U.S. Senate Passes DADT Repeal Bill 65-31!

Although passage was a foregone conclusion after the 63-33 cloture vote earlier today, the United States Senate completed its legislative work on a standalone DADT repeal bill, passing the measure 65-31, with 8 Republicans joining 55 Democrats and 2 Independents. No Democrats voted against repeal, although Joe Manchin of West Virginia (who was just elected in a special election and is up again in 2012 for a full term) did not vote and issued a statement saying he did not favor DADT repeal at this time.

ANALYSIS
Interestingly, recently outed Mark Kirk (R-IL) who had voted against repeal in the House, and voted against invoking cloture last Friday, voted for cloture and the bill this time. Other Republican surprises were recently re-elected Richard Burr of North Carolina voting in favor as well as retiring George Voinovich of Ohio. Moderate Republic Richard Lugar of Indiana surprised many observers by voting against repeal. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas was the only woman in the United States Senate to vote against DADT repeal.

100% of Democrats voting (55 of 55) voted in favor of LGBT equality. 21% of Republicans voting (6 of 37) voted against LGBT equality. 94% (16 of 17) female Senators voted in favor of LGBT equality.

Here's the roll call vote on DADT Repeal:

YEAs ---65
Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Brown (R-MA) Burr (R-NC) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Coons (D-DE) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Ensign (R-NV) Feingold (D-WI)	Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY) Hagan (D-NC) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kerry (D-MA) Kirk (R-IL) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murkowski (R-AK)	Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (D-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (D-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---31
Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID)	DeMint (R-SC) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) LeMieux (R-FL) Lugar (R-IN)	McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting - 4
Bunning (R-KY) Gregg (R-NH)	Hatch (R-UT) Manchin (D-WV)

Outed Ill. Senate Candidate Kirk (R) Caught Discussing Voter Suppression

U.S. Representative Mark Kirk, who has recently been outed as a gay man by blogger Mike Rogers, and is currently in a very tight race with Alexi Giannoulias for the Illinois Senate seat once held by Barack Obama has been caught on tape discussing the long-running, illegal Republican practice of minority vote suppression.

Talking Points Memo reports:

Kirk's campaign confirmed the candidate was secretly taped last week as he was talking about his anti-voter fraud effort.

"These are lawyers and other people that will be deployed in key, vulnerable precincts, for example, South and West sides of Chicago, Rockford, Metro East, where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat," he said in the audio posted on YouTube.

As TPMMuckraker has reported, accusations from conservatives that ineligible voters are fraudulently stealing elections for Democrats have continued to fly in the 2010 campaign cycle, despite the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud. "Voter fraud" has been the rally cry for conservative groups seeking to make it more difficult to cast ballots and suppress minority voter turnout.

Kirk is widely considered the most moderate of the potential Republican senators to take office in January 2011. What's interesting here is that despite being known as a closeted homosexual, he is still a Republican at  heart, with the opposition to minority voting that that entails. Another example of the surprises intersectionality can produce!

Illinois Senate Candidate Mark Kirk (R) Outed!

Mike Rogers, the man who outed Senator Larry Craig in 2006, more than a year before the Senator was arrested in a Minneapolis airport for his "wide stance" has today outed another Republican member of Congress, Mark Kirk, who also happens to be the GOP nominee to take over Barack Obama's old Senate seat representing Illinois!

Kirk is considered a moderate Republican, but he did not vote to repeal DADT in the House recently (only 5 Republicans voted against DADT repeal: Charles Djou of Hawaii), Joseph Cao of Louisiana, Judy Biggert of Illinois), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, and Ron Paul of Texas) leading Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT group, to finally endorse Alexi Giannoulias, Kirk's Democratic opponent for the Illinois U.S. Senate seat.

Now, Kirk joins other Republican congressional hypocrites like David Dreier (R-CA) who have been outed by Mike Rogers but vote against LGBT equality. Rogers is never wrong, and this is what he says about Kirk:

In an effort to move the base in the Illinois Senate race, Kirk decided to tack right and that means throwing the gays (like him) under the bus. And once he voted that way, the phone began to ring. Not one or two, or three but 5 separate individuals contacted me about the now divorced Mr. Kirk. (Mr. and Mrs. Kirk were married from 2001 to 2009, the marriage produced no children.)

Within hours of the DADT repeal vote I was contacted by two people who knew Kirk from his college days.

"In law school in DC everyone knew Mark was gay," the first source told me. I explained that the information was intriguing, it would not be enough to go on. He continued, "But I had sex with him a number of times." Well, now we're onto something I thought. "Could someone verify for me that you knew Kirk and went to school with him?" I asked. "Yes" was the swift reply. "Could you recall personal details about Kirk that others may not know?" "Yes," he said.

And he did.

The next source claimed to have gone to undergraduate school with Kirk. I asked for proof that he and Kirk were in school together and once that was shared with me, I met with the source. The source introduced me to a man who had also been friends with Kirk in college. They both shared with me their interactions with Kirk, including one sexual in nature. The source who claimed to have sex with Kirk described personal details about the House, um, er, "member." The description was the same as the first source.

[...]

Then Kirk became a hypocrite. Kirk voted against repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, despite his being a closeted gay man in the military. As a Commander in the Navy Reserves Kirk has voted to keep a policy that if he were investigated under he would be tossed.

Recently we learned that it's not just his being a closeted gay man that Kirk lies about; he has a habit of making up awards supposedly given to him by the Navy.

Boo yah!