Reiding the Tea Leaves

While Netroots Nation roars ahead in Las Vegas, numerous reports are coming out of the convention from individual activists and bloggers about direct access opportunities to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Each time I see a video or a transcript or an account of one of these exchanges with Senator Reid, I can’t help but wonder why no one is asking Senator Reid exactly when he plans to bring the National Defense Authorization Act (which includes the DADT repeal provision) to the floor of the Senate or whether he will commit to doing so in September.

Senator Reid is largely responsible for the legislative schedule on the floor of the Senate. When legislation is ready, he and his team decide when to schedule it for floor debate and a vote. Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has affirmed over and over again that NDAA, which was reported out of Senator Levin’s committee back in May, is 100% ready to go on the floor of the Senate.

Senator Reid has thus far refused to schedule a vote for NDAA. Judging by other organizations’ email blasts and public rhetoric, one might have expected NDAA to come to the floor as early as June. This, however, was certainly unrealistic. Although it would have been nice to get this vote over with in June and we certainly need to keep the pressure up on the Senate leadership, I do not subscribe to the tactic of intentionally misleading the public for the sake of generating low-yield pressure.

July, however, was definitely a more realistic target month for bringing NDAA to the floor. Given the fact that NDAA is ready to go any day, it is the responsibility (and right now, the failure) of Senator Reid to bring the bill to the floor for debate and a vote. Now that July has ticked away, we’re now left to cross our fingers and hope that Senator Reid is willing to schedule this bill – which is vitally important in and of itself, not to mention with the DADT repeal provision included – sometime after the Senate returns from August recess after Labor Day.

The individuals and organizations working on the repeal of DADT have been focusing much of their efforts in July on figuring out how to pressure Senator Reid to bring NDAA to the floor, and this strategic stalemate has not been a secret. Now, at Netroots Nation, activists and bloggers are getting multiple opportunities to engage Senator Reid directly and, as far as I can tell and as far as has been reported, no one has pinned Senator Reid down on when he plans to bring NDAA to the floor and, more importantly for the sake of accountability in front of a crowd that is critically important to his reelection effort right now, on why he has so far refused to bring this important piece of legislation up for a vote in July.

What’s interesting is that this is the same crowd of activists that criticizes establishment organizations for not holding elected officials accountable with their access. And this should sting a little coming from me because each and every person who knows me also knows that I have been one of the main critics of the larger organizations that I personally see abdicating their responsibilities on behalf of our community. But now that the tables are turned and its the individual activists that have the access, these critics seem to be doing the same thing. What is it with our community? I just don’t get it.