This evening, moments after the Senate failed to invoke cloture and proceed to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — the measure which contains the amendment to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) announced that they would offer a stand-alone DADT measure. Lieberman also said that he has a commitment from Reid to bring up the bill before the end of the year.

The vote on the National Defense Authorization Act failed after days of negotiations between Collins and Reid on the number of amendments that would be offered under a “reasonable” framework of debate. Talks appeared to break down this afternoon as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the floor without first notifying Collins. Reid addressed the negotiations of the last several days, claiming that Republicans kept changing the goal posts. He had offered Collins 15 amendments — 10 from Republicans and 5 from Democrats — with an hour of debate for each, but she insisted on more time.

Following Reid’s remarks, Collins took to the floor and explained that she felt “perplexed” by Reid’s motion. She claimed that the two had been close to a deal and that he was now reneging on that agreement by filling up the tree, a technique that takes-up all the available slots for amendments on legislation in order to block competing amendments. Her main complaint appeared to be that Republicans would not be able to choose their own “relevant amendments” to the bill, while Reid insisted that both parties had to reach an agreement on “what some of the amendments would be.” During the roll-call, Collins initially voted against cloture but then suddenly changed her vote after talking to Sens. Lieberman and Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Unfortunately, she was unable to bring along Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) or other moderate Republicans who had signaled that they would proceed to the measure. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was the only Democrat to vote “no,” while Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) missed the vote but announced that she would have voted to proceed to the measure.

Watch a compilation of today’s floor activity:

It’s unclear when the Senate will bring up the stand-alone measure, but Lieberman told reporters that the legislation will mirror the language in the Defense Authorization Bill and could be brought up as soon as today.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) also took to the Senate floor to condemn the Senate’s failure and reiterated his pledge to work through the holidays to pass the bill before the end of the year. “I’m willing to stay through the holidays to debate it as a stand-alone measure,” he said. “The vote that we just had means that we won’t have a debate on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

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Earlier this evening, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) — the moderate Republican whose vote to proceed to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was supposed to create a domino effect that would have brought along the support of Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AR) and Scott Brown (D-MA) and given Democrats the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster — told reporters that she would not vote for cloture until Congress reached an agreement for extending the Bush tax cuts. Consequently, Reid has postponed the vote to later in the week.

And while the tax negotiations remain at a standstill, earlier today, advocates of DADT repeal seemed hopeful that a compromise could still be brokered with Collins. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) — a sponsor of repeal — and Reid, both disputed morning reports that Collins was unrealistically expecting an open amendment process and stressed that she was acting in good faith and seemed interested in reaching a “fair” time agreement with Democrats. “There was some stuff in the paper today that mean it — that said she couldn’t make up her mind what she wanted to do. That’s really not true,” Reid explained to reporters this afternoon. “She had made up her mind what she wanted to do. I just thought it was too much time,” he said.

Indeed, the Washington Posts’ Jonathan Capehart published a column just minutes before Collins pulled out of the deal, suggesting that Reid and Collins were just a couple of hours apart. While she had agreed to Reid’s “offer of 15 amendments — 10 for Republicans and 5 for Democrats,” she wanted “two hours of debate (one hour for Democrats and one hour for Republicans) for each amendment.” Publicly, Reid had only offered one hour of debate for each amendment, with additional time for some amendments.

It’s unclear what happened between now and then, but Reid’s team is disputing Capehart’s characterization, saying “If a little more time on each amendment was all she’s asking, Senator Reid would have shaken her hand and called it a deal by now.” And Collins told reporters that she needed more debate time and the ability for Republicans “pick our own amendments as opposed to the Majority Leader.” She also reverted back to the GOP argument that the tax extensions would have to come first. “Everyone on the Republican side wants to see the tax package completed first,” she said. “So I have urged the majority leader to postpone the vote…so that we could get the tax bill considered first — which I believe could be on the floor tomorrow — and completed by Saturday, and then move immediately to the DOD bill, but under a fair agreement.”

Whether or not Reid and Collins can agree on what constitutes “fair” and move to the defense bill will also now depend on the progress of the tax compromise, which seems to have stalled. But what’s certain is that postponing the vote will buy lawmakers more time to try and reach an agreement and possibly rope in those Republicans who would consider voting to proceed but remain committed to first tackling taxes.

Greg Sargent is reporting that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are having a difficult time agreeing to a “fair” process for consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, which Collins says she supports. But she’s demanding a completely open amendment process that would allow Republicans to hijack the debate and offer non-germane amendments:

In private discussions between Collins and Reid this morning, and between their staffs over the weekend, Collins has demanded that Reid allow what’s known as “unlimited debate” on the bill in order for her to vote for repeal, the aide close to the talks says.

Reid has rejected this demand, the aide continues. The problem is that this could allow any Senator to hijack the proceedings by introducing a “non-germane amendment,” thus holding the floor.

Reid does not think Collins herself intends to do this, the aide continues. Rather, he worries that another GOP Senator who strongly opposes repeal, such as Tom Coburn or Jim DeMint, could take advantage of unlimited debate in this fashion to run out the clock.

“He can’t trust Coburn or DeMint,” the aide says. “He can’t agree to that deal.”

Reid has offered Collins a total of 15 amendments in order to get her to vote Yes — 10 for Repubicans and five for Democrats, the aide continues. Reid views this as a reasonable offer, because previous debates on defense authorization bills have had roughly this number of amendments offered, the aide adds.

But as of now, Collins has indicated this offer is “unsatisafctory,” the aide says. A Collins spokesperson denied this account in an email, but declined to elaborate.

As of this writing, Reid still intends to bring the NDAA to a vote, which advocates of repeal say will likely fail without the support of Collins. And in a move that could be interpreted as a recognition of this reality, negotiators are moving some of the must-pass military authorizations out of the NDAA and into the continuing resolution. From CQ’s John M. Donnelly:

A draft continuing resolution in the House contains several provisions that echo “must-pass” portions of the troubled defense authorization bill, setting up a backup plan in the increasingly likely event that Congress fails to clear the annual defense policy measure for the first time in nearly half a century.

The draft continuing resolution, or CR, would ensure enactment of several critical provisions that usually ensure the defense authorization bill becomes law. Those provisions include items required for military pay and bonuses, compensation for civilian employees serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and authorities needed for overseas contingency operations.

With this session of Congress quickly nearing its end, time has nearly run out for debating the defense authorization bill (S 3454) — a process that typically takes a couple of weeks. If the bill dies, so does this year’s effort to repeal the “don’t ask don’t tell” law (PL 103-160) that bars openly gay people from serving in the U.S. military.

Asked whether the inclusion of the military pay and other provisions was a tacit admission that the defense policy bill won’t move ahead, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who sits on both the Armed Service and Appropriations panels, acknowledged the bill is facing long odds.

“I’m concerned about the calendar running out,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t know if you can get it done even if you went right to Jan. 5 and worked every day.”

Meanwhile, some advocates are urging Reid to hold on bringing the authorization until he works out a compromise with the moderate senators and then stay in session past Christmas to pass the measure. One aid told Steve Benen that Collins is “basically asking for a unicorn for Christmas. We can’t give her a unicorn.” But why not? Should the negotiations for a fair time and amendment process with Collins fail, why can’t Reid highlight the absurdity of her request and then grant it, keeping the Senate in session until January 2nd to extend Republicans every opportunity to play games with military priorities?

Moments ago, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) joined Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) in announcing that she would vote to proceed to the National Defense Authorization Act — the legislation that contains Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal — under an open amendment process. Collins added that she would vote for the legislation “once the tax issue is resolved.” Brown did not overtly attach any conditions to his vote, stating simply, “I accept the findings of the report and support repeal based on the Secretary’s recommendations that repeal will be implemented only when the battle effectiveness of the forces is assured and proper preparations have been completed.”

During the second day of hearings, the Service Chiefs disagreed on whether to proceed with immediate repeal during a time of war, but all concurred their respective branches could implement repeal and that Congress should act to prevent the court from ordering the military to lift the ban without a proper implementation process. The Service Chiefs also hinted that they could support eventual repeal and said they trusted Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to consider their views before ordering the Armed Forces to lift the ban.

Below are highlights from today’s hearings:

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) signaled that he would disregard the opinion of the military leadership and suggested “he could move to prevent floor debate on the 2011 defense authorization bill, which contains the repeal provision.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has not yet announced how he intends to proceed with the measure or if he’ll bring the bill to the floor under an open amendment process.

Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports that Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urging the Pentagon to release the Working Group’s study of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell “as soon as possible”:

Some of our colleagues in the Senate share our view about the importance of passing a defense bill, but they are awaiting the release of the working group’s report before agreeing to begin debate on the bill. We are hopeful that release of the report and the opportunity for our colleagues to review its findings and recommendations will help inform their understanding and alleviate some concerns that they may have regarding the military’s capacity to implement repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in a manner that is consistent with our armed forces’ standards of readiness and effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention. Given the limited amount of time remaining in the 111th Congress, the soonest possible release of the working group’s report could therefore be instrumental in allowing the defense bill to move forward.

Indeed, my colleagues Jeff Krehely and Crosby Burns have released this list of 10 lawmakers “who have said they are waiting to hear from the troops and military leaders before deciding on DADT repeal.” These include: Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH). These senators should be held to task once the report comes out and forced to take a position on repeal.

Gates has urged the Senate to pass repeal in the lame duck session but at least two separate Pentagon spokespeople have thus far suggested that the study will not be released before December 1. On Friday, DoD spokesman Geoff Morrell suggested “the full report will be made public for all to review early next month.” Earlier in the week, Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan also said he was “not aware that there’s been any effort to speed it up.”