The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee passed The Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act of 2011 Wednesday, following a two-week consideration.

Since the Committee, which is led by Connecticut Independent U.S. Rep. Joe Lieberman and Maine Republican U.S. Rep. Susan Collins, is somewhat limited in its region of authority, the bill offers a narrow pathway that is likely not to force it before additional committees in advance of a floor vote. For example, the bill does not really take up the highly-controversial matters surrounding the TSA, which falls under the purview of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Essentially, the bill focuses on streamlining the DHS. Numerous amendments were offered — some more radical than others — and the proposal was ultimately adopted on a bipartisan vote of 9-to-1 with 31 amendments.

Joe Lieberman

“The Department of Homeland Security is operating at a higher level now than at any time in the past,” Lieberman said. “But it continues to be a challenge to manage. This authorization bill translates worthy programs into statute, eliminates others, and nips and tucks to find cost savings to help the Department continue to mature and meet its missions more effectively.

“Given the current fiscal environment, I am particularly proud of a series of provisions to bring greater discipline to the Department’s acquisitions process, which could in turn save billions in taxpayer dollars now lost to waste, fraud, abuse or just plain failure.”

While the Committee was marking up the bill, Lieberman had said he viewed this process, given the number of years that had passed since DHS was created, as an opportunity to take a hard look at all the separate offices under the department, “to eliminate offices that really have not functioned or functioned well and to try to consolidate in other ways.”

It appears the Committee took that goal to heart.

The bill establishes a process for review of proposed DHS acquisitions and investments, and directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to reduce overhead costs of DHS field offices located near each other at least 5 percent by consolidating buildings and other support functions.

It eliminates the Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement and the Office of Cargo Security Policy. It also eliminates the Border and Transportation Security Directorate, the Office for Domestic Preparedness, and the Office of State and Local Government Coordination, which were abolished through administrative reorganizations. In addition, DHS will be required to consolidate its Washington headquarters at St. Elizabeths before fiscal year 2018.

The National Protection and Programs Directorate would be renamed as the Infrastructure Protection and Resilience Directorate, and the newly named organization would acquire the Federal Protective Service and Office of Infrastructure Protection.

An Office of International Travel Security and Screening would be created from a combination of U.S. Visit, the Visa Waiver Program, and the Screening Coordination Office to identify and prevent terrorist travel in or to the U.S. An electronic system would also be created that would allow for remote viewing of visa applications and to notify airlines when a traveler’s visa for entry into the U.S. has been cancelled.

Legal authorization for DHS’s intelligence activities would be provided under the National Security Act, and would codify an earlier executive order that gave the DHS Secretary authority to manage access to classified information for state, local, tribal and private sector entities. In addition, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis would be provided the ability to directly hire its own employees — an authority long since granted to others within the civilian intelligence community.

A more detailed outline of the bill, provided by the Senate Committee, is embedded below.

Susan Collins

“DHS is a more effective department than it once was. But the Department must continue to mature and reach its full potential. This first-ever authorization bill is another step toward that goal,” Collins said.

“In light of the broader fiscal crisis we face, we have produced a fiscally responsible bill. The new proposals — such as the Office of International Travel Security and Screening and improvements to the DHS acquisition system — are intended to enhance performance, consolidate functions and save money in the long run. … We want real savings — not shell-game savings.”

But all of this being said, a turf battle continues to rage between committees, especially in the U.S. House, where the Homeland Security Committee has pushed to consolidate its oversight of the department. But the House Committee Chairman, U.S. Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, appears to be working in tandem with his Senate counterparts on scope and objective of the authorization.

“I have been working in close coordination with Senators Lieberman and Collins as both committees move toward our shared goal of reauthorizing DHS … Within the next several weeks, I will introduce and the House Homeland Security Committee will mark up a DHS authorization bill. I tend the legislation to be targeted to reduce inefficiencies and waste, consolidate functions and improve the acquisition process, while strengthening valuable homeland security programs,” King said.

Department of Homeland Security Authorization Bill 2011 Outline

MSNBC reports:

Fifty-two percent said they strongly believe the Obama administration should not release the photos, and an additional 12 percent agreed, although not as strongly.

By comparison, 24 percent said they strongly believe the photos should be released, and 5 percent more agreed not so strongly.

The complete results of the poll will be released later today.

The news may come as a surprise to public figures like Sarah Palin who have pandered to the so-called “deather” conspiracy holding that last weekend’s raid on bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound was somehow faked. Last week, Palin used her Twitter account to command Obama to release the photos. She contended that releasing the images would scare would-be terrorists from tangling with the U.S. “No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama,” she said. “[I]t’s part of the mission.”

Other Republicans, including Sen. Lindsay Graham (S.C.) and Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), have also come out in favor of releasing the photos, though they both said it was out of concern that conspiracy theories surrounding bin Laden would create political fallout at home and abroad. DNA tests and an al Qaeda statement have since confirmed bin Laden’s death at the hands of the U.S. military.

Collins has been the prime negotiator for moderate Republicans to possibly cross the aisle to support the repeal. Other Republicans, such as Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (D-Alaska), had previously indicated that they may support ending the ban on openly gay service members.

Collins was engaged in extensive discussions with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) over how to bring the bill to the Senate floor. Those conversations hit a wall when Reid refused Collins’ request that the bill be open subject to full debate without a limit on amendments. Reid was concerned that would allow conservative Republicans to hijack the debate and delay the vote.

Collins may have supported the measure today, but she was visibly displeased throughout the process. Washington Independent alum Elise Foley reported for the Huffington Post:

Her vote came after she angrily roamed the Senate floor, rolling up text of the legislation and waving it around, smacking it on Sen. Dick Durbin’s desk and hitting him on the arm with it.

“I’m extremely disappointed that the Senate majority leader walked away from negotiations,” Collins said in a press conference held with Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) following the vote. But there may still be hope for the bill to pass during the lame-duck session if Reid can negotiate favorable debate terms with the Republicans who support the bill.
“I am convinced there are 60, or even 61 or 62 votes to repeal ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’” Collins said. In addition, Lieberman tweeted on Thursday afternoon after the failed vote that the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal will be brought up as a standalone bill during the lame-duck session.

Polls have consistently shown that Americans support repealing the policy, with two-thirds of Americans favoring the rights of gays and lesbians to serve in the military, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday. At the request of Congress, the Obama administration recently completed a year-long review on the impacts of repealing the policy, and the report indicated there would be almost no risk in ending the discriminatory policy, with the majority of service members believing repeal would either have positive or no impacts on their units.

The lame-duck session could be the last chance for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to pass a number of bills. (Pete Marovich/ZUMApress.com)

The midterm hangover having finally worn off, the 111th Congress returns today to kick off the lame-duck session, its last hurrah before its successor takes over. And the 112th Congress will look radically different, with Republicans in control of the House and the Democratic majority in the Senate significantly reduced. These next few weeks, then, could be the last chance for major Democratic initiatives. But the hurdles are high, and Republicans see no reason to grant Democrats any victories after the populace voiced its discontent with the policies of the past two years.

[Congress1] The battle lines are drawn; here are the fields on which they’ll be fought:

Bush tax cuts:

The biggest question before the Senate — and the one that will likely receive the most attention — is the expiration of the 2001 tax cuts signed into law by President Bush. Facing Democratic resistance in the Senate at the time, Republicans set up the cuts to sunset after ten years. Now that they’re set to expire, however, GOP lawmakers have lined up shoulder to shoulder to make them permanent.

President Obama, on the other hand, ran for office on a pledge to extend the existing tax rates for families making less than $250,000 a year, while letting the tax cuts for those making over that number expire. But as the economy continued to falter and Democratic re-election prospects began looking bleak, Democrats in Congress put off addressing issues related to the tax code until after the midterm elections. Now that Republicans have made big gains in both chambers of Congress, Democrats find their confidence further weakened.

Following the midterms, the White House has signalled that Democrats might be willing to compromise on the idea of a permanent extension of tax cuts for middle-class families and a temporary extension of cuts for the two percent of Americans families making more than $250,000, but it won’t stomach the approximately $700 billion in additional debt that would be required to extend those cuts permanently. Republicans, on the other hand, haven’t deviated from their position that the tax cuts for all Americans be kept together as a package deal.

If neither side blinks, taxes are set to rise for all Americans effective January 1. Neither party wants to be seen as responsible for a tax hike during difficult economic times, but Democrats have appeared far more worried at the prospect of getting blamed should negotiations break down. Polls favor the Democrats’ position that the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should be allowed to expire, but without the votes of at least two Republicans in the Senate, the proposal is likely to fail. Barring momentum in Congress for the creation of a new tax bracket — for people making half a million dollars or a million dollars per year — in order to better rhetorically define the class of folks for whom Republicans are advocating tax relief, the easiest and most likely outcome will be a bill that temporarily extends all the tax cuts, simply kicking the decision of what to do to some point farther down the road.

Unemployment insurance benefits

As Congress frets over whether the marginal tax rate for incomes over $200,000 should be raised three percentage points, the Senate is also on the verge of allowing federal unemployment benefits to lapse — again. Extending the benefits before they expire on November 30 might seem like a no-brainer: It would prevent somewhere between 1.2 and 2 million unemployed Americans from having their subsistence checks cut off just in time for Christmas and would reduce the risk of a drop in consumer spending and economic growth as high as 0.4 percentage points from December to February.

Republicans might have trouble arguing that deficit reduction trumps other priorities, including unemployment benefits, when the only major initiative the GOP is pushing — extending the Bush tax cuts for the upper 2 percent of wage earners — would increase the deficit by $700 billion over ten years. That said, Republicans in the Senate, along with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), are likely to vote against any extension of unemployment insurance benefits unless Democrats can come up with ways to offset their cost.

The last time unemployment benefits were set to lapse, back in early June, the Senate was unable to muster enough votes to renew an extension for 51 days. With Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine joining Democrats to vote for cloture, and Nelson joining with Republicans to vote against debate, Democrats had no choice but to wait for Sen. Carte Goodwin (D-W.Va.) to be sworn in as a replacement for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D- W.Va.) in order to garner a 60th vote.

This time, assuming all the senators maintain their positions in the debate, the hurdle will be that much higher for Democrats after Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) takes the seat of Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) on Nov. 29. With one fewer assured vote, Democrats would either have to come up with a package of equivalent spending cuts that satisfies Republicans’ demands or persuade one more Republican to join their cause. Neither scenario appears particularly likely, however, which is why many unemployed Americans are bracing for the worst come Nov. 30.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

A long-awaited Pentagon study on ending the practice of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the 17-year-old law that requires military service members to keep their sexual orientation secret, isn’t due to President Obama until December 1, but early media reports indicate that it will buttress gay rights advocates’ arguments to repeal the law. More than 70 percent of the respondents in the Pentagon survey indicated that repeal would have either positive, mixed or nonexistent effects, leading the authors to conclude that the military can lift its ban on gay and lesbian Americans serving openly in uniform while incurring minimal risk in its current war efforts.

If the study brings good news to those hoping to repeal the law, however, the current situation in the Senate should not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attempted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before the midterm elections, tacking the provision onto a defense reauthorization bill that failed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster in the Senate. The bill was weighed down by many add-ons — including the DREAM Act, which seeks to extend a path to citizenship to some undocumented immigrants who attend college or serve in the military — giving too many senators excuses to vote against it, but advocates remained hopeful that repeal could pass along with the defense bill when Congress resumed for its lame-duck session.

Now Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, is said to be negotiating with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, to remove the DADT repeal provision from the defense bill. McCain had previously voiced openness to authorizing a repeal of the law following the Pentagon’s review, but since that time his views have hardened. During his re-election battle earlier this year, McCain faced a primary challenger from the right and promised during his campaign to preserve the law.

In the absence of support from McCain, advocacy groups have identified 10 senators who have indicated in the past that they’d like to see the Pentagon’s study before deciding on whether to lift the military’s policy. The list includes Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Oympia Snowe (R-Maine), George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Jim Webb (D-Va.). Once the results of the study are known, gay rights groups hope these senators will take them to heart and vote for repeal. If they follow McCain’s lead and renege on their previous openness to getting rid of the law, however, it may be a long time before Congress can muster sufficient votes to repeal the policy.

Campaign finance reform

Following an election season that saw record amounts of cash — including a fair chunk from undisclosed sources — spent on political advertising by outside groups, campaign finance reform advocates are still hoping that Democrats in Congress might take advantage of their remaining time in charge of both chambers to pass legislation to shore up the loophole-ridden landscape of campaign finance law. The most popular effort, by far, during the last year has been a bill called the DISCLOSE Act, which would require all groups spending money on electioneering activities in future elections to disclose their major donors.

While premised on a fairly bipartisan concept of full disclosure, the bill soon ran into trouble in the Senate over additional components that had been added on to it. Measures to prohibit campaign spending by companies holding government contracts or those exceeding a certain threshold of foreign ownership were read by Senate Republicans as an attempt to privilege union speech over that of corporations. Traditional campaign finance reform advocates like Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) held onto such objections and voted against cloture for the bill when Democrats declined to take them out.

Now Democrats in the Senate are contemplating one last attempt to pass a stripped-down version of the DISCLOSE Act — one that sticks strictly to the principle of transparency that Republicans once advocated as their gold standard for effective campaign finance legislation. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a staunch opponent of nearly all campaign finance legislation, might prove an even bigger obstacle to the bill’s passage than any single aspect of the legislation. While Snowe or Collins, or even Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) or Senator-elect Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), might prove receptive to the measure in principle, it appears highly unlikely that any of them are willing to buck their party leadership for the cause.

Energy/environment

Even if the lame-duck session likely represents the best opportunity for Democrats to pass key pieces of energy legislation before a more Republican Congress comes to town, it seems unlikely that anything significant will move.

The House, for its part, has already passed a cap-and-trade bill and an oil spill response bill, and all eyes are now on the Senate. But it looks like major energy action in the chamber will have to wait until next year, if it happens at all.

One clean energy advocate with close ties to Congress downplayed the likelihood that energy legislation will pass during the lame duck. “Little will happen, probably,” he said.

The only energy-related bill that is likely to see the light of day during the lame-duck session is a proposal to encourage the production of electric and natural gas vehicles. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a cloture vote for Wednesday on the bill, the Promoting Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles Act of 2010. The bill has bipartisan support.

Asked about the prospects for energy legislation during the lame duck in the Senate, Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid, said, “We filed cloture on a motion to proceed to a natural gas bill before we left. Other than that, we have many items that are possible for consideration during the lame duck.” Lachapelle did not elaborate on the pieces of legislation to which she was referring.

Backers of a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, are keeping their fingers crossed that such a proposal can move in the lame-duck session. “We’re optimistic about the lame duck,” said one RES proponent who was not authorized to talk on the record.

Reid and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) spoke on the phone Tuesday about the possibility of moving an RES during the lame duck. Bingaman’s spokesman, Bill Wicker, would not discuss the call. “This was a private conversation between two Members, so I have to respect that,” he said in an email. “But we all should know more about the lame duck before much longer.”

But a senior Senate aide with knowledge of the conversation downplayed the possibility that an RES would be brought up for a vote during the lame-duck session. “They had a good conversation and agreed it will be challenging to get 60 votes for expedited consideration of an RES during the limited time left in the session,” the aide said of discussion between Reid and Bingaman. Indeed, RES supporters would need to secure the support of two to four Republicans in addition to the four who already support the bill in order to get 60 votes.

An oil spill response bill and various pieces of legislation to promote energy efficiency and home weatherization are all pending in the Senate. But it looks like consideration of those bills will have to wait until next year.

DREAM Act

Reid and Pelosi have vowed to push for a lame-duck vote on the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow some undocumented young people who came to the United States as children to gain legal status for attending college or serving in the military.

In the House, the vote could come as early as this week, Democrat sources told Politico. Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) were reportedly tasked by Pelosi with determining whether the caucus would be able to pass the bill.

If the act does not pass in the lame-duck session, it has very little chance of passage before 2013. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who is expected to head the House subcommittee on immigration, refers to the DREAM Act as “amnesty” and promised he would use his authority in the GOP-led House to block the act. GOP gains in the Senate also lessen the likelihood of passing the bill next session.

Reid recently said he would need support from “a handful of Republicans” to pass the bill during the lame duck, echoing estimates by bill sponsor Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that at least five Republicans would need to support the bill for it to pass. A spokesman for Reid confirmed last week that he plans to bring up the DREAM Act for a vote during the lame-duck session, although it is still unclear whether it would be as a standalone measure or as an attachment to another bill.

The problem is that Reid doesn’t have much time — or sure support for the DREAM Act from his caucus. The act last came up for a vote in 2007, and seven of the eight Democrats who voted against it then are still in the Senate. While a few might support the bill this time around, five told The Hill in September they are still undecided on the DREAM Act.

Complicating matters, Mark Kirk’s assumption of Roland Burris’ seat in the Senate turns a sure “yes” vote into a likely “no.” Kirk has been lobbied heavily by DREAM Act supporters, but said before the election that he would vote against the act unless border security measures were pushed first. “It’s not time for the DREAM Act right now,” he told reporters in October. “If the DREAM Act came up for a vote right now, I would vote ‘no.’”

All current Republican senators voted in September to filibuster the defense authorization bill after Reid announced plans to attach the DREAM Act. But given the additional controversy over that bill — it included a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and would have allowed for only limited changes from Republicans — it’s tough to extrapolate much from it about how senators would vote on the DREAM Act as a standalone bill.

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) said he would support the bill if it were brought to the floor on its own, even though he opposed it as part of the defense authorization bill. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who co-sponsored the bill, would also almost certainly vote for it if it comes up in the lame-duck session.

Several other Republicans voted for the DREAM Act in 2007, but their support this year remains uncertain because of rightward shifts on immigration policy and the possibility of the bill again being attached to other legislation. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was an original sponsor of the bill when it was first introduced in 2001 and voted for it in 2007. This year, he said the government should secure the borders before it focuses on the DREAM Act.

Written by Jesse Zwick, Andrew Restuccia and Elise Foley.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) criticized the DISCLOSE Act in July, but Democrats hope for her vote on a modified version of the bill. (Louie Palu/ZUMA Press)

Despite widespread public opposition to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and multiple exhortations by the president for Congress to act, Senate Democrats were unable to overcome a Republican filibuster to pass the DISCLOSE Act, a bill requiring interest groups to name the donors behind their campaign ads, in the months leading up the midterm elections. Next year, when the GOP claims a majority in the House, the odds of passage are slim. “Um, no,” said presumptive House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman when asked if Republicans might introduce a version of the DISCLOSE Act next year.

[Economy1] The last chance, then, for Congress to put some form of disclosure legislation on the books before the shadowy spending process repeats itself, in grander fashion, in 2012 might be now, the lame-duck session in advance of the swearing-in of the much more Republican 112th Congress in January.

But if the numerical chances of the bill’s passage in the Senate — it will only need the votes of two Republican senators to overcome a filibuster when Congress returns from its campaigning break next week — will never look better, the level of trust and communication between key Democratic and Republican Senate offices typically engaged on the issue of campaign finance stands at a seeming all-time low.

Democrats in leadership are now weighing the idea of stripping the less essential provisions of the DISCLOSE Act — measures to prohibit spending from companies holding government contracts or those exceeding a certain threshold of foreign ownership — as an act of good faith in order the counter Republican qualms about the bill and make one last-ditch effort to pass it. They’ll only do so, however, if they anticipate success, and the current breakdown in negotiations between the key parties is making them wary about the bill’s chances of garnering any GOP support at all.

How has a year’s worth of legislative effort on a popular measure now found itself on the brink of failure, and what might make it still succeed? An understanding of the bill’s chances in the lame-duck session requires a look back at its struggles through Congress and the reasons for the current standstill.

*****

The DISCLOSE Act’s problems began with its personnel. The bill originated in the offices of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), legislators best known for their efforts, as chairmen of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, respectively, to get their fellow Democrats elected. Consequently, it was viewed with suspicion by House Republicans.

“When you immediately go to the two lawmakers who are responsible for getting Democrats elected and say, ‘Please write us the bill,’ a lot of Republicans looked at that and said, ‘Huh, that’s a curious choice,’” said Sean Parnell, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates against imposing limits on campaign spending. “It was the chair of the DCCC and former chair of DSCC leading the process. There was no way that was not going to be seen as partisan. From there it just kind of all went downhill.”

With the Senate calendar and key staffers still tied up with health care reform and financial regulation, it fell to the House to get the ball rolling — but House Democrats said the bill’s basic idea never gained traction among Republicans.

“We released a framework to the public four months in advance of introducing the bill and we reached out to specific Republicans who normally engage in campaign finance issues,” said a Democratic aide who worked on the bill. “We never were approached by Republicans to say they’d vote for stripped-down disclosure provisions.”

Only two Republicans — Reps. Ahn Cao (La.) and Mike Castle (Del.) — signaled support for the bill, so House Democrats proceeded to make it something of a wish list. They added provisions barring companies with federal contracts or those exceeding a certain threshold of foreign ownership from spending independently to influence elections. And they also made an exception for longstanding nonprofits — like the Sierra Club or the National Rifle Association — that met certain membership requirements.

The result was a bill that arrived fully formed in the Senate at the end of June, but one that also provided ample opportunity to its opponents (or would-be supporters) to hammer it as partisan or unfair. The provisions barring certain companies from spending looked to some like built-in advantages for unions, while the NRA carve-out, as it became known, provided an ironic special-interest twist on a bill meant to be about good government.

When the bill came up for its first Senate vote in July, however, Democrats hoped they could still pressure Republicans with a reputation for past leadership on campaign finance issues — like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — or newly elected Sen. Scott Brown to cast a vote in favor of the overarching concept of disclosure. But these senators objected to the lack of a committee mark-up or other opportunities to make constructive changes to the bill.

“Unfortunately, the Senate Majority Leader chose to bring forward a bill that doesn’t live up to its title,” Collins wrote in a statement after her first procedural vote against the DISCLOSE Act. “It was drafted by Democrats behind closed doors. No committee hearings were ever held on this legislation; therefore, there never was an opportunity to make any changes to this bill or mark-up in the committee process before we were asked to consider it.”

Democratic aides in the Senate, however, insist they gave Republican senators like Snowe, Collins and Brown every opportunity for input into the bill.

“When I say we offered them a seat at the table it was, literally, ‘Come write the bill with us. Here’s a list of principles and tell us how you’d like to write it,’” said a Democratic staffer who worked on the bill in the Senate. “It could not have been a more welcoming process, but there was very little input offered.” After initial signs of engagement on the issue, Republican offices stopped responding to emails from Democratic staffers. (The offices of Sens. Snowe and Collins also did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.)

But by allowing a vote on the same bill that had passed the House and not anticipating the attacks that would be leveled against it, Senate Democrats failed to move the bill and, worse, lost the battle of public perception over whether the bill was a push for transparency or a thinly veiled attempt to sway the outcome of the pending midterm contests in their favor.

By the time the bill was slated to be brought up again in Congress for a vote in late September, it suffered from a breakdown in trust. Both sides realized that the current bill was a nonstarter, but there was no time in the packed legislative schedule to take the multiple days required to introduce a new, stripped-down version. Instead, Democrats urged Snowe and Collins to vote for cloture on the bill as it stood, on the assurance that the Democratic leadership would scrap whatever the senators didn’t like when it came time for debate and amendments. But such a deal would have required the confidence of all parties.

“My understanding — and I’ve talked to both Republican and Democratic offices — is that Democrats were saying, ‘Well, just tell us what you want,’ and Republicans were saying, ‘Tell us how you’ll change it and then we’ll talk,’” said Meredith McGehee, who lobbies for greater transparency in campaign finance for the Campaign Legal Center.

Other campaign finance reform advocates take a more cynical view. “A pared-down version was being discussed in the last round and that wasn’t what the issue was,” said Craig Holman, a campaign finance expert at Public Citizen, a citizen lobby group. “The Republicans, down to Collins and Snowe, even though their public denunciations were about unions, none of them ever meant that. All they wanted was anonymous corporate support in 2010 and 2012.”

In either case, the Maine senators, having already decried the bill once, cited their same complaints and voted ‘no’ once again. A vote for cloture was too close to a vote for the bill itself, and moreover, it opened the door to the possibility of Democrats pulling a fast one and passing the bill without amendments, denying them any input and earning them the wrath of the Republican caucus for enabling Democrats to enact their agenda. The bill failed to overcome a filibuster by a single vote.

*****

Now, facing a lame-duck session with a host of pressing items on the agenda — from the START Treaty to an unemployment extension to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts — Senate Democratic leaders are skeptical that a disclose-only bill can earn Republican support. On the one hand, it would address the bulk of Republicans’ complaints about the current bill, but on the other hand, trust is so frayed that neither side is able to receive assurances as to the other’s thinking on the issue.

The impending seating of a new Republican senator later this month, special election winner Mark Kirk of Illinois, has added a new element of suspense to the mix. While his arrival raises the bar of Republican support required to proceed with debate, some campaign finance experts see in Kirk the kind of moderate voice who spoke in favor of better disclosure laws on the campaign trail and could champion a stripped-down bill as a triumph of good, clean government over the larded Democratic bill. But others doubt that casting a vote against the wishes of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who has made a personal mission out of rolling back campaign finance laws — is high on the to-do list of the incoming freshman senator. (Requests for comment from Kirk’s office were not returned by the time of publication.)

Even if the bill is unlikely to pass, argue some advocates, at least Democrats could finally get Republicans to go on the record definitively on the issue of disclosure.

“Bring up a bill with just the disclosure provisions and take away a number of arguments that we feel are not correct but others have used to make excuses about not voting for it,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of the campaign finance reform group Democracy 21.

Whether the benefits of a symbolic vote on disclosure outweigh the importance of floor time that could be spent on other issues, however, remains an open question. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office said that Reid will defer to Schumer on the content of the bill and that the Democratic leadership has not yet reached any decisions on what it will push in the lame-duck session.

But Holman, speaking on the eve of the election, was less hopeful. “If the results are a fairly sweeping Republican victory,” he said, “then I would fully expect the lame-duck Congress to honor the tradition of doing lame-duck work.”

But will a vote on a new, leaner bill make it onto the Senate’s packed lame-duck schedule? Democrats following the issue assure me that they’re fighting to include it in the mix, but they’re up against a lot of competing demands that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) must juggle, from the Start Treaty to an omnibus appropriations bill to food safety to the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. They also note that a stripped-down version of the bill couldn’t be called up at a moment’s notice — like Reid was able to do the last time he called a vote on DISCLOSE — but would instead have to be introduced the old fashioned way and would probably eat up between two and three days of precious Senate floor time as a result.

The biggest issue weighing on the Democrats’ decision, by far, is whether a disclosure-only bill would actually convince any GOP senators to change their mind on the issue. Both Democrats and campaign finance advocates make it clear that they’ve been reaching out the offices of Republicans like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe (R) and Susan Collins (R) since the spring, asking for their views on what they’d like to see (or not see) in the bill. In recent months, however, that line of communication has basically gone dead.

So would a disclosure-only bill represent the right show of good faith to win back their support? Or would it simply lead to a symbolic floor vote in which Democrats force Republicans to take a stand on the issue of disclosure? I’m waiting to hear back from Snowe and Collins’ offices to get their version of events and whether they think there’s any hope of reviving the conversation, and I’ll write about it if and when I hear back.

Reid claims his caucus is behind him on the act, which would give some undocumented students and military service members a change to gain legal status to remain in the country. “We all support the DREAM Act,” he said on Univision in an interview that aired Sunday. “I just need a handful of Republicans to help me.”

Kirk has said he wouldn’t, despite exhaustive efforts by DREAM Act supporters to convince him otherwise. “This is not the time to do that,” Kirk said in a debate.

How important is Kirk’s vote for passing the DREAM Act? It depends on who Reid means when he says “we all support the DREAM Act.” There are 59 senators who caucus with the Democrats and 41 Republicans. Kirk will change those numbers to 58 and 42. Reid needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster if he hopes to pass the DREAM Act.

If Reid’s right about his caucus, he would only need two Republicans to vote “yes” on the DREAM Act. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) co-sponsored the bill and would almost certainly vote for the it as a standalone measure, although he voted in September to filibuster the defense authorization bill that included it. Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) has also said he would vote for the act as a standalone bill.

But if either of them or any Democrats fall through, other Republicans are tougher to pin down. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who was one of the original sponsors of the DREAM Act, seems likely to vote against it now because he favors a borders-first approach to tackling immigration problems. “The American people want the government to secure our borders, create jobs and reduce the deficit.” Hatch said when he announced plans to vote against the DREAM Act’s inclusion in the defense authorization bill.

Lugar, Hatch and Bennett were two of twelve Republicans who voted for the DREAM Act in 2007. The others still in Senate — Sam Brownback (R-Kans.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) — have been vague about whether they would support the measure as a standalone this year.

When the bill came up as a possible addition to the defense authorization bill, a few Democrats said they were not sure they would support it this time around. Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) told The Hill in September they might vote “no” on the DREAM Act.

Which Republicans may come around? In 2007, 12 Republicans voted for the DREAM Act’s passage. Only seven are still in the Senate, and they all voted to filibuster the defense authorization bill last week. While some objected to the bill being inserted into the defense bill, others seem more likely to now oppose the DREAM Act in general — meaning passage as a standalone is far from a sure thing.

Utah Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch are in the “secure the borders first” camp, arguing immigration reform must be preceded by stricter enforcement efforts. “The American people want the government to secure our borders, create jobs and reduce the deficit.” Hatch said to explain his “no” vote on the DREAM Act.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) may also be tough to sway. He is running for Kansas governor and has said he opposes “amnesty” for illegal immigrants even though he supported paths to legal status such as the DREAM Act in the past.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (Texas) focused her criticism of the defense authorization bill on the inclusion of non-defense items in the bill. (The DREAM Act would have an impact on the military and would likely ease recruitment.)

Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe could be more likely to vote for the DREAM Act as a standalone bill. Collins said she joined the filibuster because Majority Leader Harry Reid unfairly limited Republican amendments to the defense authorization bill, not because she opposed the substance of his planned amendments. Snowe also stayed quiet on the DREAM Act when discussing her decision to filibuster.

Sen. Richard Lugar (Ind.) seems like a likely “yes” vote for the DREAM Act if it is pushed as a standalone bill. Lugar is a co-sponsor of the bill in its current iteration and has indicated he would support the bill’s passage this year.

Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine have both voted ‘no’ on the DISCLOSE Act, officially killing all speculation that they might buck their party and vote for the campaign finance bill that reformers hoped might tug at their heartstrings.

Without them, there’s no chance of reaching the 60 votes necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster.

Michelle Malkin rallied her supporters last night, arguing that since Democrats “won’t take no for an answer… we have to give them both barrels again.” “Time for Operation Buck Up Maine,” she wrote, and then provided the phone numbers for the district and D.C. offices of Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, both of whom were considered possible swing votes on the issue.

Tea Party Nation (TPN) also got in on the act, notifying members to contact Snowe and Collins and urge them to vote no as well. ”The Disclose act puts restrictions on spending for political speech, but amazingly enough only for those who generally disagree with [Democrats],” the email added. “Certain groups, Democratic constituencies, like unions, are exempt from the requirements of the Disclose act.”

The statement isn’t accurate — the only restrictions in the bill on spending for political speech are on companies with over 20 percent foreign ownership, large government contractors, and TARP recipients — but it was far from the craziest of rumors promulgated today. Resistnet.com claimed another House bill called the CLEAR Act might be added on to DISCLOSE (it was not), arguing that the latter piece of legislation is ”a globalist bill designed to: * give away American Ocean, and Sea regulation rights to the United Nations * makes American Taxpayers pay $900 million per year until 2040. * HR3534 implements climate change legislation, youth education propoganda * BUT MOST IMPORTANT, HR 3534 mandates American membership in the Law of the Sea Treaty without required US Senate two-thirds vote to ratify this treaty. Congress is useless.”

All of this has resulted in lots of attention being paid to the vote, but not the kind that Democrats were hoping for. After the dust has settled they’ll still have their talking points about how Republicans yet again blocked a bill to add transparency to corporate and special interest spending in campaigns, but it looks like they shouldn’t hold their breath for a populist outpouring of sentiment on their behalf.