[NSDCaucus] Pelosi vows to end ‘Don’t ask, don't tell’ by the end of the year, [Timing of ENDA less certain]
Patrick Patin
By Jared Allen and Bob Cusack - 05/19/10 08:33 PM ET
The Pentagon’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy will be nothing but a memory by year’s end, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared Wednesday.
Pelosi, in an interview with The Hill, stopped short
of
laying all of her strategic cards on the table. She wouldn’t say
whether the House will take the lead on the issue or predict when the
Clinton administration-era tenet would be repealed.
But she made it clear ending “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is at the top of her agenda.
“I don’t have any doubt that ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’
will be a memory by the end of this year,” she said.
However,
the prospects for a law banning workplace discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation or identity — another pillar of the gay-rights
platform — are somewhat dimmer.
Pelosi is optimistic that she
will have enough House votes for both the Employment Non-Discrimination
Act (ENDA) and a repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
But that
is far from certain. The ENDA bill has 202 co-sponsors and the repeal of
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” has 192, well short of the 216 or so needed.
Some
conservative Democrats have said they don’t want to vote on the
controversial bills, especially in the wake of tough votes on healthcare
and climate change.
“I’m not going to bring up anything
that’s not going to win,” Pelosi said. “And we feel that we’re in a
pretty good, strong position on both bills.”
“Nothing is easy here,”
Pelosi later added. “There isn’t one easy vote.”
The Speaker
indicated she is aware that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has
expressed caution about Congress moving too fast, but gave no indication
she is going to wait for a yet-to-be-completed Pentagon report on
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
While Pelosi’s support for a repeal
of the policy and for the enactment of ENDA is not in doubt, it has been
less clear how hard she intended to push both issues before the
November elections.
Pelosi held a conference call with leading
gay- and- gender-rights activists on Monday to discuss the future of
both measures. The call was not open to the press, leaving activists
from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to report on
the Speaker’s level of commitment.
And those reports varied
wildly, with some activists saying that Pelosi was clear that both bills
would move this year, and others saying that she made no promises and
laid out no firm timetables.
On Wednesday, Pelosi alluded to
the thinking of many Democrats, which is to insert language repealing
the policy into the defense authorization bill.
“‘Don’t ask,
don’t tell,’ if it were to be part of a defense authorization bill, it
would have to be something that we would have to make a decision about
sooner than [ENDA],” Pelosi said. “And we’re having our conversations.
“I
support ENDA. I have for decades and it’s very important to me,” said
Pelosi.
“When the opportunity is there, we want to bring that
up, and I hope that will be soon,” she said. “We’ll see what people want
to do. It’s not my own personal decision. We’ll just see where we go
from here.”
Many in the party see the advancement of either
bill as a blatant affront to the Speaker’s pledge early this year that
she would force no more tough votes without the Senate first leading the
way.
A version of ENDA passed the House in the last
Congress, but it did not include language on discrimination against
transgender people. This year’s version does, and that has some
politically vulnerable Democrats withholding their support.
A leading House liberal on Wednesday afternoon said House leaders had this week told similarly minded members of the caucus that ENDA was going to be taken up before the elections, regardless of what happens with “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“It’ll be right before we leave,” this Democrat said, “to energize the base.
“And for the Blue Dogs, it’ll be to give them that
final
push over the cliff,” the Democrat said, only half in jest.
While
saying there can “never be enough” energy among base voters, Pelosi
said she didn’t feel the need to go beyond her plan to focus on jobs and
tout her party’s accomplishments in order to bolster turnout this
November.
She offered Tuesday night’s special-election results
in Pennsylvania as proof that Democrats are plenty energized.
“I
have confidence that when people see the choice that they have ... when
they see the distinction, I think people will be more energized,” she
said.
On “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Pelosi said she was eager
to
see how the Senate chooses to handle its defense authorization bill.
“We’ll
see what the Senate is going to do,” she said. “If there’s something
[that is] going to be in the Senate bill, there’s an argument for just
agreeing in conference.”
But she quickly clarified that her
curiosity shouldn’t be mistaken for the necessity of an assurance, which
she has said is needed before the House can begin to consider a
comprehensive immigration reform bill.
Yet Pelosi seems to
have softened her resistance to the Senate’s far different approach to
legislating, even on her signature issue of climate change.
“Again,
as with all of these ... we’ll see what the Senate will do,” Pelosi
said.
“Right now the bill that they have is very
conference-able,” she said of the climate change bill authored by Sens.
John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).
“I’m
pleased with what we did here, I like what I see there, we’ll see what
happens as they go through the amendment process,” Pelosi added.
Asked
if she will remain Speaker until climate change is enacted, Pelosi
laughed and said she hopes the bill will be signed into law “soon.”
While
she backs the Obama administration addressing some climate change
matters administratively through regulation, Pelosi said Congress needs
to pass a bill.
“It has to be done by statute,” Pelosi said, explaining that stakeholders need some level of certainty so that U.S. policy on global warming does not fluctuate when administrations change.
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