Lieberman on DADT: We Have 60

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 senators 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 the Democratic leadership to allow enough room in the Senate schedule for a debate that would be acceptable 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 long as two weeks, but an agreement between Reid and McConnell could shave that down to just one week. Regardless, given that other bills will eat up some of the remaining days, providing some sort of open amendment process will likely require that senators stay past the targeted adjournment date of December 10 until at least December 17.



Two GOP Senators for DADT RepealSen. Lisa Murkowski Republican senators Lisa Murkowski and John Ensign have announced their support for repealing the military's ban on openly gay and lesbian service members.

KTV's Matt Felling told CNN he's noticing a "different" Murkowski since she won the election in Alaska with a write-in vote as the moderate candidate versus Tea Party candidate Joe Miller.

When he asked her what she would do to represent the middle-of-the-road voters of Alaska, Felling reports that she said she would support a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."

Felling reports, "She said, 'Listen, there have been leaks out of this poll inside the Pentagon, saying the troops are fine with it being repealed, and you know, we are a different sort of warfare; there aren’t trenches, there aren’t foxholes anymore. I would not vote against a bill that had that repeal in it.' And that’s honestly the first time she came swinging on that topic too."

Members of Nevada's Stonewall Democrats chapter met with an aide to Ensign, who said he will support the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes language to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." Ensign's regional representative Margot Allen said that any reports of the senator wanting to keep the policy intact were false.