On Tuesday, The Hill reported that U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) has backed down and will no longer blockade hundreds of military promotions.
Tuberville has come under withering fire from Republicans and Democrats over his refusal to give unanimous consent to Biden’s military promotions. Tuberville began his months-long blockade of the promotions in response to the Biden Administration’s policy of paying for abortion-related travel expenses for servicemembers and their families – a policy that Tuberville says was implemented illegally without the approval of Congress and which violates the Hyde Amendment.
Critics of Tuberville’s stance say that the holds are damaging military readiness – a criticism that Tuberville has denied.
Tuberville said he is jumping on board with an idea presented by Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) that would release his holds on military officers at the 3-star level and below.
A hold will remain in place for the roughly ten nominations for 4-star generals and above.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has been threatening to bring a proposed rule change to the floor of the Senate this week that would change the Senate rules to limit the power of individual Senators to place holds on promotions and nominations. That rule change passed out of committee on a party-line vote, but some Republican Senators have threatened to vote in favor of the rule change if it comes to the floor if that is what it was going to take to end the impasse on the promotions issue. Tuberville had assured colleagues that he would find a way to resolve this issue before a rules change vote.
“We just came to a conclusion that all of us are against a rule change in the Senate,” Tuberville told reporters in comments shared with Alabama Today. “We are all against it. Now, it has been a long fight. We fought hard. We did the right thing for the unborn and for our military, fighting back against executive overreach and an abortion policy that is not illegal. That being said Senator Schumer changed the rules on us in the NDAA. When you change the rules it is hard to beat somebody.”
“I not am not going to hold the promotions of these people any longer,” Tuberville said. “We just released them. Everybody, I think about 440 of them. Everybody but the ten or eleven four stars. Those will continue to be held. We are going to ask Senator Schumer to bring up one at a time One at a time. The way our military is today, our top, top leaders need to be vetted just like everybody else. We need to know who they are and why they are making all the decisions of our military. It is so so important.”
Below is audio of Tuberville’s press comments.
“It has been tough,” Tuberville said. “It almost took a year since I sent that letter, but the big thing is that we are all together in our caucus that nobody – it will be 100 percent – will vote against any standing order in the Senate that will change the rules for these holds.”
Growing tensions in the world, including the rapidly worsening situation with Iran in the Middle East, Chinese provocations towards Taiwan in Asia, and setbacks by Ukraine in their war with Russia, have only increased concerns that the military’s readiness should take precedence over all other concerns right now.
Tuberville was elected to the Senate in 2020 after decades coaching football.
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