White House now backs Franken rape amendment
What Changed? White House Now Supports Franken Rape Amendment
Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) “rape amendment,” which guarantees that rape victims who work for defense contractors can pursue charges against their employers, has been championed by many but opposed by Obama’s Department of Defense. The Pentagon initially called the measure unenforceable. But the provision, part of the defense appropriations bill, made it through conference committee and is now supported by the White House.
So what changed?
A senior administration official explains to TPM: The White House was concerned about the original language, which would have prohibited the DoD from using companies whose employment contracts contained an “arbitration clause,” which would keep employees from taking the company to court for Title VII offenses, which include rape, sexual assault, harassment and false imprisonment. That language, the official said, may have forced the government to reneg on multi-billion-dollar contracts. Because of a clause in many of those contracts, the government would still have to pay the contractors, even though the work wouldn’t be performed.
Another concern: The Pentagon deals with a massive number of contracts and would never be able to make sure the arbitration clauses were stripped in all those contracts.
So White House staff, after a week or so perusing contract and grant law, came up with a “clever construct,” the official said. The contractors, in order to stay in the lucrative government contract business, don’t have to remove the arbitration clauses. But they can’t enforce them. </em>
