WASHINGTON ― Republican senators again pleaded with their Alabama colleague Tommy Tuberville to lift his hold on over 400 military officers awaiting promotions for months, warning about its detrimental effect on U.S. national security.
In the early morning hours on Thursday, just past midnight, several GOP senators took to the Senate floor and sought unanimous consent to approve dozens of the stalled promotions.
Tuberville, aided at times by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), blocked each of their requests out of opposition to a Pentagon policy that helps service members travel for abortions and fertility treatment. The policy was put in place after the repeal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court last year.
“If you do not believe these holds aren’t having an effect on the military, I don’t question your sincerity. I question your judgment,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a floor speech. “If this continues, this is one of the worst self-inflicted wounds in 20 years. We’re taking the military and throwing it in the ditch.”
Graham continued: “There are people filling jobs today that are waiting to go to their assignment, and they can’t get there because they can’t get promoted. They’re paying two house payments, not one. Their children don’t know what school they’re gonna go to. They deserve better than this.”
Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana), another vocal critic of Tuberville’s holds, urged the first-term Alabama Republican to shift gears and put a hold only on those military officers who have a role in developing regulations at the Pentagon.
“It punishes those brave service members who didn’t develop the policy and can’t change it,” Young said of the tactic.
Republicans also suggested that Tuberville instead support a lawsuit challenging the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy, but he has said that that option would take too long to wind its way through the courts.
The Senate typically approves military promotions quickly via unanimous consent requests. To vote on them one at a time, as Tuberville has insisted, would require months of floor time. The backlog continues to grow every day, and frustration with Tuberville among his GOP colleagues has boiled over in recent weeks.
Earlier this week, Democrats approved a resolution in the Rules Committee that would temporarily allow the Senate to approve military promotions in chunks at a time as a way to get around Tuberville’s holds. No Republicans voted for it in committee.
Although a few Republicans have signaled openness to voting for the resolution, it will require 60 votes ― at least 9 GOP votes ― for passage on the Senate floor.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday he hoped Republicans can persuade Tuberville to stand back and “find an off-ramp,” but if they don’t, he will bring it to a vote “soon.”
Schumer said, “There has been a lot of negativity and dysfunction in the Senate these days, but Senator Tuberville has singlehandedly brought the Senate to a new low. He should be ashamed of himself.”