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发帖数: 4174 | 1 osted on Advocate.com November 18, 2010
Lieberman on DADT: We Have 60 Votes
By Kerry Eleveld
DADT JOSEPH LIEBERMAN X390 GETTY | ADVOCATE.COM
Sen. Joe Lieberman said Thursday that repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell”
as part of the National Defense Authorization Act is no longer a question of
votes, it’s a question of process.
“I am confident that we have more than 60 votes prepared to take up the
Defense authorization with the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ if only
there will be a guarantee of a fair and open amendment process, in other
words, whether we’ll take enough time to do it,” Lieberman told reporters
at a press conference, naming GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Richard Lugar as "
Yes" votes. “Time is an inexcusable reason not to get this done.”
Lieberman, an Independent, was flanked by 12 of his Democratic colleagues –
a core group that seemed intent on urging their Democratic leadership to
allow enough room in the Senate schedule for a debate that would be amenable
to Republicans. The senators talked about working over the weekends and Sen
. Mark Udall offered to go straight through until Christmas Eve.
Lieberman noted that two items could be negotiated by Senate majority leader
Harry Reid and minority leader Mitch McConnell – the number of amendments
to be considered and the amount of time for debate on those amendments.
Full and open debate on the bill could take as many as two weeks but an
agreement between Reid and McConnell might also shave that down to just one
week. Regardless, given that other bills will also eat up some of the
remaining days, providing some sort of open amendment process will likely
require that Senators stay past the targeted adjournment of Dec. 10 until at
least Dec. 17.
Lieberman also noted that the NDAA is “several hundred pages long” and
chock full of “critically necessary” items for the military.
“How are you going to explain to a soldier or a family that we didn’t
authorize the benefits they deserve because we wanted to go home?” he said.
Asked how many amendments would be “fair,” Lieberman responded, “It’s
hard to put a number on it now, and that’s what I hope will be negotiated
and we’re going to do our best to encourage Sen. Reid to reach out to allow
a somewhat larger number [of amendments].”
Lieberman was joined at the press conference by Sens. Barbara Boxer, Roland
Burris, Ben Cardin, Chris Coons, Diane Feinstein, Al Franken, Kirsten
Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Patrick Leahy, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Udall, and
Ron Wyden.
Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense
Network said the most interesting development over the past several days is
“the determination of a core group of senators to get repeal done this year
.”
“With chairman Levin and Sen. Lieberman’s commitment and with the
determination of the president and majority leader Reid to work with key
Republican senators, we’re alive and we can get this done this year,”
Sarvis said.
Earlier in the day, General Carter Ham, co-chair of the Pentagon’s working
study, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that upcoming report on
repeal is the most thorough he has ever seen on a personnel issue.
“As far as I can tell, this is the most comprehensive assessment of a
personnel policy matter that the Department of Defense has conducted,” Ham
said.
Sen. John McCain, who vehemently opposes repeal, tried to undercut its
credibility by noting that only about 25% of about 400,000 troops had
responded to the survey on repeal that forms a portion of the study.
But Ham corrected McCain, saying the total was closer to 28%, a little over
115,000 respondents, and called the survey “statistically sound and
analytically rigorous.”
Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat who joined McCain’s successful filibuster against
the defense authorization bill in September, seconded Ham’s assertion.
“Having spent five years in the Pentagon; I can't remember a study on this
type of issue that has been done with this sort of care,” he said. “So it'
s going to be a very important study for us to look at and examine.”
Preliminary reports about the study suggest that it concludes repeal poses
“minimal risk” even during a time of war.
Ham said he doubted the study would be released before December 1 because
they were currently waiting on the military’s service chiefs to review it
and provide their assessments, but Sen. Levin urged Ham to make “every
effort” to deliver the study early.
Levin said Wednesday that he would be scheduling hearings on the study “
during the first few days of December” before Sen. Reid scheduled a vote on
the motion to debate the larger defense bill. |
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