U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and 15 other, mostly female, members of Congress met with senior Obama administration advisers Thursday at the White House to discuss the rise in sexual assaults within the country's military ranks.

Klobuchar et al. met with Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama's senior advisers, and Tina Tchen, the first lady Michelle Obama's chief of staff, two days after the Pentagon reported a 35 percent rise in the number of military members victimized by sexual assault and related crimes from 2010 to 2012.

Klobuchar recently introduced legislation that would prohibit people previously convicted of sex-related crimes from serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, expand record-keeping to ensure storage of documents connected with sexual assaults and remove the requirement that the victim request that the records be kept.