‘Don’t ask’ repeal less likely

WASHINGTON – Chances appear increasingly remote that Congress will lift the military’s ban on openly gay service members this year, even though a coming Pentagon report is unlikely to conclude that repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would disrupt the armed forces.

Lawmakers return next week to a lame-duck session with an agenda crowded by spending and tax issues amid indications that a measure to lift the ban will be pushed further down the to-do list.

At the same time, Republicans opposed to the repeal know that they simply need to wait out the clock until the new session of Congress, which begins in January. At that point, with the GOP in control of the House and wielding added leverage in the Senate, there will be little chance of repeal.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this week reiterated the Obama administration’s call for repeal, the latest indication that the Pentagon report, due Dec. 1, would not pose an obstacle to ending.

A number of senators had cited the ongoing Pentagon report as a reason for putting off a decision, saying they wanted the study’s assurances that repeal would not jeopardize military readiness. But some have continued to oppose repeal, even though Pentagon officials have stressed the study would represent a roadmap on how to change the policy.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, led a GOP filibuster against repeal in September. In recent days, McCain has been in talks with the committee’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., about the defense authorization bill, the measure that contains the repeal.

“Among other concerns, the senator remains opposed to the inclusion of the provision repealing the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ law,” said Brooke Buchanan, a spokesperson for McCain.

Levin’s office would only confirm that talks were ongoing regarding the bill, but wouldn’t discuss whether stripping the repeal provision was under consideration.

But Levin sounded frustrated about “don’t ask, don’t tell” in remarks to reporters in Michigan earlier this week, while noting the importance of getting the defense bill passed. “We’re trying to get both things accomplished, and we just don’t know if we can,” Levin said, according to the Grand Rapids Press.

Levin also is being pressed by his own flank. Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., released a letter this week pushing for an end to the ban.

Activists who want to see the ban lifted want the measure to remain attached to the sprawling defense authorization bill, which funds military projects for the coming year. If the repeal is stripped from the bill, which routinely attracts wide bipartisan support, it faces diminished odds of passage.

Aubrey Sarvis, the executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which advocates ending the ban, said he was hopeful Senate leaders would find another piece of “must-pass” legislation to which the repeal could be attached if McCain succeeds in splitting it from the defense authorization bill.