This post is partially reprinted from a story on www.alternet.org, but if you Google this subject you can find it verified all over. As well, there is a video of Sen. Franken on alternet.org.
Thirty Republican members of the United States Senate including Idaho’s two senators, voted to protect Halliburton/KBR, over a woman who was gang raped while she worked for them. There were 10 GOP senators who had brought their brains and hearts to the session that day. The details from Think Progress:
In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.
Offering Ms. Jones legal relief was Senator Al Franken of Minnesota who offered an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.”
Seems simple enough. And yet, to Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions of Alabama allowing victims of sexual assault a day in court is tantamount to a “political attack” at Halliburton. Excuse me? Pretty amazing he chose the word “attack” in describing how a lone American citizen was seeking justice.
That 29 others, all men, chose to join him in opposing the Franken amendment is simply mind-boggling.
Here are those who vote to protect a corporation over a victim of rape:
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA) (who lied about Max Cleland to win the election in 2002)
Coburn (R-OK) (Member of The Family)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC) (Member of The Family)
Ensign (R-NV) (Disgraced adulterer and member of hyper- conservative DC baseed super group “The Family”)
Enzi (R-WY) (member of The Family)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK) (Member of The Family)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ) (Ex-presidential candidate shows true social colors-business over people.)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD) (Member of The Family)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)
This looks nothing like the supposed family values all these senators espouse.
In the debate, Sen. Sessions maintained that Franken’s amendment overreached into the private sector and suggested that it violated the due process clause of the Constitution.
To which, Franken fired back quoting the Constitution. “Article 1 Section 8 of our Constitution gives Congress the right to spend money for the welfare of our citizens. Because of this, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote, ‘Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds and has repeatedly employed that power to further broad policy objectives,’” Franken said. “That is why Congress could pass laws cutting off highway funds to states that didn’t raise their drinking age to 21. That’s why this whole bill [the Defense Appropriations bill] is full of limitations on contractors — what bonuses they can give and what kind of health care they can offer. The spending power is a broad power and my amendment is well within it.”
Franken’s amendment passed by 68-30 vote.
