Senate Dems advance plan to circumvent Tuberville's military holds

Senate Democrats on Tuesday advanced a plan to circumvent Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville's blanket hold on military promotions.

The plan would permit the mass confirmation of military nominees and cleared the Senate Rules Committee in 9-7 vote with only Republicans opposing the move, Politico reported. Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., brought the resolution. The measure will need 60 votes on the Senate floor to pass.

Tuberville has, for most of the year, maintained a general block on military nominations to protest the Pentagon's provision of paid leave for military servicemembers to obtain an abortion.

While he cannot unilaterally block the nominations, he can prevent the typical batch confirmation of nominees by unanimous consent through his sole opposition. The upper chamber could still advance each nominee through an individual vote, though with more than 400 nominations affected by the hold, doing so would chew up valuable floor time and lawmakers have been reluctant to pursue that approach.

The Alabama lawmaker has resisted increasing calls from within his own party to end the hold, which has put the Senate GOP in between anti-abortion advocates and military officials. 

Tuberville, for his part, has rejected claims that the hold compromises national security, noting that many of those awaiting former Senate confirmation currently serve in the same post, albeit in acting capacities. He has further on multiple occasions attempted to bring up key nominees for a floor vote, forcing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to do so preemptively.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.