Levin: 'Don't ask' hearings will 'boost' passage of defense authorization bill

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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/130371-levin-dont-ask-hearings-will-boost-passage-of-defense-authorization-bill

Hearings into the Pentagon's report on the implications of repealing "Don't ask, don't tell" will help passage of the 2011 defense authorization bill, according to the leading Senate Democrat on military affairs.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, welcomed Defense Secretary Robert Gates's decision to speed up the public release of the yearlong Pentagon study to allow for congressional hearings to take place.

Levin's committee included in the defense authorization bill it wrote earlier this year a provision to repeal the Clinton-era law, which bans openly gay people from serving in the military.

"I believe our hearings on the report will be a boost to the goal of passing a National Defense Authorization Act, including provisions related to repeal of 'don’t ask, don’t tell,' " Levin said in a statement on Monday. "Passage of the Defense Authorization Act is essential to our troops and their families and to our national defense.”