Two former Senate Majority Leaders on Thursday criticized U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville’s 10-month-long hold on key military appointments over a Pentagon abortion policy.
Trent Lott, a former Republican Senator from Mississippi, and Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senator from South Dakota — while in Mobile Thursday to speak about bipartisanship in an era of gripping polarization — each denounced the military holds after they were asked to weigh in during a question-and-answer session before a group of students at the University of South Alabama.
“I’m from Pascagoula and I feel strongly about the military,” said Lott, who served in the Senate from 1989-2007, and was the upper chamber’s Majority and Minority Leader in the early 2000s. “It’s not a good idea to hold up these nominations, quite frankly.”
Daschle, who served in the Senate from 1987-2005, and was also either Majority and Minority Leader from 2001-2005, called the situation “very short-sighted and problematic for democracy.”
“We got a war in Ukraine and a war in the Middle East,” Daschle said. “We’ve got issues in the last couple of day sin the Philippines and China. There is so much need for military leadership now at the highest levels in how to address all of this.”
Lott said if was in Senate leadership right now he would “discourage” Tuberville’s actions. But Lott also said that it’s up to Senate leadership to get everyone to sit down and hammer out a resolution.
“The Senate leadership needs to be meeting with Tuberville, the Secretary of Defense and sit down and say, ‘What is your problem?’” Lott said. “If they would just sit down and work it out, it would be resolved.”
Tuberville’s office declined comment.
Since February, the Alabama senator has held up reportedly more than 300 military promotions. The blanket hold on the nominations, according to the senator, is over a Department of Defense policy that allows service members to be reimbursed for travel while obtaining abortions. The department enacted the policy after the reversal of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, overturning the constitutional right to an abortion and leaving the issue to individual states.
Tuberville, who has claimed there is “nobody more military” than him, has said the Pentagon’s policy is illegal and can only be put in place through legislation.
Democrats, as reported by The Washington Post, are attempting to find a way to circumvent Tuberville’s holds and get some Republican support in approving a large block of military nominees at once amid the growing unrest in the Middle East. Republicans are reportedly skeptical of any Senate rules changes that might be pitched by the Democrats.
Tuberville’s hold applies to all senior military promotions, and more than 350 officers, according to the Post. Those positions, the publication reports, includes officials whose purview is the Middle East, like the deputy commander of the United States Central Command (Centcom), and the commander of the Fifth Fleet — who are both awaiting stalled nominations to three-star positions. President Joe Biden’s nominations to lead to the Navy and Air Force are also tied up.
Tuberville’s hold cannot stop military promotions from being approved, but it does require a roll call vote on each one. Democratic lawmakers have argued that it could take months to have a vote on every one of them. Senate tradition also has allowed the upper chamber to group military promotions together and approve them by a single voice vote, thereby removing the lengthy roll calls.
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