‘Don’t Ask’ Cliffhanger: Tick, Tock

by on

From the Washington Blade: ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal ‘barely hanging on’:

One Senate Democratic aide, who spoke to the Washington Blade on condition of anonymity, said repeal — currently pending before the U.S. Senate as part of the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill — is “barely hanging on with life support.”

“The only way to resuscitate this effort and get a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ vote is for President Obama and [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates to start pushing directly, something we on the Hill had expected the president and Gates to do long ago,” the aide said.

Frustration over the lack of movement on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” prompted activists affiliated with GetEQUAL to take action on Monday and chain themselves to the White House fence in an act of civil disobedience.

Elsewhere in the Blade:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Thursday expressed confidence about having the necessary 60 votes to move forward with legislation containing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal — provided certain conditions are met with the amendment process on the Senate floor. . . .

Lieberman said he’s received assurances from GOP senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) as well as “others privately” that they would be open to moving forward with defense legislation containing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal provided there’s an “open amendment process” in bringing the bill to the floor.

And from the Washington Times, on the pre-midterm election “don’t ask” Senate vote debacle:

Many Republicans wanted to debate amendments on how the nation would handle trials for suspected terrorists, and also wanted a chance to try to strike language that would allow military hospitals to provide abortions to women willing to pay for them.

Asked whether Ms. Collins, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, would support a repeal effort, her spokesman, Kevin Kelley, said “she wanted to vote for the defense authorization bill and supports the repeal.”

“Her issue at the time was that Majority Leader Reid had said he would not allow any Republican amendments to the bill at the time. She was opposed to that process, which shut Republicans out of the debate,” he said.

So Harry Reid and the liberal Democrats didn’t want to let the GOP vote on banning abortions in VA hospitals, and were willing to let “dont’ ask” repeal go down because of it. Thanks, Harry. Let’s see if you make amends (by allowing a fair amendment process, and thus bringing in GOP votes from Collins and Lugar) as the clock ticks away.

More. tick, tock, tick, tock.

3 Comments for “‘Don’t Ask’ Cliffhanger: Tick, Tock”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    What-ever.

    It lost. The captain should have gone down with the ship. It didn’t. Harry Reid saved his skin by defending the health care bill. GOProud is kicking him for it. Nobody likes us. Life goes on.

  2. posted by Carl on

    The thing is are they just going to bring up any and every amendment possible under the guise of a DADT repeal? How long before they bring up something which is so polarizing, they know the Democrats won’t go along? I can see McCain doing that.

    This basically amounts to, “Hey, let’s vote on anything we want, and we’re probably still not going to vote to repeal DADT.”

  3. posted by Jorge on

    It’s been done before. But the moderate Republicans will not permit the bill to go to the floor without consideration of amendments they consider reasonable.

    So with that political reality, either the Democrats want to pass DA/DT, or they don’t.

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