Good news on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"? Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans a vote "this year" but did not announce a timeline, reports DC Agenda.
" 'It is the Speaker’s intention that a vote will be taken this year on ['Don't Ask, Don't Tell'] in the House,' Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesperson, told DC Agenda in a statement Monday. The announcement is promising news for repeal advocates because Pelosi has yet to put legislation to the floor that hasn’t had sufficient support for passage. Michael Cole, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson, praised Pelosi for planning the vote. 'As we’ve been saying for a long time now, the time to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law is this year, and it’s a positive sign to hear congressional leaders affirm that,' Cole said."
SLDN's Aubrey Sarvis says time is of the essence: "The hour for the president as well as for the leadership to become engaged is now. The reality is—particularly in the Senate Armed Services Committee—we are still short of some critical votes. We don’t have the votes today. We’re on the brink of getting them, and we need help from leadership on the Hill and from the president himself."
The "leadership" from the White House and the Hill on this issue is now being publicly challenged by Democratic senators and congressmen. The window to include DADT repeal language in the FY2011 Defense Authorization Request is quickly closing, Politico reports.
"Sarvis's group has begun to push a plan that would, he says, reconcile
Obama's promise and his desire to wait for the results of a Pentagon
working group's research into implementing repeal—due, conveniently,
after the elections. Sarvis's plan, which he hopes will be included in
this year's defense appropriations bill, would establish a 180-day
timeline for repeal, beginning with a deadline for the working group's
report, followed by a 60-day deadline for the Secretary of Defense to
issue instructions for implementing repeal and another 60-day deadline
for the services to plan implementation.
'No one is getting in front of the recommendations of the Pentagon
working group,' he said.
Sarvis blamed the delay on the White House political apparatus.'"
Unfortunately: The White House political calculus on the approaching mid-term elections is increasingly being seen as an impediment to progress on DADT and other gay rights issues, notes The Advocate's Kerry Eleveld.
"All the lobbyists working on this issue agree that the Senate Armed Services Committee is within 2-3 votes of attaching a repeal measure to the defense authorization bill. And the ability to sway those last few senators comes down to a question of the resolve of our president and the Democratic lawmakers who control Congress. Let me be clear, this president and this Congress are within two or three votes of making the greatest civil rights advancement on behalf of LGBT Americans in the history of this country. That’s the good news. The bad news is, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs signaled this week that the resolve doesn’t actually exist to capitalize on that extraordinary opportunity. [I]t appears that President Obama and his political team have yet to get the message that LGBT Americans don’t want to watch in silence while Washington squanders the best opportunity in 17 years to right an unjust law."
The FY2011 DAR must be passed May 30. Pelosi's plans for a repeal "vote" this year (=after elections?) seems like an even clearer admission that it will not be included in the Defense omnibus. Tick, tock.
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