This should not come as a surprise to anyone. We know Rep. McKeon and Senator McCain opposed DADT repeal. They’re going to try to stop it in the lame duck. Pushing this. Those Log Cabin Republicans and GOProuds have their work cut out for them:
Already, the Republican widely expected to be the next House Armed Services chairman signaled that Republicans are not on board with trying to push for a vote in the last few weeks of the current session, while the Democrats are just a few votes shy of pushing it through.
“Republicans on both sides the Capitol are committed to passing a National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 that is not weighed down by the current majority’s social agenda items,” said Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-California, in a statement released Wednesday morning.
Before the election, the top Republican on the Armed Services committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, told an Arizona television station he would “absolutely” filibuster any attempt to vote “until we have a thorough and complete study on the effect of morale and battle effectiveness.”
“The reason they tried to ramrod it through the Senate is they knew that the Senate will look different next January,” McCain said on 12 News’ “Sunday Square Off” on October 17. “I will filibuster or stop it from being brought up.”
This shouldn’t matter. McKeon and McCain don’t run the commmittees — yet.
Obama and the Democrats need to really focus on the passing the Defense bill as is. They let the GOPers get away with filibustering the Defense bill in September, which was a huge mistake. We’re in two wars, which should be reason enough to force the GOP’s handgs. Also, the Defense bill has to be one of the biggest jobs bills that Congress passes. It funds millions of salaries in both the government and private sectors. And, as the President noted yesterday at his press conference, there is a huge amount of support for ending DADT.
Let this be the first fight with the Republicans. But, make it a fight.
And, if you haven’t seen it, watch Alex Nicholson’s video on how we can prevail. He spells it out quite clearly:
