A single U.S. Senator is responsible for holding up about 400 military promotions, and his Republican colleagues have started pushing back.
Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has objected to Pentagon rules that allow reimbursement for travel when a service member has to go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care.
West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito says it’s time to stop the blockade.
“I think Senator Tuberville has taken the wrong people to penalize for a policy that I don’t agree with either that the Department of Defense is moving forward with,” Capito said in a news briefing with reporters this week.
Tuberville has been exercising his power in the Senate, where one member can hold up nominations even if the other 99 senators want to move forward. His blocks have thwarted a long tradition of bundling military promotions together and approving them by voice vote for efficiency’s sake.
The blockade has strung along for months, resulting in a backlog of promotions that Tuberville’s critics contend weakens military readiness while also disrupting careers and families.
Last week, some of Tuberville’s fellow Republican senators, including Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, broke ranks and went to the floor with individual calls for 61 promotions. Tuberville objected to each one.
Tuberville met with fellow Republican senators this Tuesday and has suggested he is willing to consider options for ending his holds.
Capito has said she agrees with Tuberville’s concern about the Pentagon’s abortion policies, which took shape after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision left abortion issues to the states. But she also has consistently said his approach is wrong.
She noted many factors: “These are active duty folks. Our readiness, families, trying to move to different venues the promotion would require — it’s very disruptive to our readiness; we’re in a very tenuous time. It’s over 400 promotions now, so it’s rising almost daily.”
Democrats in the Senate are considering a rules change to get around Tuberville, but that would require 60 votes to pass the chamber’s filibuster requirement.
“I’m always hesitant to change the rules because of the long-term impacts that those could have,” Capito said.