The high-stakes move to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” through congressional legislation has been pronounced dead so many times this year that gay rights advocates and pro-repeal lawmakers braced for a round of brutal political finger-pointing and recriminations as the latest attempt failed in the Senate Thursday.
But in a strange twist fit for a zombie movie, proponents of dismantling the law emerged from the bewildering defeat on Capitol Hill, declaring that an end to the ban on gays in uniform not only isn’t dead — but that victory may finally be within sight. While that might be a tad optimistic on their part, the fact that appeal still mustered a pulse was a testament to the persistence of repeal advocates, the political risks even some Republicans see in offending gay voters, and the unpredictability of the closing days of a lame-duck congressional session.
Repeal proponents are now pinning their hopes on a free-standing bill to undo the ban on openly gay service members, anticipating that it can be quickly shuttled from the House to the Senate before Congress leaves town for the holidays.
“The fact of the matter is there’s a path forward,” said Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese, even as he added a note of caution and disappointment. “There was a path forward today, as well, and everybody failed. Everybody involved in the process, everybody who had a leadership role in this failed [but] the fact remains this does present a path forward. “
After three months of work by advocates to overcome a high-profile defeat in September, when the defense bill containing repeal language won 57 of the 60 votes needed to overcome any Republican-led filibuster, the tally didn’t budge Thursday, again winding up with 57 votes.
Yet, repeal supporters said the no votes largely reflected Republican procedural objections to the broader defense bill; in fact, they insist a filibuster-proof supermajority of senators now support an end to the 17-year-old ban.
“I am convinced that there are 60 or even 61 or [62] votes to repeal ‘don’t ask don’t tell,’” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the only Republican to side with Democrats Thursday in a failed effort to take action on the defense authorization bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who was unable to maneuver around GOP support for the filibuster, is on board with Plan B, and is optimistic it can be done before Congress adjourns, according to spokesman Jim Manley. “This is something that Senator Reid wants to get done by the end of the year,” Manley said.And President Barack Obama — who promised to end the ban — signaled that the push for repeal hasn’t ended. “I urge the Senate to revisit these important issues during the lame-duck session,” he said in a statement Thursday evening.
Yet, the alternative path to dismantling the ban is far from guaranteed. Supporters saw signs of momentum for repeal earlier this week, only to see talks collapse before Thursday’s vote.Meanwhile, much is at risk for Obama, already ducking haymakers from liberal supporters who are furious about his tax deal with Republicans. If he endures another defeat over the “don’t ask” repeal — a high-profile item on the left — it would further sour his relationship with liberals and gay rights advocates.
Indeed, Obama was heckled at rallies and fundraisers during the fall, and some donors have already withheld donations from the Democratic National Committee over the president’s perceived failures to tackle issues important to his gay and lesbian constituency. One key participant in the “don’t ask” repeal effort warned that a similar boycott could spread to the Senate.
“If [repeal] fails — and it is obvious that the Democrats set it up for failure — it will be IMPOSSIBLE to raise money for Senate Democrats that are up in 2012,” said the advocate, who asked not to be named.
At the same time, Republicans, emboldened by their success in the midterm elections, and conservative interest groups are likely to marshal significant force against any efforts for repeal.
“It would be a pretty, I think, brazen move for Democrats to pursue yet again a liberal agenda item that has been rejected twice already, in September and today, in the face of the November elections and what’s left on the high-priority, to-do list of taxes and the budget,” said Tommy Sears of the Center for Military Readiness.
The repeal effort has seen numerous twists and turns — and at least two major tactical reversals — since Obama took office, having pledged to repeal it during the 2008 presidential campaign. Gay rights groups looked to the president to overturn the ban by executive action, but Obama insisted that only Congress, which approved the policy in 1993, had the power to dismantle it.
Democrats in control of Congress and the White House decided that language repealing the ban should be included in a defense spending bill, which traditionally receives broad bipartisan support, but the measure failed when Reid brought it up for a vote in September. After urging the Senate, the White House and the Pentagon to speed up the repeal process, and seeing signals from Republicans that they would break ranks and vote for repeal, proponents found themselves suddenly trying to slow action this week after it became clear that the repeal issue was entangled in Senate Republicans’ demands to act first on legislation to extend the tax cuts.
After the measure went down Thursday, Collins and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) immediately pivoted to a free-standing bill for repeal, which they said could clear the Senate and sail through the House before lawmakers head home for Christmas. “If it’s decoupled from the broader defense bill, there are far fewer issues to be dealt with,” Collins said.
Reid’s office then contacted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was receptive to moving a standalone bill along in the House. As a result, after settling months ago on what was considered a much safer strategy of embedding repeal in what is traditionally considered a must-pass defense bill, repeal advocates are staking their hopes on a legislative move they had once considered a nonstarter.
“The conventional wisdom up until this time was that that was the case,” Solmonese said. “When we began this process you had, and it continues to be the case, people like John McCain willing to do anything in their power to stop a repeal bill and [we had] virtually no Republican support … Not to suggest this [standalone option] is by any means easy, but it would seem under the circumstances we have gained the support now of up to five or six Republicans.”
Another likely target for recriminations if “don’t ask” repeal ultimately fails is Solmonese, who is seen in the gay community as having endorsed a strategy that was usually in lockstep with the Obama White House but often not as aggressive or confrontational as some gay activists have encouraged.
In the meantime, Solmonese said Thursday that he would press Obama to issue an executive order protecting gay soldiers from dismissal if the legislative repeal measures all fail. In addition, court challenges to the policy will continue.
However, the gay rights advocate said in an interview that the on-again-off-again nature of congressional action on repeal, along with the signs of success followed by major disappointment, has been emotionally draining. “It’s been a roller coaster ride of a day,” Solmonese said. “The entire year’s been a roller coaster ride.”
Shira Toeplitz contributed reporting to this story.
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