Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022.
A Republican senator is drawing bipartisan criticism for stalling promotions for over 150 military generals and flag officers in protest of a new Defense Department policy that provides travel expenses and paid time off for service members and their dependents seeking abortions.
The Senate must approve the promotions of top-level officers and generals, a task that is typically quick and smooth. But any one senator can throw sand in the gears, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is using a procedural tactic to block the speedy consideration of 158 generals and flag officers, as well as two civilian nominations.
“One senator — just one single senator, my colleague from Alabama, Sen. Tuberville — is blocking all general and flag officer confirmations, taking our military, our national security, our safety hostage,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday at his weekly press conference. “For years — years and years and years, both parties have worked together to quickly confirm the routine promotions of generals and flag officers without partisan bickering.”
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Tuberville said he will keep the hold on the promotions until the policy is changed, declaring at a Senate hearing Tuesday: “Over the past 40 years, I don’t recall one military person ever complaining that we weren’t performing enough abortions.”
The Defense Department says the policy does not fund abortions, but instead gives servicemembers and their dependants the ability to get reproductive procedures that may no longer be available, as states roll back abortion protections in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision repealing Roe v. Wade.
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