For almost a year, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville was alone the biggest obstacle to the proper functioning of the US armed forces: he blocked more than 400 military command appointments, from the highest to others of relatively low rank but essential in the day-to-day military management. With his veto he wanted to force the Pentagon to abandon its policy in favor of reproductive freedom. Now, and after months of pressure even from his own party, he has announced that he will finally allow most of the promotions to go ahead.
The senator from Alabama will, however, maintain his veto over almost a dozen appointments of four-star generals, the highest level in the US military hierarchy. “These will continue,” the politician from the conservative Republican wing declared to the press, announcing the end of his blockade on the Capitol.
“We have ended up in a tie. They don’t have what they wanted. We didn’t get what we wanted,” Tuberville declared. His announcement represents a 180-degree turn in his strategy: for ten months he prevented the Senate Armed Forces Committee from approving hardly any military appointments, in protest of a Pentagon initiative that offers leave days and covers travel expenses for soldiers who want to have an abortion or undergo fertility treatments, and who are in areas of the country where there is no access to these types of services.
That policy had been adopted after the Supreme Court annulled in 2022 the Roe v. Wade ruling that for half a century guaranteed the right to abortion throughout the United States. The Pentagon wanted to guarantee equal access to health care among the military, who cannot choose where they are stationed.
Following the senator’s statement, President Joe Biden, who had repeatedly urged him to lift his veto, expressed his satisfaction at the end of the blockade. And he has made his anger clear: “Senator Tuberville, and the Republicans who supported him, needlessly harmed hundreds of military personnel and their families, and endangered our national security; all to promote partisan measures. I hope no one forgets what he did.”
The one-man campaign of this former American football coach, who came to the Senate in 2020, left the Department of Defense with numerous vacancies in key positions. Or with commanders who could only carry out their positions in functions, without being able to make decisions beyond the most basic ones. Or without being able to organize moves or move their families to their new destinations, or receive the salary increases linked to his promotion.
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Tuberville’s veto even reached the highest military command, the head of the General Staff Board. When the current incumbent, General Mark Milley, retired in September, the Senate had to vote to replace him, General Charles Q Brown, on the floor of the chamber.
The Republican politician claimed that the same procedure could be used with each promotion proposal. But submitting each military appointment to a plenary vote represented a disproportionate expenditure of time: months of uninterrupted sessions would have been needed to fill all the pending vacancies.
The Pentagon, the White House and Democratic lawmakers launched numerous calls for the senator to change his attitude. The lack of commanders in key positions, they alleged, affected the morale of the forces and their ability to react. It endangered national security, especially at a time when the United States rivals China in the Asia-Pacific, assists Ukraine in the war against the Russian invasion and reinforces its military presence in the Middle East in the face of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
These calls had also been joined by pressure from the Republican Party itself, which not only alleged the risk to national security. Also, the fear that in the future, if the political tides change, some Democratic legislator could imitate that tactic and impose his blockade against Republican appointments. Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham, Joni Ernst and Dan Sullivan, all veterans of the Armed Forces, begged him on the floor of the Upper House to lift the veto.
Even Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly criticized Tuberville. According to McConnell, the Alabama politician was punishing “military heroes” for a policy that the Pentagon had decided.
Finally, Tuberville has given in to the prospect, which already seemed inevitable, that the Democratic majority in the Senate would introduce a bill for a change in the chamber’s rules to override the veto. Several Republican lawmakers were willing to vote in favor, which would have guaranteed approval of the measure.
“It has been a long fight,” the Alabama legislator declared to reporters this Tuesday. “We fought hard. “We did the right thing to defend the unborn and our military, standing up to government overreach.”
The Pentagon has reacted with relief to the senator’s announcement, although it has urged him to also facilitate the appointments of four-star generals. “As has been evident by everything that is happening in the world right now, we have a very important mission when it comes to the defense of this country. “Every time you add a level of uncertainty in the chain of command, you create unnecessary friction,” said Defense Department spokesman General Patrick Ryder.
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