Tuberville slaps down Warren plan to advance military promos, upholds block over DOD abortion rule

Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Tuesday blocked a plan from Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren to resume Senate approval of outstanding military promotions, which have stalled due to the conservative lawmaker's hold on such proceedings in protest of a Pentagon plan to fund out of state travel for servicemembers seeking abortions.

Tuberville has insisted that the "Biden administration has turned the DoD into an abortion travel agency" with its policy and has vowed to uphold his block on the nominations until the Pentagon changes choices. Strictly speaking, Tuberville cannot single-handed stop all of the military's outstanding promotions outright. Rather, by refusing to grant requests for unanimous consent to the promotions in batches, as is common, he may force the upper chamber to consider the nominees individually, taking up valuable floor time.

Warren sought to secure the upper chamber's unanimous consent on Tuesday to the appointment of Shoshana Chatfield to serve as a vice admiral and represent the U.S. on the NATO military committee," The Hill reported.

"At this critical juncture of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, we need her leadership in NATO now more than ever," she said. The Massachusetts senator further expressed frustration at Tuberville's hold, asserting that "One senator is personally standing in the way of promotions for 184 of our top-level military leaders."

"One senator is blocking key senior military leaders from taking their posts. One senator is jeopardizing America’s national security," she continued. 

Tuberville, however, declined to provide unanimous consent and received the support of Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who also objected to Warren's request.

In his objection, Tuberville maintained that his opposition to the policy stems from constitutional concerns, insisting that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had usurped congressional authority by instituting the policy via executive fiat.

"I want to start by reminding everyone why this is happening. It’s not about abortion. It’s not about the Dobbs decision," he said. "This is about a tyrannical Executive Branch walking all over the United States Senate — and doing our jobs."

"In November, I got word that the Pentagon was thinking about spending taxpayer dollars to facilitate elective abortions. This goes beyond what the law allows," he went on. "The law only allows the Department of Defense to facilitate and fund abortions in the cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. I warned Secretary Austin that if he did this, I would put a hold on his highest-level nominees. Secretary Austin went through with the policy anyway in February of this year. So, I am keeping my word."

He further vowed to uphold his block until the Pentagon changes course.

"This is the fourth time that Democrats have come to the floor to try to break this hold. I will come down here as many times as it takes," Tuberville declared.

He further addressed concerns that his hold would adversely impact national security by leaving vacant strategic offices at a time of military uncertainty.

"My hold has no effect on readiness. None. In an Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Chairman Reed asked two of the military’s top combatant commanders what impact would my hold gave on readiness," he noted. "Admiral John Aquilino said, quote, 'no impact.' General Paul LaCamera agreed. There is no impact on readiness or operations."

He further excoriated military leadership for empowering a bloated military bureaucracy, pointing to an ever-shrinking ratio of senior officers to personnel.

"We have plenty of generals. When my dad served in WWII, we had one general for every 6,000 troops. Think about that," he went on. "Now, we have one general from every 1,400 enlisted service members. That’s more than four times the ratio of generals to troops… We won plenty of wars with a lower ratio."

"Today, we have more admirals than we do ships. Let me repeat that. We have more admirals in our military [than] we have ships. Yet, the Democrat side of the aisle is in a panic that we don’t have enough admirals. It just doesn’t make sense," he concluded.

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