An amendment introduced by Minnesota Senator, Al Franken, would protect employees’ right to sue if they are sexually assaulted. The bill would cut off private contractors (Halliburton) from working with the government if they restrict their employees from suing after such an incident.

Currently,as it stands, these contractors do not allow these cases to reach a U.S. Court. Instead, it must go to private arbitration due to confidentiality clauses. This amendment is a direct response to the Jamie Leigh Jones case of 2007. Without going into graphic detail, Jones had claimed that seven of her KBR co-workers drugged and gang-raped her while she was working in Iraq as an administrative assistant. After reporting the crime, evidence was taken by a doctor and placed into a rape kit, which was given to KBR security forces and promptly lost. It was later recovered by the State Department sans key photographs and notes.

Jones was initially unable to sue KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary) because of a clause in her contract, but has since fought to change that state of affairs, resulting in Franken’s bill. The amendment was expected to pass with an enormous majority, but passed with a healthy 68-30 vote in the Senate.

Those 30 senators, all Republicans, have come under tremendous fire across the board as a result of their votes. Who are they you ask? The US Senate has a list all ready for your perusal, which includes Senator and former Presidential candidate, John McCain, and South Carolina’s, Lindsey Graham.

Where to begin? The furor in recent days has risen exponentially, leading to mock-website RepublicansForRape.org, which satirizes the unfortunate situation. Though the site is hilarious, we can’t forget this is stemming from an unforgivably serious series of events.

While no rational individual could legitimately assume these Republican Senators are in favor of rape, their vote on the amendment leaves them wide open for criticism. Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson told Macon’s Sun News that “This would be a major, fundamental change in U.S. labor law and I believe it would be very detrimental to employees to eliminate arbitration as an option.”

While the position sounds reasonable, the Senator has clearly failed to actually read the bill. It does not eliminate arbitration as an option; it merely stops it from being the only option.

Overblown opposition has come from the Department of Defense, who wrote in a note to the Senate that “enforcement would be problematic” in certain cases. The note has since been clarified by a spokesman who states that the DoD supports the intent of the bill, but wants to ensure its enforceability.

How could anyone honestly vote against this? Didn’t they realize any opposition would be construed in this rightfully negative fashion? I’m completely dumb-founded by these Senators and their hole-ridden reasoning for essentially saying, “we’d rather protect these businesses than the rights of rape victims.”

It’s not as if we’re hearing Franken was trying to fit in some budget money in his Anti-Rape amendment for a golf course in his backyard!

Here’s Jon Stewart, who unloaded on these senators on The Daily Show.

In this era of health care debate and dividing elections, this could have been most unifying of votes. Instead, it is another lightning rod and piece of evidence pointing to a partisan government that refuses to come together on any issue. How will any health care compromise occur if we can’t agree on preserving rape victim’s right to sue?

To help victims of sexual assault, The Jamie Leigh Foundation was formed. To support their efforts, visit their website here..