Yes, Tonight’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Vote Was Just Killed

News is flying all over the place. Here’s the latest —

Susan Collins, who supposedly is willing to vote for repeal if Harry Reid can figure out how she would like her silver plate of concessions loaded, just said she is not going to allow the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal bill to move forward tonight.

Karen Ocamb at 6:07 PM ET reports, “the Senate will not take up any more votes tonight – included the expected vote on the Defense Authorization bill. He said senators are now negotiating when and how to bring up the defense bill with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal intact – as well as other bills, including the DREAM Act.

“In the past several hours, it appears that a number of Republican senators who support DADT repeal – such as Sen. Susan Collins – said they would not vote on the defense bill until after the tax bill was decided. R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, said the GOP senators with whom he spoke during the day were surprised by Majority Leader Reid’s announcement to bring the bill up for a cloture vote tonight.”

At 5:30 PM tonight, The Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe wrote, via Twitter, “Sen. Collins tells reporters she’s NOT voting tonight to move forward on #DADT if it comes up.”

So, if that’s the case, the deal is dead, even though we have 60 votes…

Collins reportedly has held finalizing the tax rates hostage for her cloture vote, now, there’s talk of an issue with the number of amendments Senators will be allowed to make.

Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart wrote at 4:25 PM, “Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told me that she is fine with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) offer of 15 amendments — 10 for Republicans and 5 for Democrats. The only question is the time allotted to debate them. Contrary to the ham-handed efforts by Reid staffers to throw Collins under the bus, she is not demanding unlimited debate time. What she wants is a “reasonable” amount of time. She’d be fine if Reid were to allow, say, two hours of debate (one hour for Democrats and one hour for Republicans) for each amendment.”

“Collins told me that the time issue is important to her because she is “trying to make sure the rights of the minority are protected.” Ain’t nothing wrong with that in my view at this late hour.”

But then updates his piece with this at 5:45 PM:

“This just in from the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “If a little more time on each amendment was all she’s asking, Senator Reid would have shaken her hand and called it a deal by now.”

AmericaBlog’s Joe Sudbay says, “There’s still time to pass this legislation, this year, as promised. And, if it doesn’t happen, there’s a lot of blame to go around. A lot.”

Indeed.