This month, I participated in a hearing on combatting and addressing sexual assault within the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. I wrote to you about this issue back in September, sharing that I was cosponsoring a new piece of bipartisan legislation that would help protect our cadets when reporting instances of sexual misconduct (you can read more about this in the forwarded email below).

As you can imagine, I was eager to discuss this and other issues within the U.S. Coast Guard and determine what my colleagues in Congress and I could do to better support this branch of government through legislation and awareness efforts. However, one of my colleagues dedicated his time in the meeting to spewing hateful disinformation about members of the LGBTQIA+ community within our military.

Let me make one thing clear: hate has no place anywhere , but especially not within the halls of Congress or aimed at our dedicated servicepeople. I could not sit there and let another member of Congress read bigotry into the record unchallenged. I spoke up and, in no uncertain terms, made clear that my colleague's remarks were ignorant, unacceptable, and dangerous. He and so many other members of the chaos caucus are determined to spread hate, misinformation, and fearmonger to inflame their base – all the while ignoring the real human beings whose lives they threaten.

That is not okay with me. That is why I spoke up.

when it comes to matters like this one, I will always stand up against hate, and I hope you will, too.

Hopefully, I will have an update for you in a few weeks on the original objective of that hearing: ensuring the safety of our Coast Guard cadets. I will not allow this issue to get co-opted by the chaos caucus for political culture wars, it is too important.

More soon,

Rick

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Rick Larsen <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Sep 21, 2023 at 9:51 AM
Subject: New Legislation to Support U.S. Coast Guard Cadets
To: [email protected]

I am cosponsoring a piece of bipartisan legislation that would help protect our U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadets from being disciplined for minor collateral misconduct (think: underaged drinking, or violating curfew) when reporting sexual assault.

Why now? Three reasons:

1. Operation Fouled Anchor: New information is available from a six-year internal investigation that looked into dozens of cases of sexual assault and misconduct from 1988-2006. The Coast Guard Academy has been mishandling these cases and must swiftly course-correct.

2. Consistency Across Academies: This policy change not only helps support survivors of sexual assault get the care and support they need, it also ensures that the Coast Guard cadets have the same provisions as the Department of Defense military academies through The National Defense Authorization Act in 2021.

3. Supporting Survivors: Finally, there is no shortage of action we can take at the Congressional- and community-level to help support survivors and work towards a world where these egregious assaults are a thing of the past.

Through policy changes like this one, we can usher in a new era of safety and security.

Rick



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