Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in another surprise juggling act with the lame duck calendar, late Thursday pulled the highly-controversial $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill and invoked cloture on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal bill. This means the Senate can vote on whether or not to vote on repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” 48 hours after cloture is invoked, which would put the earliest possible vote at Friday afternoon or evening, but most sources report the vote is likely to come Saturday morning, after the Senate votes on the DREAM Act once again.
Then, providing visions of sugarplums dancing in Republican Senators’ heads are more motivating than invoking a Senate rule allowing them to wait thirty hours before voting on the actual bill, there is a strong chance, as the stars are currently aligned (even the weather is in our favor,) that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal bill could actually be voted on and passed, with just a simple majority needed, on Saturday.
In an also surprising move, as reported by John Aravosis and Politico, the White House, ever-ready to shoot itself in the foot, is “quietly pushing far more aggressively for the new START treaty, signaling it may be open to punting the “don’t ask, don’t tell†repeal until after the new year if it can get enough GOP votes on the treaty for ratification, according to several senators and Democratic aides.”
An important note to Senator Joe Manchin: freshman Senators who play politics with core Democratic values don’t get re-elected. This piece on the fifteen Democrats in the House who voted against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal has been the top story here since first published. Their names now live in infamy. A “no” vote by any Democratic Senator will raise a wave of anger so virulent they will never get re-elected. Even Senator Ron Wyden, who was just diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing surgery Monday, will be on the Senate floor to vote for repeal.
Whether or not Manchin votes for repeal, it appears that with signals from GOP Senators Brown, Collins, Snowe, and Murkowski, along with possibly Voinovich and Lugar, Democrats have enough Republican votes secured to pass the bill. 60 votes are needed to end debate, then just a simple majority to pass the bill.