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 Pentagon’s three service secretaries who oversee the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Space Force on Tuesday condemned the move by freshman Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama to block hundreds of military promotions — an act they say is putting American service members at risk across the globe.
Tuberville, a former football coach who was elected to the Senate in 2020, has been blocking senior promotions over a Pentagon policy that reimburses female service members seeking reproductive care but are stationed in states with strict abortion bans for travel to states without such tough restrictions.
“Three of our five military branches — the Army, Navy and Marine Corps — have no Senate-confirmed service chief in place. Instead, these jobs — and dozens of others across the force — are being performed by acting officials without the full range of legal authorities necessary to make the decisions that will sustain the United States’ military edge,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post on Tuesday. “Across the services, many generals and admirals are being forced to perform two roles simultaneously.”
“The strain of this double duty places a real and unfair burden on these officers, the organizations they lead and their families,” they continued. “The blanket hold is also exacting a personal toll on those who least deserve it.”
Tuberville began blocking the promotions of flag officers in February, and he’s given no indication whatever that he intends to stop — despite reports of disapproval among some of his congressional Republican colleagues.
Tuberville can block the promotions by objecting to voice votes that traditionally have confirmed large groups of military nominees, because confirming them one by one in full procedural fashion would be prohibitively time-consuming. Under Senate rules, even a single senator can object and thereby block the group confirmations.
“After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, [the Pentagon abortion] policy is critical and necessary to meet our obligations to the force. It is also fully within the law, as confirmed by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel,” the secretaries wrote. “Senators have many legislative and oversight tools to show their opposition to a specific policy. They are free to introduce legislation, gather support for that legislation and pass it. But placing a blanket hold on all general and flag officer nominees, who as apolitical officials have traditionally been exempt from the hold process, is unfair to these military leaders and their families. And it is putting our national security at risk.”
Military leaders, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, have been saying for months that Tuberville’s hold on promotions is destabilizing to national security, as well as readiness of U.S. military forces around the world. One reason why the hold is having such a severe impact, officials say, is because it forces many leaders to perform multiple roles — since the unconfirmed officers cannot assume their new responsibilities.
“With football season starting, I would say, imagine going into the season with a bunch of acting coaches,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. “And those acting coaches … are now responsible for not only being the offensive and defensive coordinators but also acting as the head coach.”
“We know officers who have incurred significant unforeseen expenses and are facing genuine financial stress because they have had to relocate their families or unexpectedly maintain two residences,” Wormuth, Del Toro and Kendall wrote in their op-ed. “Military spouses … are unable to look for jobs because they don’t know when or if they will move. Children haven’t known where they will go to school, which is particularly hard given how frequently military children change schools already.”
“These military leaders are being forced to endure costly separations from their families,” they continued. “All because of the actions of a single senator.”
Several prominent Republicans have reportedly pushed back somewhat against Tuberville’s obstruction, including Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the second-highest ranking Republican in the chamber, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who’s running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt last month that there “has to be other ways to go about doing this.”
“I appreciate what Tuberville’s trying to do. I do,” she said. “But have we gotten so low that this is how we have to go about stopping it?”
The Pentagon said Tuesday that Tuberville’s efforts are holding up the promotions of about 300 officers — including Air Force Gen. Charles Brown, the nominee to succeed Army Gen. Mark Milley as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oct. 1, and Marine Gen. Eric Smith, the nominee to replace Gen. David Berger as commandant of the Marine Corps.
Tuberville didn’t immediately respond to The Washington Post op-ed, but he said in a social media post on Saturday, “I didn’t start this.”
“The Biden [administration] injected politics into the military and imposed an unlawful abortion policy on the American taxpayers,” he wrote. “I am trying to get politics out of the military.”
Secretaries Wormuth, Del Toro and Kendall took issue with that notion in the Post.
“The prolonged uncertainty and political battles over these military nominations will have a corrosive effect on the force,” they wrote.
“Rather than seeking a resolution to this impasse in that spirit, Tuberville has suggested he is going to further escalate this confrontation by launching baseless political attacks against these men and women.”
