It's A House Afire, Or Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Do Something

House Dems are on the move today to get a stand-alone version of DADT through to the Senate before the end of the lame duck session.

This was uncertain as late as this morning. But just now, in a briefing with reporters, Steny Hoyer confirmed it: House Dems will indeed introduce a stand alone bill this week to repeal don't ask don't tell.

Hoyer said that House Dems will introduce a repeal bill that "reflects the Lieberman-Collins bill verbatim," my Post colleague Paul Kane confirms. That means House Dems are set to introduce their own companion of the stand-alone bill that Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins introduced last week. Both the House and Senate bills mirror the language in the original defense authorization bill, which Republicans blocked in the Senate.

Good for them.  Here's Hoyer's statement:

"Today Rep. Patrick Murphy is introducing a new standalone bill to to allow for repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' and I am proud to join him as the lead co-sponsor. As Secretary Gates and others have stressed, it is critical that Congress pass this legislation, empowering the Defense Department to implement repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' itself, rather than have repeal imposed by the Courts," said Hoyer.

"I look forward to bringing this bill to the House floor soon, and I hope the Senate will swiftly take action as well so that the bill can be signed into law as soon as possible. This discriminatory and harmful policy has weakened America's security by depriving us of the work of tens of thousands of gay and lesbian troops who have served their country honorably. And it has severely compromised our Armed Forces' core value of integrity," concluded Hoyer.

Senate Republicans have already called the Dems bluff on including this measure in the military spending bill.  I don't see why they can't do it again.  Surely we'll be hearing Senators Collins and Brown whine about amendments and how they aren't homophobic bigots....but they won't vote for the stand-alone bill either.  Also, we'll need to spend a week so that Johnny Volcano can be angry, and then we won't have time, of course, to actually consider the bill.

Look for the Senate to murder this one too.