DADT drama
After closely following (on twitter) the Senate vote on DADT today, I’m exhausted. It was close, with in the end, only one Democratic (Manchin) voting No, one Republican (Collins - in a surprise move, but admittedly after it was clear it wouldn’t pass) voting Yes, all Independents voting Yes and three absents. At 40-57, the repeal failed to pass (this is what is called the tyranny of the minority, when 2/3s is required to pass something).
However, surprisingly, we started to see these tweets from Lieberman, almost immediately after the cloture was finished:
@SenatorCollins and I and others are introducing a free standing bill to repeal #DADT today.
Followed by:
We are working with our colleagues and are confident that there are at least 60 Senators who support repeal. http://yfrog.com/h0870j
and:
Senator Reid told me he will “Rule 14″ the free-standing #DADT repeal so it skips cmte and can come directly to the Senate floor.
Pelosi weighs in:
If new Lieberman & Collins #DADT bill passes Senate, an army of allies stands ready to pass standalone repeal in House http://go.usa.gov/1pb
I won’t even begin to address the weirdness of hanging on Joe Leiberman’s efforts to keep DADT alive. Or of being able to follow all this pretty directly on twitter via #dadt.
Major props to Joe. My. God. for updating on the DADT proceedings all day long!
Originally published at What's that you said?. You can comment here or there.