' event in Downtown Anchorage last weekend. The woman came to her in tears and asked Murkowski to not give up the fight to improve the protections given our men and women in uniform.\r\nI was home in Alaskatwo weeks ago, it was a prettycold Saturday afternoon, and Iwas at a big community eventoutside, where I was approached bya woman who had seen me fromacross the street.She was at a conference.She came across the street intothe town square.She wasn't wearing a coat.I was prepared for the cold.But she wanted to make sure thatI knew that she, too, had been avictim, that she had not had thestrength to report.She just left, and her ask to mewas, don't give up on thisbecause I had to step down frommy military career, and theperpetrator stayed on.And as he stayed on, hecontinued to be promoted. Here plea to me was, pleasedon't let that continue.\r\nMurkowski: An Alaskan woman recently told me Please don't give up on this.  Click to watch.\r\nMurkowski closed her floor remarks with a call to action, advocating for profound change in the wake of not merely the recent Alaskan examples she laid out, but decades of inaction for national accusations and controversies over the years.\r\nI've listened to my colleagueson thefloorhere talk about Tailhook [scandal], we talked about somany of the other high-profileinstances where we have heard our military leaders say, neveragain, never again  zero tolerance.They're using all the rightwords.But it really does cause you to question, are we toattribute this cycle that we'reseeing to attention deficit onpart of us here in Congress? Attention deficit on the partof our military leaders?\r\nThis is not what zero tolerancelooks like.\r\nWhatever the case, I think it'sgoing to take some very strongmedicine to break through thispowerful attention deficit thatwe have seen historically.Incremental steps, in my view,don't cut it anymore.The young woman, again, whosemilitary career is no longer. The woman I met out in the coldwho gave up her dream and had tostand by and watch herperpetrator ascend his careerladder, incremental measuresdon't cut it.I think it is time for profoundchange.\r\nMurkowski: This is not what zero tolerance looks like  Click image for excerpt. \r\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/press/release/murkowski-alaskan-examples-bear-witness-to-need-for-military-culture-change-pushes-need-for-transparency"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6788789071142673, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}