Harry Reid may attempt to push a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell onto the Senate floor today, a move that few expect to result in an end to the ban on openly gay servicemembers in the military.
This morning, Reid announced on the Senate floor that a push for cloture on the defense spending bill that includes a repeal of DADT could happen as early as this afternoon.
“I’m likely going to move to my motion to reconsider on the defense authorization act this evening,” Reid told his colleagues. Reid said details on the vote — which he said will include “time for amendments,” the key for some possible Republican votes on repeal — will be forthcoming.
But most already think the cloture vote will be largely symbolic, and is destined to fail.
“It won’t happen,” one Republican aide told NBC News.
Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) told reporters on Capitol Hill today that Reid is making the wrong move bringing the cloture vote.
One “Democratic staffer familiar with talks over the bill” told National Journal that the cloture vote’s expected failure could mean DADT is dropped off the 2010 agenda altogether. A failed cloture vote “may pave the way for quick action on a ‘stripped down,’ defense authorization bill” without the repeal language attached.
Watch Reid announce the push to bring about what supporters of repeal say would be a landmark civil rights shift in the US with trademark Senate floor snoozefest linguistics:
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