A year ago this month, former Rep. Ellen Tauscher introduced H.R. 1283, a bill to repeal the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy of the U.S. military. Although Tauscher has since left Congress to join the Obama administration, her bill remains in active consideration before the House, with 190 cosponsors adding their formal support (Peter Visclosky and Dennis Moore are the most recent cosponsors, adding their support in the past two weeks).
It took until this past week for parallel legislation to be introduced to the Senate; on March 3, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut brought S. 3065 up for consideration by the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which Lieberman is a member.
You might find yourself halting there in suspicion: Joe Lieberman, that Democrat-Not-Even-In-Name, introduced a bill to abolish DADT? Surely there must be some catch, some change, some conniving difference in the legislation meant to undermine it…
… surely not. There are a few small differences between S. 3065 and its House counterpart, but they are in the direction of tightening up the legislation:
* The addition of a Pentagon Working Group tasked with thorough implementation of DADT repeal;
* The addition of a catch-all statement mandating that the military not only change its regulations in three specific areas to end sexual orientation discrimination (the approach of H.R. 1283), but also change whatever additional regulations need to be changed in order to ensure such discrimination is ended.
* The addition of a mandated report to Congress, 6 months after the passage of the bill, describing the impact of DADT-repeal on military recruitment at colleges that had banned recruiters due to the military’s anti-gay discrimination.
The following are the 13 cosponsors joining Lieberman in support of DADT repeal in the Senate:
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL)
Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN)
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA)
Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO)
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)
With the support of Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, S. 3065 should be able to take a relatively smooth path to consideration on the floor of the Senate.
