It takes a singular asshole to require the creation of a whole new Senate rule just to deal with him. Congratulations, Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville: You achieved that today. The Senate Rules Committee voted 9-7 to temporarily change the rules to overcome Tuberville’s ongoing blockade of all military promotions.
Tuberville has been blocking the promotions since February, ostensibly protesting the Pentagon policy that pays for service members to travel to states where abortion is legal, if they need to—a policy that none of the hundreds of officers he is punishing is responsible for creating or implementing. The resolution passed by the Rules Committee on Tuesday would allow military nominations to be confirmed en bloc, or all at once.
These nominations and promotions are normally considered in blocs, under unanimous consent. They’re handled in blocs because there are hundreds of them every Congress and the Senate simply does not have enough hours in a day or days in a week to take them up individually. There are more than 400 of them now caught in the backlog, thanks to one man’s tantrum.
Tuberville has been blocking every attempt by senators to bring those promotions up for a vote, refusing to give his consent. So the temporary rule change—lasting just for the remainder of this Congress—would change the confirmation procedure for all officers other than the Joint Chiefs of Staff and combatant commanders, who would still require individual votes.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will bring the rule change to the floor unless Republicans figure out a way to get Tuberville to relent—and fast. At least nine Republicans would have to vote with all of the Democrats to pass the bill.
Tuberville has remained completely unmoved so far by his GOP colleagues’ efforts, even when they confronted him directly on the floor, forcing him to spend hours objecting to individual promotions. One of them, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, floated a lawsuit in Tuesday’s GOP conference meeting. His idea is to have conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow and House Speaker Mike Johnson file a lawsuit to overturn the Pentagon’s abortion policy.
The idea has come up before, and Tuberville has remained unmoved. But the Republican conference is getting increasingly fed up with him. In a sign of just how frustrated they are, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t shut the door on supporting the resolution in comments he made Tuesday. "I appreciate the work put into the standing order proposal,” he said of the Democrats’ resolution. "But I am going to oppose going that route, at this particular moment,” he said. That’s not a “never.” It’s more like a “not yet.”
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