Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said Tuesday that he is dropping his senatorial “holds” on hundreds of promotions of U.S. military officials awaiting Senate confirmation, but he is continuing to block approval votes on the most highly ranked candidates.
The senator said he will continue his holds for four-star general nominees, but all other promotions will be released from the blockage he imposed in February.
“It’s been a long fight,” he told reporters. “We fought hard. We did the right thing for the unborn and for our military, fighting back against executive overreach and an abortion policy that’s not legal.”
The Alabama Republican exercised the privilege of all 100 senators to put a legislative hold on nominations submitted for Senate approval by the president as a means of protesting the Department of Defense’s decision to begin covering travel expenses for women in the military who must travel to a state other than where they are stationed to obtain abortions.
The senator and other conservatives argue that the new policy violates a federal law that bars the use of federal tax dollars to pay for abortions, though the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does so indirectly with substantial indirect funding of the procedure to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Around 400 military promotions have been blocked by the Republican senator’s monthslong hold. The Pentagon has argued Mr. Tuberville’s move has harmed military readiness.
The confirmation marked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) first step toward breaking through Mr. Tuberville’s blockade, which did not technically prevent the nominees’ confirmation but barred the chamber from using the tool of unanimous consent to speed up the time-consuming process.
Mr. Tuberville’s announcement comes as Mr. Schumer was preparing to bring a measure to the floor that would allow the chamber to circumvent his holds and confirm hundreds of nominees at once.
“While announcing that plan on Nov. 27, the majority leader asserted: “If every senator did what Sen. Tuberville has done and held up military confirmations because of this or that partisan issue, no matter how deeply felt, it would grind the Senate to a halt. It would be a catastrophe for our military. We dare not go further down that road. We’ve gone too far already.”
While speaking with reporters Tuesday, Mr. Tuberville, a former college football coach, said that pending rule change was ultimately what led him to end his blockade.
Mixed Reactions
In recent weeks, in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, opposition to the Alabama senator’s holds had grown more bipartisan, with several Republican senators joining in Democrats’ calls for him to back down.“Why are we putting holds on war heroes?” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) asked on the Senate floor on Nov. 1. “I don’t understand.”
Other Republicans who opposed the protest included Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Todd Young of Indiana.
But as word began to spread over the past week that the blockade could soon reach its end, a group of 20 Republicans in the House wrote to Mr. Tuberville to thank and praise him for his efforts.
“We write to express our deep gratitude and support for your courageous leadership in the fight to preserve and protect the precious lives of unborn children and their mothers,” the lawmakers wrote, noting that the protest had brought “needed scrutiny” the Biden administration’s “unprecedented and misguided policy.”
“Thank you for fighting the good fight with valor and unwavering dedication to protecting unborn children, the military women who serve our great Nation, and the laws that reinforce the strength and readiness of our armed forces,” they added.
And that gratitude was shared by Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins Tuesday as she reacted to the news that Mr. Tuberville was ending the majority of his holds.
