Susan M. Collins

Will the stand-alone bill pass after the defense authorization bill failed? It probably won’t attract Scott Brown’s support until the tax deal is passed — and while that could clear the Senate tomorrow, the House is still a bit of a question. Sen. Joe Manchin voted against proceeding with repeal last week, and when people asked why, his explanation was utterly incoherent. So I am actually not much more optimistic about repeal today than I was at the beginning of the month. But it’s still alive.

Reid might think that Collins’ demands are actually impossible to meet, given the time-frame. (Reid might be right, too, even if Joe Lieberman forces everyone to work over Christmas.) And with House Democrats making waves over the Obama tax cut deal, Collins could still “regretfully” torpedo “don’t ask, don’t tell” even if she is promised everything she wants, because of that pledge to block everything until our richest citizens are properly taken care of.

So if Reid thinks Collins is making impossible demands, he’ll hold a vote without her, and it will fail, and I dunno, I guess we can just blame both of them.

“Millions of illegal immigrants could attempt to become legal residents as a result of this proposal, according to some estimates, and it is incumbent upon the Senate to ensure our policies never again lead to a situation where we are confronted with upwards of 12 million illegal immigrants residing within our borders.”

Yes, according to “some estimates,” millions of people “could attempt” to become legal residents. That is the point of the legislation. To allow people to stay in America legally, instead of illegally, if they do things that are considered beneficial for the country as a whole. According to real estimates, a couple hundred thousand people would be eligible to apply for “conditional lawful permanent resident status” immediately, and many more people would eventually be eligible to apply for that status should they meet certain conditions.

But Olympia Snowe does have a really good point: If the Senate refuses to act on this issue, all of the immigrants will probably just go away.

(John McCain, who used to support a much less restrictive version of the DREAM Act, now opposes this one, but no one expects anything but embittered betrayals from that old codger. Snowe is supposed to be a reasonable person.)

Meanwhile, there are 60 votes for the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Supposedly. But there is still a very good chance it will not happen, because of Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

While Collins strongly supports allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces, she even more strongly supports the right of Republican senators to offer unlimited pointless amendments to the defense authorization bill in order to delay its passage until a more conservative Congress is in session and repeal is off the table for possibly years.

So she’s been in tense negotiations with Harry Reid, who is promising “15 amendments, 17 hours of debate, and room to negotiate more.” That is not enough for Collins.

Sources close to Sen. Collins insist she’s negotiating in “good faith,” but usually two people who support the same exact goal — in this case, the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” — don’t actually need to waste very much time “negotiating” anything.

Harry Reid still wants to hold a cloture vote tonight, but if Susan Collins doesn’t come around soon, that vote will fail.

“It would be wonderful if President [George H.W.] Bush would come out for the treaty. That would be so powerful and definitely help,” Collins said in a telephone interview last week.

That would be wonderful! So, so wonderful. And powerful. Susan Collins is, I guess, too dumb to decide for herself if this treaty is worthwhile or not, and apparently former President George H.W. Bush must make public announcements telling her how to vote on things, from now on. Bush signed the original START agreement. His national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, and his secretary of state (and honorary Bush family member), James Baker, are in favor of this one. But Susan Collins cannot bring herself to support it unless the 86-year-old former president himself holds a press conference politely asking her to.

Olympia Snowe, the cagier Maine Republican, is just being vague. She has “concerns,” and she will “carefully review such concerns until a vote is scheduled.” (That just means she’s also in favor of delaying a vote until the new class of Republicans can sink the whole thing.)

Republicans will filibuster, and attempt to add other amendments. Reid’s plan:

Democrats have said Reid planned to allow votes on only three significant amendments: one to strip the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal language, one to add the DREAM Act and another to end the practice of secret holds on legislation and nominations.

It will take 60 votes to bring the authorization bill to the floor with DADT repeal attached, and 60 votes to add the DREAM act.

If I had to bet, I’d say the DREAM act and the amendment ending secret holds both fail, but the bill goes forward with the amendment ending DADT intact. But it all depends solely on the Republican senators from Maine. And both of them are being difficult, as usual. They’re undecided, we’re told. They’re fine with gays in the military, but they have problems with Senate process, now.

Here’s what I don’t understand about Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe: Republicans hate them. Republican primary voters will punish them no matter what. If they vote to continue banning gay and lesbian service-members from serving openly, Republican primary voters will not suddenly come around on them. (Snowe is up for reelection in 2012, and Maine Republicans aren’t happy with her at the moment.)

On the other hand, independent and Democratic voters have demonstrated that they’ll continue to vote for them as long as they keep up the pretense of moderation. Even though Snowe and Collins have stood in the way of progress as often as they’ve compromised this congress, Maine voters just see sensible independence. So their bases will probably support them no matter their votes on DADT.

But that’s moot, because they still won’t make it out of a Republican primary. They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. So why not just vote your conscience? Maybe it’s presumptuous of me to assume that Collins and Snowe support equal rights for gay people, but their whole stupid gimmick is not being openly, blatantly evil, so let’s just get on with it.

Update: And Susan Collins will doom the entire bill because she’s cranky that her fellow Republicans will not be allowed to add bullshit amendments that she would oppose anyway. Process! It’s so, so much more important than doing the obvious right thing.