House votes again to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell'

By Ed O'Keefe

Updated 7:01 p.m. ET

House lawmakers approved a bill Wednesday to end the "don't ask, don't tell" law, giving new momentum to an effort backed by President Obama, Pentagon leaders and gay rights activists to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military this year.

The House voted 250 to 175 to repeal the 17-year Defense Department law that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in uniform. The 75-vote margin was wider than a similar vote in May. Fifteen Republicans voted for the bill while 15 Democrats opposed it.

President Obama heralded the vote, saying in a statement that ending current military policy "is not only the right thing to do, it will also give our military the clarity and certainty it deserves. We must ensure that Americans who are willing to risk their lives for their country are treated fairly and equally by their country."

Wednesday's vote sends the bill back to the Senate, where a vote will not occur until next week at the earliest, according to a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

The bill's language originally appeared in an 800-page defense authorization bill passed by the House in May. But the bill failed a procedural vote in the Senate last week, requiring the House to vote again on a new measure to end the ban.

Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced the new bill last week, believing it will earn broader Republican support after the Senate completes consideration of the New START Treaty and government spending. Forty-seven senators, including Reid, are cosponsoring the bill.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said Wednesday she would join Republican colleagues Scott Brown (Mass.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) in voting to end the ban if the Senate votes again on the bill.

The House voted first on the new bill because its cosponsors, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) believed doing so would allow the Senate to consider it more quickly as a privileged resolution requiring fewer days of debate.

"It's time to end a policy of official discrimination that has cost America the service of some 13,500 men and women who wore our uniform with honor," Hoyer said Wednesday. "It's time to stop throwing away their service -- their willingness to die for our country -- because of who they are."

Most House Republicans opposed Wednesday's vote. In a conversation with reporters before the vote, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif), who is slated to chair the House Armed Services Committee in the next Congress, said Democrats "were more concerned about 'don't ask don't tell,' I believe, than about the military and about carrying out our responsibilities for those who are laying their lives on the line every day to protect us. That's a bad system."

In a bit of levity, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) later echoed McKeon's sentiments on the House floor: "Maybe that's why our approval ratings are somewhere between used car salesman and embezzler," he said. (A record low 13 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to a Gallup Poll survey released Wednesday.)

A new version of the defense bill without language ending "don't ask, don't tell" is expected to come up for a vote in the House later this week.

In a joint statement, gay rights groups pushing to end the ban cheered Wednesday's House vote, saying it "provides another resounding indication that 'don't ask, don't tell' can and should be repealed legislatively this year." The groups, ranging from the liberal Center for American Progress to the pro-gay Log Cabin Republicans, plan to spend the rest of the week lobbying other moderate Republican senators, including Richard Lugar (Ind.) and George Voinovich (Ohio). Neither has said in recent days how they might vote.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Wednesday also asked the Senate to quickly pass the bill. Doing so would enable the Defense Department "to carefully and responsibly manage a change in this policy instead of risking an abrupt change resulting from a decision in the courts," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.

But Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness and a vocal defender of the current military policy, criticized Democrats for holding Wednesday's vote "before most members of Congress have sufficient time to consider the consequences of that reckless action."

"Congressional chaos has become the new normal," Donnelly said.

McCain, the leading Republican critic of efforts to end the ban this year, did not comment on Wednesday's vote.

A majority of Americans support allowing gays and lesbians to sesrve openly in uniform, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week.

Staff writers Ben Pershing and Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report

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