Left and Right Slam Tuberville Over Military Blockade Harming US Readiness

Tension continues to mount in the Senate as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle face growing frustration over Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville's refusal to end his blockade on military promotions as the Alabamian claims his hold does not harm U.S. readiness despite rising crises across the globe.

"Of course, it has an impact on readiness," Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, who chairs the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, told Newsweek. "The negative impact of his hold is only multiplying, and it seems as though he just can't let it go."

Tuberville began his blockade nine months ago in protest of the Pentagon's policy of financing the travel of military members seeking abortion care. Generally, multiple military promotions are grouped together and passed through a single unanimous consent vote so that they may move forward quickly.

Tuberville has refused to provide his consent, effectively blocking all nominees that are not brought forth as individual votes, a process that can take days.

Under the Hyde Amendment federal funds cannot be used toward abortions. While the Pentagon program does not directly allocate dollars toward abortion, Tuberville believes the policy is illegal.

Republicans agree with Tuberville but largely do not back his means of protest. This opposition reached a new level Wednesday night when Senators Joni Ernst of Iowa, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mitt Romney of Utah, Todd Young of Indiana, and Dan Sullivan of Alaska took to the Senate floor in an attempt to get Tuberville to soften his position and allow individual nominees to pass by unanimous consent votes.

"To say there is no readiness issue, I'm the ranking member on the readiness subcommittee on the Armed Services Committee, there are readiness issues," Sullivan, who serves in the Marine Corps Reserve, said Wednesday. "With all due respect to my colleague, that's just wrong."

Sullivan and the other four Republicans explained to Tuberville that while they agree with his stance, holding up the promotions of military officials does not offer an effective strategy for change because these individuals do not control Pentagon policy.

They suggested Tuberville focus his hold on the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who has influence over the abortion issue. They stressed that the hold disrupts the lives of military families. They argued that by offering the nominees through unanimous consent individually they were meeting Tuberville's demand that the policy can either be dropped or the nominees can be advanced through individual floor votes. The Alabama Republican rejected all these appeals.

"They just wanted me to vote," Tuberville told reporters on Thursday. "I want everybody to vote."

While Democrats have executed similar attempts to end Tuberville's hold over the past year, the GOP-led effort comes following the Sunday hospitalization of General Eric Smith, commandant of the Marine Corps.

Smith, who was only confirmed in late September, spent more than two months working two jobs as both acting commandant of the Marine Corps and assistant commandant of the Marine Corps after former Commandant David Berger reached the end of his term. Some days, he worked from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., the Marine Corps Times reported. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed of Rhode Island told Politico that working both jobs at once may have "contributed to his condition."

Republicans are hopeful that last night's effort leads Tuberville to reverse course and prevent more military nominees from working under the conditions that Smith faced.

"The very powerful effort last night led by my colleagues, Senator Sullivan and other members who've served our country, I thought made a straightaway case for why Senator Tuberville's universal hold is so detrimental," Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told Newsweek. "I'm hoping that is going to move the needle and we're not going to have to make a rules change."

Some lawmakers have worried that if Tuberville does not allow the nominees to move forward, Democrats could push for a change to Senate rules.

Reed and Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have proposed legislation that would allow Majority Leader Charles Schumer to bring nearly all the military nominations forward to be voted on as a bloc at the traditional 60-vote threshold.

This effort, however, would accomplish the task through a "standing order resolution," as opposed to a change in the rules, meaning the task of promoting the nominees could be accomplished without altering formal procedure.

Asked by reporters about this effort, Ernst would not commit her vote, but said "we'd have to consider it, but we don't want to go there." Young similarly said, "I haven't ruled that out."

Democrats don't expect Tuberville to change his stance anytime soon.

"Senator Tuberville has made clear that he doesn't care about our national security," Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a member of the Armed Services Committee who previously opposed Tuberville on the Senate floor, told Newsweek. "He doesn't care about undermining the people who give their all to defend this nation, and he doesn't care about a functional government that gets its basic job done."

With the effort at an impasse, Republicans may have the vote on the Reed-Sinema bill. The Pentagon refuses to cave to Tuberville's demands, and the Alabamian previously told Newsweek that, when it comes to compromise, the only thing he'll accept is the policy being ended, and only from there can Senators vote for it to continue, something that will not happen.

As Romney notes, Tuberville, who rose to fame as the coach of the Auburn University Tigers football team, is familiar with working in hostile environments and knows how to drown out the noise of criticism.

"Being a football coach suggests that now and then, when you're in an away arena, people are shouting at you," Romney told Newsweek. "That's probably helped him."