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"  Today, in a scenario that feels fresh out of House of Cards, the Senate unanimously approved a bill to change how the U.S. military handles sexual assault charges. With a vote of 97-0, the Senate pushed forward the bill\u2014an adaptation of the one that was struck down last week\u2014proposing these major changes to the current system: The so-called &amp;quot;good soldier&amp;quot; defense, which let defendants provide evidence of their military character in order to mitigate charges against them, would be largely disavowed. If the alleged assaults occurred away from a military base, the victims would get input into whether their cases are prosecuted in military or civilian courts, affording them greater control over how those cases are handled. With the most controversial measure of last week&amp;#039;s bill stricken\u2014the part where commanders could no longer help decide whether their subordinates should be prosecuted\u2014 the bill passed the Senate easily. 97-0 easily. Related: Robin Wright Calls for an End to Assault and Rape in the Congo &amp;quot;Unanimous agreement in the U.S. Senate is pretty rare,&amp;quot; Senator Claire McCaskill (D., MO.), who co-wrote the bill, said in a statement Monday night. &amp;quot;But rarer still is the kind of sweeping, historic change we&amp;#039;ve achieved over the past year in the military justice system.&amp;quot; And while the bill still has to pass the House to become law, with those kinds of numbers in the Senate, things are looking pretty good. Claire Underwood would be thrilled, if she were a real person. (But since she&amp;#039;s not, we&amp;#039;ll just do the job twice over for her.) Photos: Courtesy of Getty Related: What Girls Can Learn from Daisy Coleman "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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