Senators of both parties appear poised to take unprecedented procedural steps to break the months-long hold on hundreds of military nominations by Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., over his opposition to President Biden’s decision to change abortion policy in the uniformed services without the consent of Congress.
The Senate stayed past midnight on Wednesday of last week in an attempt by a handful of Republican senators to break the logjam and confirm some of the nominations before adjourning for Thanksgiving, but were rebuffed by other Republicans who stood by their colleague in his procedural move.
Senator Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska,voiced the frustration of many senators from both parties: “I wish we could resolve this. I’m on the floor here more out of sadness and frustration than anger. I really do wish with my colleague Sen. Tuberville we can find a way forward on this fast, to turn to the even bigger readiness problem,” including Iran and China.
As many have argued, notwithstanding the merits of Tuberville’s strong argument against Biden’s policy overreach, the bad optics of the holds, fanned by Democrats and their media allies, could damage Republicans by keeping the contentious debate of abortion front-and-center, rather than kitchen-table issues of crime, the economy, the border and Biden’s weakness on the world stage.
Indeed, Democrat senators are shifting into overdrive in exploiting the politics of the holds, as Senator Elizabeth Warren inveighed recently on MSNBC: “It’s time for us to turn up the heat on that and for all of the Democrats to be involved…[Tuberville] is playing politics with our military and our safety in a way that we cannot, cannot, cannot reward.”
Whatever the politics of the impasse, and its possible resolution after Thanksgiving through a “temporary” suspension of the procedural gambit, it is important to recall that Democrats have long used this very same procedure of military holds to exert pressure on the President and the Executive Branch when it suits their political agenda, including on divisive social issues in the military.
Indeed, fifteen years ago, Senator Carl Levin, the Democrat Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, forced the retirement of then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace during the war in Iraq by threatening to block his confirmation to a second two-year term over the General’s remarks earlier that year against allowing gays to serve in the military.
Politics drove that decision in more ways than one – Hillary Clinton, a member of the committee, was the frontrunner in the Democrat presidential race for president at the time, and Levin wanted to sidestep the optics of his party’s likely standard-bearer opposing the confirmation of the Marine general after she took heat from gay activists for her initially tepid response to his remarks.
Democrats have played politics with military nominations for decades, in some cases far beyond that of Senator Tuberville. Following the 1991 “Tailhook” sexual harassment scandal in the Navy, another Democrat Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Sam Nunn, D-Ga., led the panel in placing a hold on all5,000-some officer promotions in the Navy and Marine Corps at the time – from mine and my fellow young Lieutenants to those of Admirals and Generals with more than 30 years’ service – until more information was provided to the Senate in its investigation of that incident, despite the fact that barely a handful of us knew anything about it.
Holds on military nominations are indeed a blunt instrument, but they represent one of the most powerful tools in a limited arsenal that the Senate can wield to exert pressure on the executive branch in forcing debate over its actions involving Pentagon policy. And taking that tool off the table – just like eliminating the filibuster – indisputably lessens the power of the legislative branch in holding the President and his administration accountable.
While most Americans agree in principle on the urgency to confirm qualified military nominees, as the Senate considers taking unprecedented steps to break this logjam in the coming weeks, it’s important to recognize Democrats’ own longstanding record of placing holds on military nominations to advance their own objectives while they look to score political points over this latest policy impasse.
Mr. Ullyot is a Marine Corps veteran and former spokesman for the National Security Council and the Senate Armed Services Committee.