Today, after much delay and opposition, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA) will be finally be debated and voted on by the Senate. This bill is extremely important and would challenge the status quo culture of rape and impunity ravaging our armed forces. This seems like an obvious solution. But sadly, it has been, and still is, an uphill battle.

As I write this blog post, the Senate is debating the MJIA. As we’ve covered before, the MJIA is a very sensible bill that would move the decision to prosecute out of the hands of the Chain of Command and into the hands of an independent military prosecutor. Given that over a quarter of people sexually assaulted are assaulted by someone in the chain of command, the current system, which requires survivors to report their assault to their superior within said chain of command, is counterproductive an dangerous. The military is creating a system in which rape survivors must report their rapes to people who are friends with the rapists, or the rapists themselves. This obviously inhibits reporting. Logic tells us this. And so does the fact that 62% of those who did report perceived some retaliation for doing so.

You can watch the vote at 2PM on CSPAN2. Follow along on Twitter using #passMJIA and make some noise in support of this important bill.