Here is a perfect example of Democrats in the Senate not finding agreement on a pretty simple issue.
Some of you may already know that Senator Kristen E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, has placed much of her energy behind a bill that would take sexual assault cases into the civilian arena and remove military commanders from the process. She has the full backing of victims and victim's rights organizations who have presented evidence that military commanders do not have training in sexual assault prosecution and are ill-equiped to make decisions about which cases should go to trial. There are also those cases where commanders had personal relationships with either the victim or with the accused (or was the accused) and their ability to make a rational decision was comprised.
Although Senator Gillibrand's bill failed to pass the Armed Services Committee, the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, is open to making it an amendment in the next military spending bill. Senator Gillibrand has worked hard to find bipartisan support from both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.