Tuberville releasing hold on hundreds of military promotions

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) announced Tuesday that he is ending his months-long blockade on hundreds of military promotions.

Tuberville said he is jumping on board with an idea presented by Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) that would release all of his holds on military officers at the 3-star level and below.

A hold will remain in place for the roughly 10 nominations for 4-star generals and officers.

“I am not going to hold the promotions of these people any longer. We just released them,” Tuberville told reporters after informing Senate Republicans of his decision. 

At issue for Tuberville was a Pentagon policy, enacted last year, allowing service members to be reimbursed for travel to receive abortion care.

In total, his holds lasted nearly 10 months and became a thorn in the side of the Senate GOP conference, with many hesitant to choose between supporting the military and taking an anti-abortion stand. 

Tuesday’s announcement was a relief for most of them.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said early on that he opposed Tuberville’s tactics but routinely came up empty in search of a resolution, told reporters that he is “pleased … that that situation seems to have been ameliorated.” 

“Great relief,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said of the mood within the GOP ranks, adding that they are generally supportive of the deal struck. “I think it sounds reasonable.” 

The pressure on Tuberville to alter his tactics had increased as Senate Democrats planned to hold a vote this month that would temporarily change the rules of the upper chamber in order to advance the more than 400 nominees that were being affected. 

Additionally, Sullivan, Ernst and multiple other Republicans with military backgrounds had gone to the Senate floor twice in recent weeks in an attempt to pass individual promotions, effectively taking an intraparty dispute public.

The Alabama Republican’s military roadblock prompted Senate leaders to take individual action on a number of top military posts in recent months. On top of CQ Brown Jr.’s nomination to take over as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the upper chamber also held one-off votes on the Marine Corps commandant, Army chief of staff, chief of Naval operations, Air Force chief of staff and the Marine Corps’s second-in-command.  

Tuberville cited a need to vet the highest-level officials as why he is keeping holds in place for roughly 10 nominees set to become 4-star generals. Those nominees could also receive individual votes.

While many Senate Republicans were displeased with Tuberville’s tactics over the past 10 months, they were equally upset with the possibility of a vote to change the Senate’s rules in the coming weeks.

They were leery of creating a precedent for the chamber and did not want to alter the future ability of a single senator to place a hold on a nominee. Senators have routinely noted that placing a hold is one of the few meaningful powers they have, and they did not want to see that ability curtailed moving forward. 

“There’s no reason. We’re not the House,” Tuberville said. “We keep the rules the way they are.”

However, Tuberville expressed no regrets about how he handled matters throughout the blockade, though he conceded that he didn’t get the “win that we wanted.” 

“We’ve still got the bad [abortion] policy. We tried to stand up for the taxpayers,” he said. 

The news brings to an end a roller-coaster stretch for Senate Republicans, who found themselves stymied at almost every turn in an attempt to find an off-ramp acceptable to the former Auburn University football coach. Tuberville also caused confusion at times as his demands shifted, while remaining centered on trying to reverse the Pentagon’s policy. 

Tuberville complained for months that Democrats were unwilling to meet and talk with him to figure out a resolution. The only discussions he had with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin came in July and yielded nothing outside of small talk. Tuberville also noted that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) never met with him on the topic. 

Tension started to ratchet up on the ex-football coach in in October, after Hamas attacked Israel, as a number of the posts in the region were yet to be filled due to the blockade. 

And the White House and top Pentagon officials took Tuberville to task for harming military readiness — which Tuberville denied he was doing.

The military-minded senators panned the Alabama senator for that claim. Sullivan, a member of the Marine Corps Reserve, said the holds were “hugely disruptive” to readiness and were affecting military families that were kept in limbo for months. 

Across the aisle, Senate Democrats argued it was the responsibility of the GOP to figure out how to get Tuberville to loosen his grip.

Hours after the news, Schumer began to move on some of the military promotions. He also told reporters that he hopes this chapter in the upper chamber is over and done with.

“I hope no one does this again,” Schumer said. “I hope they learn the lesson of Sen. Tuberville, and that is he held out for many, many months, hurt our national security, caused discombobulation to so many military families who have been so dedicated to our country and didn’t get anything that he wanted.” 

“It’s a risky strategy that will not succeed,” he added.  

Updated at 4:02 p.m. ET