The pressure facing Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville continues to mount as a progressive veterans’ advocacy group launched a $150,000 advertising buy accusing the Republican lawmaker of perpetrating an “un-American assault” on the military by preventing the advancement of nominees.
Military nominations are typically approved by unanimous consent in the Senate Armed Services Committee, but Tuberville has refused to provide his consent until the Pentagon ends its practices of funding travel expenses for military members seeking abortion care.
The nation now stands without Senate-confirmed leaders of its Navy, Army, and Marine Corps for the first time in U.S. history, and over 300 other top-level military positions remain unfilled.
Tuberville has said numerous times that he wants to strike a deal and that Pentagon officials “should call me,” indicating that he’s amendable to a deal if these leaders reached out to him saying, “‘Coach, let’s work this out.'” Newsweek asked the Alabama Republican where he sees room for compromise:
“Move the policy back, and let’s vote on it,” he said. “The American people deserve a vote. It’s too controversial a topic not to vote on. You don’t just don’t say, ‘we’re just gonna do it this way.’ I mean, that’s not what we do here in this country.”
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The GOP tried to provide Tuberville with an off-ramp in June after Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, a U.S. Army war veteran who sits on the Armed Services Committee, proposed a bill that would end the Pentagon’s funding of abortion-related travel.
The bill had effectively no chance of passing with Democrats in control of the Senate, but it would have placed senators on the record regarding the issue. Tuberville rejected the proposal, saying he wants to vote on such a policy only after the Pentagon reverses its position.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has declined to bring the nominees to the floor, warning that doing so would set a precedent for senators to replicate Tuberville’s practice in the future. Additionally, holding votes for each nominee on the Senate floor could take roughly 700 hours, according to estimates, time the Senate does not have as the nation nears a potential government shutdown on October 1.
Photo by Alex J. Rouhandeh/Newsweek
In terms of optics, Tuberville’s hold offers political upside for Democrats and political downside for Republicans.
VoteVets Action Fund, the veterans group that launched the $150,000 ad buy, released a poll in August that found 58 percent of Alabama voters oppose Tuberville’s hold. Retired Major General Paul Eaton, a senior advisor for VoteVets, said Republicans need to put pressure on Tuberville or risk losing their credibility as a party that’s serious about U.S. national security.
“His Republican Senate colleagues, I think, must be the key,” Eaton told Newsweek. “They’ve got to go up in mass and say, ‘Hey, Tommy, we get it. We got the idea. Everybody’s got the idea. You are killing the Republican Party. You are killing our chances in 2024, and you are having a dramatic negative impact on national security.”
If Tuberville continues with his hold, the country will be without its Senate-confirmed top military advisor on September 29 when General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will finish his term and cannot under law continue in the position.
This event will likely only bring more eyes toward the issue and ratchet up pressure on Tuberville, and it’s also likely to strengthen the Democrats’ case for why their party should remain in control of the Senate, as they prepare to defend seats in the red states of Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia and the swing states of Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan in 2024.
“I hear more and more from folks who are back home who just can’t understand how one senator can jeopardize national security,” Michigan Senator Gary Peters, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party’s chief campaign arm responsible for maintaining control of the upper chamber, told Newsweek.
“Clearly, this has a negative impact on national security,” Peters added. “It puts the country at risk and voters need to be aware.”
Tuberville has attempted to place the onus on Schumer, stressing that its Schumer’s responsibility to bring these nominees to the floor, particularly as the expiration of Milley’s term nears. He said he’s only “had three short conversations” with Pentagon leaders and doesn’t believe they “want to do anything” to reach a consensus.
With the situation at an impasse, it may take action from Senate leadership to get the nominees passed, yet Tuberville says he has not faced direct pressure from Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. Newsweek asked Ernst, a member of McConnell’s leadership team, whether it’s time for leadership to begin those conversations.
“I do. I think we all need to strategize on how to put pressure on Chuck Schumer to bring them up,” she told Newsweek. “I think that is an easy solution right now. Schumer should be bringing these nominations up, and the American people need to understand that Chuck Schumer can bring these nominations up.”
