By John Gramlich, CQ Staff

A week after President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, a Senate panel will on Wednesday take up legislation that would extend benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees.

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., wasted no time in pushing his panel to mark up the bill (S 1910) he has introduced in each of the last four Congresses. The bill has never advanced to the full Senate, though the panel did approve it in 2009.

This year — Lieberman’s last in the Senate — the committee will “probably” approve the bill again, said Leslie Phillips, a panel spokeswoman. The bill has 22 cosponsors, including Maine Republican Susan Collins, the ranking member of the committee and a longtime supporter of the measure.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is likely to support the measure, a spokesman said on Monday. But Reid has not indicated whether he would try to bring it to the floor if it wins committee approval, and Lieberman said on Monday that he had not discussed a timetable for a floor vote with the majority leader.

“I’ll be pushing for it to come up because I view it as not only as a matter of equity [and] fairness, but also as one of the best things we can do to attract the best people into federal service,” Lieberman said.

The legislation would make the same-sex domestic partners of federal workers eligible for a variety of benefits they currently do not receive, including health insurance, long-term care and retirement and cover them under provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act (PL 103-3).

The bill is intended to build on an executive order issued by Obama in 2010 that expanded some, but not all, benefits for same-sex domestic partners in the federal workforce. Obama’s executive order came after he directed federal agencies to determine which benefits could be extended without congressional action.

The administration has not formally weighed in on Lieberman’s bill this year, but Obama made clear in his 2010 executive order that he supports efforts to provide full federal benefits to domestic partners.

“For far too long, many of our government’s hard-working, dedicated LGBT employees have been denied equal access to the basic rights and benefits their colleagues enjoy,” Obama wrote two years ago, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers. “This kind of systemic inequality undermines the health, well-being and security not just of our federal workforce, but also of their families and communities.”

Political Momentum

Supporters of the measure are hoping to tap into political momentum sparked by both Obama’s recent position on gay marriage and an announcement by Reid that he would try to bring to the Senate floor a measure (S 598) that would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (PL 104-199) that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

“This legislation is on the right side of history. It is simply an affirmation of something we all believe in — equal pay for equal work, which also means equal benefits,” Lieberman said in a written statement.

Lieberman’s bill does not address the question of gay marriage itself but could benefit from broader attention on gay rights legislation, backers say. “It bolsters the image of this bill and the attention that will be paid to it,” said Bradley Jacklin, project director in public policy and government affairs for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.