Wicker and Cochran Vote to Protect Contractors, Not Women

Courtesy Feminist Majority

Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal criticized Mississippi senator's opposition to the Franken amendment.

by Adam Lynch
October 8, 2009

Both U.S. senators from Mississippi—Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker—voted against an amendment by Minnesota Sen. Al Franken halting government funding for defense contractors who deny assault victims their day in court. The amendment, successfully introduced to the fiscal year 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill last week, restricts funding to defense contractors who force employees to sign binding arbitration in the case of sexual assault.

Franken devised the amendment in response to Kellogg, Brown & Root employee Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang-raped by her co-workers, and then imprisoned in a shipping container when she tried to report the crime. Weeks after the ordeal she discovered that a clause in her employee contract prevented her from taking her case to court, instead forcing her into a KBR-managed arbitration process.

"I'm proud of what we accomplished today," Franken said on his Web site. "Victims of sexual assault deserve their day in court and no corporation should be able to deny them that right. Jamie's courage in telling her story will help women all over this country and I'm honored to have been a part of that."

Franken's amendment passed the U.S. Senate by a 68-to-30 vote, though southern Republicans seem to be OK with keeping sexual assault out of the courtroom. Ten Republicans senators supported the amendment, but the GOP still comprised the entirety of the 30 opposing votes. Mississippi Power plans to contract KBR to build a new coal plant in Kemper County if the Public Service Commission approves the construction.

Neither Wicker nor Cochran would immediately comment on the reasons for their vote against the amendment, though Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., called the amendment "a political attack directed at Halliburton."

"I don't know who they're trying to protect, Eleanor Smeal, president of women's lobbying group Feminist Majority told the Jackson Free Press today. "Halliburton pulled up their Texas roots and moved to Dubai when the political climate got too hot for them. It's not like they're really an American company in the traditional sense."

Smeal went on to question Cochran's and Wicker's opposition: "They're defending contractors who are clearly rife with scandal. A woman is raped, and they want protection from that? They want don't want to take responsibility for anything, yet they're getting billions of dollars from the federal government," Smeal said, adding that Republicans were routinely siding against people in favor of corporations on many fronts.

"Look at what's happening on health-care reform. People are being taken advantage of by insurance companies, but they're sticking up for the insurance companies, even though people are dying every day from lack of coverage," Smeal said. "A caesarian section can be a pre-existing condition to exclude you from individual coverage, and 80 percent of polices do not cover maternity leave. It's a block of Republican votes. They're really showing us where they're standing."

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