{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.murkowski.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=275fc6f7-9750-42c1-b6a9-4f9fdd0fd8f9", "Murkowski: Alaskan Examples Bear Witness to Need for Military \u201cCulture Change,\u201d 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 \u201cCulture Change,\u201d Pushes Need for Transparency \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tSenator\u2019s Floor Speech: \u201cThis is Not What Zero Tolerance Looks Like\u201d\r\nWASHINGTON, DC \u2014 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 \u201cculture change\u201d 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.\u00a0 Repeatedly, Murkowski called for more transparency in the meting out of justice \u2013 saying that the MJIA would provide a \u2018breath of fresh air\u2019 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) \u2013 the bill\u2019s sponsor \u2013 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\u2019s advantages:\r\nThe current\u00a0system of military judgment\u00a0relies upon the individual\u00a0decisions of commanders for a\u00a0decision on whether or not an\u00a0offense is to be punished and\u00a0which charges are to be brought.\u00a0In our complex military, there\u00a0are many, many commanders and while our code of\u00a0military justice, may be\u00a0uniform \u2014 we're\u00a0seeing strong evidence that its\u00a0implementation is anything but\u00a0uniform.\u00a0\r\nSenator Gillibrand's approach\u00a0ensures that charges will be\u00a0investigated and that the\u00a0charging decision will be made\u00a0by disinterested military\u00a0prosecutors whose\u00a0only interest is that the\u00a0perpetrators account for their\u00a0actions, that victims'\u00a0interests are protected and that\u00a0integrity in the charging\u00a0decisions is really paramount.\r\nI think that this is very\u00a0important.\u00a0I think this is actually a\u00a0breath of fresh air because the\u00a0recent experiences that I have\u00a0had as a Senator from Alaska\u00a0with the transparency of\u00a0decisions made within the chain\u00a0of command I believe leave much\u00a0to be desired.\r\nMurkowski lays out advantages of Military Justice Improvement Act \u2013 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Murkowski questioned this approach, asking:\r\nAre we\u00a0supposed to call this military\u00a0justice?\u00a0Maybe it's frontier justice.\u00a0Maybe it's military justice in\u00a0the last frontier.\u00a0I don't like it, and I don't\u00a0think that we should ever accept\u00a0it.\u00a0I asked the U.S. Army CID to\u00a0look into this incident because\u00a0it was my impression that an\u00a0unlawful denial of one's\u00a0freedom is a criminal\u00a0offense.\u00a0I understand the complaint\u00a0from my office was forwarded up,\u00a0but not to Army CID.\u00a0 It was pursued by the Space and Missile Defense Command.\r\nI am most appreciative that\u00a0an investigation was pursued.\u00a0But you might legitimately ask\u00a0the question, so how did it end?\u00a0What's the outcome of this\u00a0story?\u00a0I don't know.\u00a0I don't know.\u00a0Alaskans don't know.\u00a0We don't know.\u00a0Neither I nor the individual who\u00a0sought the investigation has\u00a0been informed of the outcome;\u00a0just we were told that the chain\u00a0of command had looked into it.\u00a0\r\nWhere is the transparency here?\u00a0\r\nMurkowski: Where is the transparency here? \u2013 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 \u2018Sochi Sendoff\u2019 event in Downtown Anchorage last weekend.\u00a0 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 Alaska\u00a0two weeks ago, it was a pretty\u00a0cold Saturday afternoon, and I\u00a0was at a big community event\u00a0outside, where I was approached by\u00a0a woman who had seen me from\u00a0across the street.\u00a0She was at a conference.\u00a0She came across the street into\u00a0the town square.\u00a0She wasn't wearing a coat.\u00a0I was prepared for the cold.\u00a0But she wanted to make sure that\u00a0I knew that she, too, had been a\u00a0victim, that she had not had the\u00a0strength to report.\u00a0She just left, and her ask to me\u00a0was, don't give up on this\u00a0because I had to step down from\u00a0my military career, and the\u00a0perpetrator stayed on.\u00a0And as he stayed on, he\u00a0continued to be promoted.\u00a0 Here plea to me was, please\u00a0don't let that continue.\r\nMurkowski: An Alaskan woman recently told me \u201cPlease don\u2019t give up on this.\u201d \u2013 Click to watch.\r\nMurkowski closed her floor remarks with a call to action, advocating for \u201cprofound change\u201d 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 colleagues\u00a0on the\u00a0floor\u00a0here talk about Tailhook [scandal], we talked about so\u00a0many of the other high-profile\u00a0instances where we have heard our military leaders say, never\u00a0again, never again \u2013 zero tolerance.\u00a0They're using all the right\u00a0words.\u00a0But it really does cause you to question, are we to\u00a0attribute this cycle that we're\u00a0seeing to attention deficit on\u00a0part of us here in Congress?\u00a0 Attention deficit on the part\u00a0of our military leaders?\u00a0\r\nThis is not what zero tolerance\u00a0looks like.\u00a0\r\nWhatever the case, I think it's\u00a0going to take some very strong\u00a0medicine to break through this\u00a0powerful attention deficit that\u00a0we have seen historically.\u00a0Incremental steps, in my view,\u00a0don't cut it anymore.\u00a0The young woman, again, whose\u00a0military career is no longer.\u00a0 The woman I met out in the cold\u00a0who gave up her dream and had to\u00a0stand by and watch her\u00a0perpetrator ascend his career\u00a0ladder, incremental measures\u00a0don't cut it.\u00a0I think it is time for profound\u00a0change.\u00a0\r\nMurkowski: This is not what zero tolerance looks like \u2013 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": ["http://www.murkowski.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=275fc6f7-9750-42c1-b6a9-4f9fdd0fd8f9"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8513533286750317, "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"}