For generations, the Senate has confirmed promotions for U.S. military officers as a matter of course. As regular readers know, Congress can be slow and frustrating, but this process has always been simple, quick and efficient — the nominees are usually packaged together for one uncontroversial vote — not only to benefit those in uniform, but also because senators don’t want to be seen as anti-military.
At least, not usually. Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, however, has spent months blocking 184 military promotions — not because he has concerns about officers’ qualifications, but as part of a broader tantrum over a policy dispute.
As we’ve discussed, the far-right Alabaman — whose most meaningful association with the military was coaching the losing team in the 2014 Military Bowl — objects to a Pentagon policy that provides troops and their family members paid leave and stipends to travel for abortions or for fertility treatments.
The senator has told the Department of Defense that he’ll impose a blockade against military promotions unless the policy ends. For months, senators, DOD officials, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and even some GOP officials have tried to convince Tuberville to be more responsible. He’s ignored them.
Will he be similarly indifferent to a bipartisan group of former Pentagon chiefs? The Washington Post reported:
A bipartisan group of former defense secretaries — including two who served in Donald Trump’s administration — say that military readiness and U.S. national security are being harmed by one senator’s delay of the quick approval of nearly 200 military promotions because of his objection to the department’s abortion policy. That delay, which Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) began in March, “risks turning military officers into political pawns, holding them responsible for a policy decision made by their civilian leader,” the former defense secretaries wrote in a letter to Senate leaders…
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