Earlier this week, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., a former college football coach who never wore the uniform of this country, changed his blanket hold on more than 400 top military promotions. Now he’s only holding up about a dozen promotions. “I’m releasing everybody,” he told reporters Tuesday. “I still got a hold on, I think, 11 four-star generals. Everybody else is completely released from me.”
Tuberville has opened a can that won’t easily be closed. That’s why the Senate needs to immediately change its rules to ensure that this type of hold on military promotions never happens again.
On the surface, his new tactic of just holding up the promotions of such high-ranking military officers may seem better than his continuing to force such uncertainty onto hundreds of senior ranking officers, their families and U.S. military units around the world. But it would be a mistake to cheer his release of his destructive “hold” on the promotions of these generals and admirals.
While it’s true that the vast majority of these officers will receive their promotions, we should not be deluded. Tuberville has opened a can that won’t easily be closed. That’s why the Senate needs to immediately change its rules to ensure that this type of unpatriotic and destructive hold on military promotions never happens again.
For example, the Senate could adopt a rule that only lets a senator block one senior-ranking military promotion at a time, and even then only for a limited amount of time before that nomination gets an up or down vote.
In response to Tuberville’s promotion-blocking stunt, which he began in February in protest against the Defense Department’s policy that allows service members to be reimbursed for travel costs related to getting abortions, at least one other GOP senator is now saying he’s holding up the promotions of certain military officers. According to a spokesperson for the office of Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., “Senator Schmitt has…
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