Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., talks with Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on July 12, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Carlos Bongioanni/Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — The standoff between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Alabama Republican who has held up hundreds of senior military promotions for months in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion access policies, showed no signs of abating Wednesday.
The Pentagon’s deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Tuesday that there was “no” chance of the Pentagon changing a policy that provides paid leave and travel expense reimbursement for service members who need to cross state lines to obtain reproductive health care, including abortions.
“We’ve been very clear we don’t have anything to negotiate with here,” Singh said. “[Sen. Tuberville] really has the power … and his party has the power to end these holds, and we would urge him to do that.”
On Wednesday, Tuberville’s office countered that the onus is on Austin to end a confirmation blockade of senior generals and admirals that has dragged into a sixth month. Tuberville has refused to consent to a unanimous voice vote in the Senate to confirm military nominees unless Austin rescinds the reproductive health policy.
“Secretary Austin could end the holds today if he wanted to,” said Steven Stafford, the senator’s communications director. “But the Biden administration seems to think that illegally spending taxpayer dollars on abortion is more important than getting their senior military nominees confirmed. That is the tradeoff that Secretary Austin has made every single day since this started.”
The impasse has prevented 301 senior military officers from being confirmed, including the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chief of staff of the Army, commandant of the Marine Corps and chief of naval operations. Another 300 positions, including three-quarters of generals and admirals, are expected to become ensnared in Tuberville’s hold if it continues through the end of the year.
Singh on Tuesday noted the effects of the blockade are now being felt “right in Sen. Tuberville’s backyard.” A rear admiral at Redstone Arsenal, a center for Army missile programs located in Tuberville’s home state of Alabama, is temporarily filling in as acting director of the Missile Defense Agency — a job that is supposed to be handled by a three-star general.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh briefs news reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023. (Screen capture from Pentagon video)
“You should ask Sen. Tuberville” how the situation ends, Singh told reporters. “We’ve certainly asked him how this ends.”
Austin has talked to Tuberville several times to attempt to resolve the standoff, she said. The Defense Department also has periodically briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which Tuberville is a member, to explain why the Pentagon needed to act after the Supreme Court last year overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.
“If you are a service member stationed in a state that has rolled back or restricted health care access, you are often stationed there because you were assigned there. It is not that you chose to go there,” Singh said. “So, a service member in Alabama deserves to have the same access to health care as a service member in California, as a service member stationed in Korea.”
Tuberville has maintained the Pentagon’s leave allowances and travel reimbursements violate a federal policy that prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life is at risk.
Austin, former defense secretaries and others have warned Tuberville’s hold is hurting military readiness and recruiting at a time of great global instability triggered by Russia’s war against Ukraine and China’s rising military dominance. But Tuberville has pushed back against those claims.
“Contrary to false reporting, no jobs are going unfilled while the hold is in place. Instead, highly experienced acting officials are serving in these roles,” said Stafford, Tuberville’s communications director. “Time and again, military leaders have assured Coach that our military remains ready to fight and to win.”
Tuberville, a former football coach for Auburn University, also has argued Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., could simply hold individual votes on nominees to go around his blockade. That process, however, would take months, according to Democrats, and leave little time for the Senate to do anything else.
