WASHINGTON — A Republican senator is drawing bipartisan criticism for stalling promotions for over 150 army generals and flag officers in protest of a brand new Protection Division coverage that gives journey bills and paid day without work for service members and their dependents searching for abortions.
The Senate should approve the promotions of top-level officers and generals, a job that’s usually fast and easy. However anyone senator can throw sand within the gears, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is utilizing a procedural tactic to dam the speedy consideration of 158 generals and flag officers, in addition to two civilian nominees.
“One senator — only one single senator, my colleague from Alabama, Sen. Tuberville — is obstructing all basic and flag officer confirmations, taking our army, our nationwide safety, our security hostage,” Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer stated Tuesday at his weekly information convention. “For years — years and years and years — each events have labored collectively to shortly affirm the routine promotions of generals and flag officers with out partisan bickering.
“Our basic to NATO, he’s one of many individuals he’s blocking at a time when we now have a warfare with Putin in Ukraine,” he stated. “It’s simply horrible what he’s doing.”
Tuberville’s transfer has drawn criticism from some Republicans, together with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who stated, “My concern is holding the promotions of members of the army versus political nominees.”
“They’re not making the coverage,” Collins stated. “And at a time once we’re having recruitment and retention issues in our army, I fear in regards to the sign that that might ship, nevertheless it’s primarily — they’re not the policymakers.”
Tuberville stated he’ll maintain the maintain on the promotions till the coverage is modified, declaring at a Senate listening to Tuesday, “Over the previous 40 years, I don’t recall one army particular person ever complaining that we weren’t performing sufficient abortions.”
“I would like our army to be the strongest and the deadliest it has ever been but in addition need the administration to observe the legislation,” he stated. “So long as I’ve a voice on this physique, Congress will write the legal guidelines, not the secretary of protection, not the Joint Chiefs.”
The Protection Division says the coverage doesn’t fund abortions however as an alternative provides service members and their dependents the flexibility to get reproductive procedures that will not be out there as states roll again abortion protections after the Supreme Court docket repealed Roe v. Wade final yr.
“Virtually 1 in 5 of our troops are ladies, and so they don’t get an opportunity to decide on the place they’re stationed, so virtually 80,000 of our ladies are stationed in locations the place they don’t have entry to non-covered reproductive well being care,” Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin stated at a Senate listening to Tuesday. “And I heard from our troops, I heard from our senior leaders, I heard from our chiefs and in addition our secretaries, and this coverage is predicated on sturdy authorized grounds. And it’s not a legislation; it’s a coverage.”
Austin addressed Tuberville straight on the listening to, saying: “I actually implore you to rethink and permit our nominations to maneuver ahead. It should make a big distinction for our pressure.”
Until Tuberville relents, there’s little the army or senators on both aspect of the aisle can do. With out an settlement, every promotion is topic to a easy majority vote, and given Senate process, it might take weeks to complete the handfuls of promotions the Protection Division wants authorized.
“Not solely does Sen. Tuberville need to management the choices ladies within the army make about their very own well being; he’s prepared to harm our troops and our nation to take action,” Schumer stated.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who’s briefly main the Republican convention as Minority Chief Mitch McConnell recovers from a fall and a concussion, defended Tuberville, saying he’s utilizing his “rights as a senator to get the eye of the administration.”
“Sen. Tuberville — the difficulty that he’s elevating, I agree that the Division of Protection’s coverage is atrocious, and it’s a departure from decadeslong understanding of federal public coverage relating to that challenge,” Thune stated.
“Hopefully, they’ll sit down with Sen. Tuberville and deal with the difficulty that he’s raised,” he added. “He’s very obsessed with it, and he’s not alone. Now we have a number of members in our convention who care deeply about that challenge.”
