The #IamVanessaGuillen Act will be reintroduced at Thursday, May 13, 2021, at the House Triangle, located behind the United States Capitol.
Several members of Congress along with Vanessa Guillen's Family and Attorney Natalie Khawam will be in attendance.
According to the Find Vanessa Guillen Facebook page, Congresswoman Jackie Speier and Congressman Markwayne Mullin have championed the bipartisan legislation.
Senator Mazie Hirono is also in support and will champion the Senate version.
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, confirmed that she will be in attendance and will speak in support of the #IamVanessaGuillen Act.
The #IamVanessaGuillen Act would:
- Move prosecution decisions on sexual assault and sexual harassment cases outside of the chain of command to an Office of the Chief Prosecutor within each military service;
- Create a standalone military offense for sexual harassment;
- Establish trained sexual harassment investigators who are outside of the chain of command of the complainant and the accused;
- Create a confidential reporting process for sexual harassment that is integrated with DoD’s Catch a Serial Offender database;
- Require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the military’s procedures for finding missing servicemembers and compare with procedures used by civilian law enforcement and best practices;
- Require both DoD and GAO to conduct separate evaluations of the military services’ Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) programs; and
- Establish a process by which servicemembers can make claims for negligence and seek compensatory damages against DoD in the case of sexual assault or sexual harassment.
