Understanding the Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell Act

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 In Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, the Congress of the United States is vested with the power to legislate. Pieces of legislation must pass through both chambers of Congress and receive the president’s signature to become a federal statute. This process requires not only a consensus among Congress and the president, but also an understanding of how legislation will affect the bureaucracy and play out with court rulings. This consensus and understanding, at the most primordial level, exists on the basis of identifying problems. Public policy is made to solve conflicts within society, whether they be social, political, or economic, and the government ultimately chooses which problems

The DADT Repeal Act made it through Congress and received President Obama’s signature in December of 2010, 17 years after the original DADT policy was enacted under President Clinton in 1993 (The Editors). A reason for the long gap between when DADT was first put into place and when it was repealed is problem definition. The lack of defining a problem that needed fixing under the latter years of the Clinton Administration and subsequent Bush Administration allowed the policy to stay in place, and studying the historical context of DADT is essential before discussing how the repeal went through the political factors surrounding the Obama

In 1993, public pressures would prove to be too much for Congress, held by a majority of Democrats, to withstand a bipartisan opposition to the Democratic president’s goal of outright ending the homosexual military ban. The subsequent midterm election in 1994 ended up bringing in a Republican majority to Congress for the first time in 40 years (Aldrich 37). While the popular political culture first catalyzed DADT and other anti-LGBT rights policies, it would be the Republican party’s control, starting in 1994, that would ensure these policies’ survival until 2006, when Democrats took back Congress. Two years later, in 2008, the White House flipped parties after 8 years of Republican control under President Bush, and President Obama called for a serious repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (Rogan 1694). This theory of majority party problem defining is corroborated by Congressman Barney Frank – who notably championed LGBT rights in the House – who when asked about pushing for a possible repeal of DADT in 2004, said, “At this point, it makes sense to wait until there is a change in partisan leadership” (Sorrells 86). It should also be noted that Colin Powell, the key stakeholder in the 1993 DADT as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, continued his active role in government as Secretary of State under the Bush Administration, serving as the nation’s top diplomat. He, too, remained