Tweet
A deal is emerging on repealing the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy for gay service members which would legislatively end the policy but delay implementation until the completion of a Pentagon study. Kerry Eleveld of The Advocate, who has had the best coverage of this matter, reports:
The Advocate has learned that concurrent meetings took place Monday morning at the White House and on Capitol Hill that could help clear the way for “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal to be attached to the Department of Defense authorization bill later this week.
According to one person familiar with the White House meeting, the proposal that is being considered would legislatively repeal the statute this year, but the current policy would remain in place and implementation of repeal would not occur until after the Pentagon’s working group study is finished in December. Further, completion of repeal would require certification from President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Joint Chiefs chair Adm. Mike Mullen that the new law will not have a negative impact on readiness, recruitment, retention, and other key factors affecting the military.
The language would not include a nondiscrimination policy but rather will return authority for open service by gays and lesbians to the Pentagon.
A Statement of Administration Policy is expected to be released this week, potentially as early as tomorrow.
Advocacy groups appear to be pleased with the agreement, though one could obviously see pitfalls. A Pentagon ruled by those with a different ideological perspective could overturn the new open service policy, if they have the authority to do so. But this would be arguably less likely (or at least as likely) than a future Republican Congress, which would probably waste no time attempting to ban openly gay service. Once the new policy is in place, new restrictions become a harder sell.
All of this is apparently predicated on getting the necessary votes in the Senate Armed Services Committee (Three of these five swing votes – Robert Byrd, Bill Nelson, Evan Bayh, Jim Webb, Scott Brown – would be necessary for passage). If that is handled, then the House would adopt similar language, probably through an amendment to the defense authorization bill which the House Armed Services Committee completed work on last week. Once repeal is embedded in the defense authorization bill, it would take 60 votes in the Senate to remove it, and opponents don’t have that.
It’s puzzling that it took this long for a deal like this to be struck. This is basically what Carl Levin has been offering for months – repeal with a delayed implementation. Perhaps the White House realized the damage they would incur if they did not push repeal after announcing it with great fanfare in the State of the Union address.
The other complicating factor here is that Robert Gates has recommended a veto of this defense bill for totally different reasons. He feels that it consists of too many unwanted military spending projects. It’s unclear how the President would handle the delicate topic of vetoing a bill with a major gay rights initiative and explaining that there were different reasons for the veto.
UPDATE: Robert Gates could issue support for this deal as soon as today, according to CNN’s Dana Bash.
15 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL News Desk
Oh, I think the Gay Veal Pen will go for this in a heartbeat if the White House tells them to. Somehow, though, returning decisions on open service to the Pentagon doesn’t match up with Nancy Pelosi’s promise that “DADT will be a memory come Christmas.”
Or even Obama’s SOTU language:
Repeal of the law is what’s required if gays and lesbians are to serve openly forever; otherwise, previous open service could be used to discharge troops from a Palin Pentagon, right?
A real question is whether the White House has further restricted attendance by organizations advocating open service at their secret meetings in order to obtain agreement with their ‘compromise.’ This could blow up in their face if the groups actually trusted by ousted servicemembers are excluded.
Future Congresses wouldn’t be bound by repeal either, of course. There’s always the possibility of backsliding. I’d prefer to think that once rights are given it becomes harder to take them away regardless of who holds the authority, though I’m not convinced that’s completely true.
David, you are a Californian who lived through the Prop 8 campaign.
You know as well as I do how easy it is to take away rights obtained.
An Administrative decision within the Pentagon to re-institute DADT would be much, much easier than passing a new law in Congress. Sure, the latter could happen; I expect our rights will remain a political football for some time, to America’s eternal shame. But the next GOP president’s SecDef given the power to do so as a compromise is lame. And unnecessary!
CNN report an hour or so ago framed the story as Democrat Joe Liebernan leading the “compromise” with the White House.
Of course the “study” will not be completed until after the elections. Playing the people like chumps SOP.
…return authority for open service by gays…to the Pentagon
Now there is leadership for you. Thanks, O.
So, gays get to serve, but now we have to invade Iran?
That they’re making this simple matter so complicated certainly raises my suspicions.
Good catch!
LGBT’s should be able to murder needlessly on a global scale too.
I want to know who was at this meeting. It is only by knowing who was excluded that we can tell whether the deal is bad or actually horrific.
Also, Gibbs couldn’t tell Kerry Eleveld whether the White House called the meeting or not. Asked if the White House ‘initiated this meeting’ he said he would need to check. So people just show up at the White House spontaneously now?
HRC’s certainly on board:
And if you’re not entirely in line with HRC (I know they don’t have the best reputation), SLDN and SU have praised the deal as well. And they’re pretty much the two groups most aligned with the policy, and neither has been afraid to criticize the Administration publicly over it in the past.
The White House seems intent on making sure that it gets no political credit (from voters) for anything. Either they seek unpopular (and bad) policy, or as here, they seek to do good things in such a way that it makes it impossible to get any political benefit for it. This should have been an opportunity to split national security and social issue conservatives, a chance to tie equality and security, and instead of getting anything for doing it, they are going to make those on our side who care about this issue the most feel like they are being screwed even as they (possibly) get the policy change they seek.