The companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives was introduced by Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

Under the bill, a federal employee and same-sex domestic partner, who are not related by blood and are living together in a committed intimate relationship, would be eligible to participate in federal retirement, life insurance, health, workers’ compensation, and Family and Medical Leave benefits to the same extent as married employees and their spouses.

“This legislation is the next step to achieving equity for the gay community,” Lieberman said, in a statement.

“We repealed the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy in the military because we want the best men and women America has to offer to defend our country. The same is true for federal employees: we want to attract the best men and women possible to serve in federal government. One way to do that is by offering competitive benefits to the family members of gay federal employees. This legislation makes good economic sense. It is sound policy. And it is the right thing to do.”

Lieberman, Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Collins, the ranking member, previously introduced the legislation in the past two Congresses. The Committee held two hearings on the bill and approved the measure in 2009.

In the U.S. House, Baldwin said “the federal government must set an example as an equal opportunity employer.”

“If we are to treat all federal employees fairly and recruit the best and the brightest to serve in government, we need this legislation,” she said.

According to a 2009 UCLA Williams Institute report, more that 30,000 federal workers live in committed relationships with same-sex domestic partners who are not federal employees.

Nearly 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies now offer health benefits to employees’ domestic partners, up from just 25 percent in 2000.

Making good on his promise, tweeted yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), on Thursday, announced he would sponsor Senate Bill 4022, “a bill to provide for the repeal of the Department of Defense policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.).

Lieberman said Thursday that he has the necessary 60 votes to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which was defeated yesterday, for the second time, as part of the larger Defense Authorization bill, when the GOP-led filibuster prevented a debate and vote from coming to the Senate floor.

Full text of SB 4022 is not yet available; check back for updates.

Last night, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement:

“The bipartisan proposal from Senators Lieberman and Collins provides renewed hope that progress is still possible in the Senate; an army of allies stands ready in the House to pass a standalone repeal of the discriminatory policy once the Senate acts.”

Update, 12/10/10, 7:30 p.m. ET:

Just after 7 p.m., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduced the updated bill SB 4023, the stand-alone “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal bill, before the Senate ended for the day. The bill carries 27 co-sponsors.

No further action is expected until Monday.

Not more than an hour after the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal failed in the Senate — following a key procedural vote on the Defense Authorization bill — Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said he and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) plan to introduce a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal as “stand alone” vote this session.

“Senator Collins and I, Senator (Mark) Udall (D-Colo.) and others will be, perhaps by the end of this day, introducing a free-standing bill — a separate piece of legislation — to repeal the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy,” Lieberman said in an afternoon news conference, following the Senate vote.

Lieberman also took to Twitter in annoucing his next steps:

Lieberman reports that Reid will invoke “Rule 14″ on the free-standing DADT repeal, so that it bypasses committee and is brought directly to the Senate floor before the end of the lame-duck session — Lieberman said the necessary 60 votes are there.

Rule 14 is a Senate procedure that gives the majority leader the right to expedite legislation.

The defense spending bill failed by a vote of 57-40 on Thursday, just 3 votes shy of the 60 needed to override a Republican-led filibuster.

Check back here for continuing coverage on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Gates

Defense Secretary Robert Gates joined the list of skeptics Monday when he said he was “not particularly optimistic” that the Senate would vote before the end of the year to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the U.S. military.

Speaking aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, Gates said he was unsure that there would be a repeal of the 17-year-old ban, and reiterated his concern that if Congress did not act on the legislation, the courts might overturn the policy on their own.

“My greatest fear is that we have to be told that this law will be overturned by a court and we will be forced to implement it without any time for information or training, or any of the other efforts that need to be undertaken to prepare us for such a change,” Gates said.

In Washington, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) offered a different perspective.

Lieberman, a leading advocate of overturning the ban, “believes that there are at least 60 votes to repeal . . . provided the leadership allows time for sufficient debate and amendments,” according to an aide to the Senator.

Leiberman has called upon the Senate should stay in session until the current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is repealed.

On Monday morning, Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced the schedule for the Senate’s votes through the end of the lame-duck session — Dec. 17 — which makes no mention of the Defense Authorization Bill, which includes the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal language.

The current law, dubbed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” calls for service members to be discharged if they disclose that they are homosexual.

(Photo credit: Jeff Sheng, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" series, www.jeffsheng.com)

Lieberman introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, legislation that would lift the ban and prohibit discrimination against gay service members.

The law “is inconsistent with our most important national values and diminishes our military readiness,” Lieberman told reporters.

Leading Senate Democrats pledged to move quickly to repeal the ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces rather than wait, as the Pentagon has requested, for the military to complete a lengthy review.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said he expects his panel to take up the measure in May as part of the annual defense authorization bill.

The Pentagon and congressional Republicans have urged Democrats to allow the military to first complete its study of the policy and the impact of a potential repeal. The study is expected to be completed by Dec. 1

Meanwhile, Lieberman and Levin have called for a moratorium on further dismissals of gays under the current law while the Pentagon conducts its review.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, strongly endorsed President Obama’s plan to end the ban, and said the current law “forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

In his State of the Union address on January 27, Obama called on Congress to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. More than 13,000 members of the military have been discharged since the law was enacted in 1993.

Photo credit: Jeff Sheng.

Lieberman

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is expected to introduce a bill next week to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” adding an independent voice to the movement to overturn the 1993 law that prohibits gay people from serving openly in the armed forces.

In a statement released this week, Lieberman said:

“I will be proud to be a sponsor of the important effort to enable patriotic gay Americans to defend our national security and our founding values of freedom and opportunity. I have opposed the current policy of preventing gay Americans from openly serving in the military since its enactment in 1993.”

In an exclusive interview with the New York Daily News, Lieberman said allowing gays to serve openly fulfills the bedrock American promise of providing citizens with “an equal opportunity to do whatever job their talents and sense of purpose and motivations lead them to want to do – including military service.”

“When you artificially limit the pool of people who can enlist then you are diminishing military effectiveness,” he added.

Lieberman disputes the claim that allowing gay people to serve openly would cause havoc within the ranks. Indeed, to argue that belittles the maturity of our soldiers.

Since implementation of the statute nearly 20 years ago, the military has discharged some 14,000 qualified men and women, many of them serving in critical jobs like Arabic and Persian translation.

The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act would provide domestic partner benefits for federal employees and their same-sex partners, including federal health insurance, retirement and disability benefits, family, medical and emergency leave, and compensation for work injuries.

Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said he and Ranking Member Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced the bill with the purpose of bringing a measure of equality to the federal work force.

“I believe this legislation is really on the right side of history, and it, in a sense, is another expression of a concept we believe in, which is equal pay for equal work, and in this case, equal benefits for equal work,” Lieberman said.

The bill is expected to receive a lukewarm reception in the full Senate, however, due to opposition from conservative Republicans.

In a statement from the White House, spokesperson Shin Inouye said, “The President is pleased with yesterday’s progress on the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act, and urges Congress to move swiftly to pass this crucial legislation… He hopes to see this bill come to his desk for his signature next year.”

Similar legislation, introduced in the House by openly lesbian Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) cleared the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on November 18.