Vitter Confronted By Rape Victim Over Franken Amendment Vote

Last month, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) opposed a congressional measure to prohibit the government from working with contractors who deny victims of rape or assault the right to bring their cases to court.

And now, the issue isn't going way. Vitter, who was one of only 30 Republicans who actually voted against the amendment, was pilloried in local newspapers, and has also seen the issue become an early focal point of his re-election contest.

At a town hall meeting this past weekend, meanwhile, the Senator was confronted by a constituent who, after recounting her tale of being raped, demanded to know why he opposed Sen. Al Franken's (D-Minn) amendment.

The exchange was contentious, heart wrenching, and potentially damaging.

WOMAN: It meant everything to me that I was able to put the person who attacked me [behind bars]. And what allowed me to do that was our judicial process. I showed up in court every day to make sure that happen

VITTER: And I'm absolutely supportive of any case like that being prosecuted criminally to the full extent of the law.

WOMAN: But there are rape victims who are being kept silent.

WOMAN: But how can you support [a law] that tells a rape victim that she does not have the right to defend herself?

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VITTER: Ma'am The language in question did not say that in any way shape or form.

WOMAN: But it is unconstitutional to have a law that says a woman does not have a right to defend herself.

VITTER: You realize Mr. Obama was against that amendment that his administration was against that amendment

WOMAN: But I'm not asking Obama. I'm asking you.

VITTER: Do you think he's in favor in rape?

WOMAN: I'm asking you Senator. What if it was your daughter who was raped? Would you tell her to be quiet and take it? Would you tell your daughter to be silent?

Vitter's excuse here doesn't exactly hold water. While the Obama Defense Department raised concerns about the reach of the Franken amendment, the White House itself said it supported "the intent" and was working to make sure it was "enforceable."

The Senator has yet to pacify constituents with a satisfying explanation. On Monday morning, the Opelousas, La., Daily World published a rather-scathing editorial taking Vitter to task for his vote.

Let's assume Vitter and his [29] colleagues sincerely believe federal intrusion into employment contracts is a dangerous wrong.

Let's assume the Defense Department and the White House sincerely believe that they had no legal way to intervene.

We're still left with the uneasy feeling that a military adventure on which we embarked to protect Americans has resulted in the victimization of at least one.

Comments

[roch20]

This guy (Vitter) makes me puke!

[LeeCalif]

I'm looking forward to this p.i.g.s. defeat.

I'm contributing to the opponent of this man who visits pros ti tutes.

[Wide Stance]

Diap er boy is going down, I just feel it.

[iplaw]

You really overestimate the intelligence of southerners.

[Eris23Skidoo]

Especially Louisiana southerners. It was only 17 years ago that they nearly elected David Duke, a former KKK Grand Dragon, as governor. By nearly, I mean avoided by just a few precious percentage points.

[starsnsea]

This woman's determination and deep courage in confronting Vitter contrasts so vividly with Vitter's obvious cowardice. He turned and ran from her, for pete's sake.

Vitter looks like he cannot bear to actually talk to a woman about that astonishing vote in support of rape.

He has shown clearly that he prefers those women he can rent for his pleasure. He was a well-known, regular customer at houses of prostitution in his home district, and he dodged those questions, too.

Even among the many Republican hypocrites, this guy Vitter really really stinks.

[jhwkr]

What do you expect from a man who has to "hire" women to listen to him. He feels that women are the inferior gender.

[MiniMogul]

Vitter is an all around disgrace and hopefully Louisiana will do the right thing and vote the bum out. Charlie Melancon has a good shot. Google him and make a little campaign donation. Thanks.

[Barandy]

While Vitters is a jerk and I do not understand how he kept his job, he is correct that there was no language in the bill that kept rape victims from seeking justice.

The amendment in question relates to civil penalities, not criminal justice as the woman believed. The amendment is not an Anti-Rape bill but an Anti-Arbitration for all Title VII claims.

"Sec. 8104. (a) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any existing or new Federal contract if the contractor or a subcontractor at any tier requires...resolve through arbitration any claim under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or any tort related to or arising out of sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention."

If they wanted to call it an Anti-Rape bill then they should have applied it to rape only, not all Title Vii claims.

More importantly, while the bill made it easy to target companies for civil damages, it failed to hold them responsible for hampering the criminal process.

Most of these cases are not prosecuted criminally because the companies lose or mishandle evidence preventing the filing of criminal charges. So while victims may be able to sue civilly, the employers they are allowed to sue are still in complete control of the evidence against them.

[Bogstomper]

"The amendment in question relates to civil penalities, not criminal justice as the woman believed."

Seeking civil penalties is the ONLY recourse women like Jamie Leigh Jones have in a case like this. It's the only form of justice left, because her rapists haven't even been charged. The Franken amendment is a good change. Voting against it was a vote to protect *actual* workplace rape in order to protect companies like KBR from *potential* lawsuits.

And yes, it is an anti-rape bill, because companies like KBR will no longer be able to use arbitration to hide the fact that they let their male employees act like animals.

[quinmore]

Jones' argument to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that the alleged gang rape was not related to her employment and thus, wasn’t covered by the arbitration agreement. The Court agreed, in a 2 to 1 ruling. “We do not hold that, as a matter of law, sexual-assault allegations can never ‘relate to’ someone’s employment,” wrote the court. “For this action, however, Jones’ allegations do not ‘touch matters’ related to her employment, let alone have a ’significant relationship’ to her employment contract."

My understanding is that one of the judges who ruled in her favor, Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale, is a West Point grad, Vietnam vet, and one of the court’s most conservative members, a sign, perhaps, of just how bad the facts are in this case. It’s a big victory, but a bitter one that shows just how insidious mandatory arbitration is. It’s taken Jones three years of litigation just to get to the point where she can finally sue the people who allegedly wronged her. It will be many more years before she has a shot at any real justice'.

This was the issue I (and perhaps the Louisiana Democratic Party strategists) had hoped Vitter would feel obliged to address. Ms. Waldrop was, I believe, ill-prepared. She neglected to even ask him what she had stated was her goal - to ask Congressman Vitter why he had voted against the Franken amendment.

[perpetualpessimist]

The Times-Picayune finally does a story on this on Wed 11/4, 4 days after it happens. Under a mis-leading headline "Vitter responds to rape victim's charges". Same old, same old "Obama opposes it too". The reporter evidently didn't deem it necessary to contact the woman for comment. I guess the people's right to know isn't absolute. The whole story was slanted to favor Vitter.

[Eris23Skidoo]

Did you expect anything else from a media owned by conservatives?

[samfan]

What does President Obama have to do with Vitters vote. I guess he doesn't understand the government that he works in. Congress writes legislation, Executive carries out legislation. Some one get him a copy of the constitution.

[pottedferne]

it's like greengranny said earlier, in Louisiana President Obama's name is used as a negative force...there is hope for Charlie M....his opponent...

[pottedferne]

this story if Finally on the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate site.....lots of info about the girl who really had been raped....they couldn't ignore it any longer, cuz it has over 100,000 hits on youtube....

[suigeneris]

If the GOP were really worried about how the law could be used against business in cases other than rape or violent crimes, etc., then they could've offered an alternative proposal that specified those cases and named it the same thing. But of course, that's not their real goal. Their real goal is protecting business from prosecution in ALL cases.

[Eris23Skidoo]

Not to mention aiding and abetting rapists. That is, in fact, their policy. Encourage rape, discourage abortion. Praise god and pass the campaign cash.

[SouthpawSass]

David Vitter Fights Against Fake Prostitution Rings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTAbjpeO68A

[luziannagirl]

By the way, I've long predicted that given free rein, the Far Right Evangelo-Christian "Moral Majority" would take away women's hard-won freedoms.

The freedom to pursue one's sexual assailant in court should be one of any American citizen's most basic.When we start to lose such basic freedoms, one can easily see how citizens begin to lose faith in our judicial system, and begin to take the law into their own hands. Many women now simply refuse to sit back and be demure victims, and most women have male relatives whose need for retribution has been largely (with notable exceptions in some segments of America) channeled into "letting the system take care of it".

The need for justice is a hard-wired, powerful drive common not only to humans, but to other social species, particularly some of the higher apes and even canines. There is science now showing that.

So, we can either choose working within the system, or going outside the system, but people will have their justice one way or the other. Those who would remove it simply for private and personal gain ought to remember that.

The veneer of modern American-style Western democratic civilization is shockingly thin, folks. Anyone who's lived through the breakdown of civil order after Katrina knows that all too well.

[pottedferne]

it will only get worse with Clarence Thomas as a supreme court justice.....

[gardengranny]

Why would David Vitter, who patronized (es?) prostitutes and makes his appointments from his phone while on the floor of the Senate ever get it?

Why would anyone think he cares? He has no respect for women - not his wife, not his daughters, not the women who are employed in the s*x trade.

And don't anyone here tell me that it is a choice to be a prostitute or that this is a victimless crime.

If you truly think that, you need to do some research.

[Eris23Skidoo]

Even so, I would stand by a woman's right to sell her body before standing with those who would seek to control it for their own ends. I'm not going to lump all prostitutes into one category and say, with equivocation, as if I know each and every one of them personally, and state that NONE of them chose their profession. You can respond by saying that I too have no respect for women, but I will say that I have enough respect to judge each adult as an individual who makes their own choices and some will choose to do things that I wouldn't choose. But what they choose to do with their own bodies is none of my damn business because it is their body not mine. Maybe some, maybe even the majority, of prostitutes have no other choices in the whole world than to become prostitutes. This is even more likely with the increased incidence of human trafficking.

[Eris23Skidoo]

(part 2) But that still does not give me the right to claim that no prostitute, ever in the world or in the history of the world, ever chose that job on purpose over other possible jobs that were actually available. For one, there was a Roman emperor's wife who snuck out the palace where she moonlighted in a whore-house. The owner of the establishment wrote that she had been the star employee working extra shifts. She had to be sent home to get her to quit for the day. She enjoyed her job. Maybe she is the only one ever. Most people don't even like their job. She clearly didn't even need a job but she showed up every day. I guess I just hate women. For the record, I think Vitter stinks, and I wrote a very long, nasty letter to Sen. Crapo who also voted against Franken's bill; accusing him of aiding and abetting rapists and offering comfort and encouragement as well as a precedent for future rapists who now only need to get a job with KBR where they can rape all they want without fear of punishment from their friend Mike Crapo.

[tednarcotic]

Before Republicans were wrested from power they were destroying America and prying opportunity from the grasping hands of the people that are the majority. Now that they are the minority party they are staying the course and admitting no mistakes. At least they are consistent.

[SteinL]

It's called "Rape and Pillage" - the whole "fun" goes out of it if you can't do both. The entire point of the Great Iraq Adventure in Rape and Pillage, was to be able to rape and pillage.

Of course 30 senators voted No to enforcing a no-rape policy.