Attacks on Sen. Tuberville Are a Red Herring

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) speaks to reporters in the Senate Subway of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on July 19, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Commentary

In September, the U.S. Senate voted 83–11 to confirm the promotion of Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown to Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. If getting Gen. Brown confirmed had truly been important, the vote could have been scheduled by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as far back as late May or early June.

But doing so would have undercut the Democrat efforts to strongarm Republicans into accepting taxpayer funding of abortion policies that are arguably illegal and undoubtedly controversial.

In response to these new policies unilaterally imposed by the Biden administration, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) in December 2022 pledged to take a principled stand to draw attention to the new policies. And contrary to the false narrative advanced by the Biden administration, the senator’s stand doesn’t block military confirmations. Instead, it forces the U.S. Senate to do individual roll call votes for each confirmation, rather than approving them via unanimous consent.

Suffice it to say, Mr. Tuberville’s unwillingness to roll over has created some conflict—a conflict whose root cause is the Biden administration’s belief that abortion is a “sacred obligation” of the military.

The big “sacred push” by the Biden administration to use taxpayer dollars to help pay for military abortions has understandably angered many Republican senators and House representatives.

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Although the Department of Defense’s expanded support for taxpayer funding of abortion doesn’t provide for funding the abortion procedure itself, it does provide travel expenses and 21 days of leave to get and recover from the abortion for active duty military and their dependents. As these abortion costs are usually many times that of the abortion procedure itself, these new abortion-friendly policies represent a large increase in taxpayer money going to provide abortions for servicemembers.

Those supporting these new policies argue that it doesn’t violate the letter of the law of Title 10, Section 1093 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits the Department of Defense from directly providing or paying for abortion services, except when the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or in a case in which the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.

Those opposing the new policies argue that increasing the amount of taxpayer money being used to support abortion clearly violates the intent of Title 10, Section 1093, which was implemented to prevent public money from being used to support abortion except for the very limited prescribed circumstances delineated above. So, at a bare minimum, the new policies make a mockery of the intent of Title 10, Section 1093.

This is where Mr. Tuberville came in. He believes that the new policies not only make a mockery of Title 10 but also violate the long-standing Hyde Amendment. And when it comes to public funding of abortion, Mr. Tuberville’s position is solidly in the mainstream of the American public, who oppose taxpayer funding of abortion services by 58 percent to 38 percent.

So, given no money was provided by the House and approved by the Senate to pay for greatly expanded abortion expenses, Mr. Tuberville decided to pressure the Biden administration and the increasingly left-leaning military establishment by declining to go along with using the unanimous consent process for some 273 individual senior military appointments (pdf). This means that each of the 273 appointments requires a roll call vote—a lengthier process, but eminently doable.

And let’s not forget that Mr. Tuberville is hardly the first senator to use this power. Indeed, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) used the threat to block the confirmation of 1,123 members of the armed forces by denying the use of unanimous consent unless Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed “in writing that he did not, or will not, block the expected and deserved promotion” of Trump impeachment “hero” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman to full colonel.

Let’s be clear: Her use of this power was all about promoting the legitimacy of the impeachment. This is in sharp contrast to Mr. Tuberville, who’s drawing attention to taxpayer money being spent in a way that cynically contravenes existing law and, further, violates strongly held public sentiment.

Admirably, Mr. Tuberville has been willing to come under savage attack to stand up for the rule of law and the sanctity of life, all while faithfully serving his constituents. And in a move marrying principle with shrewdness, Mr. Tuberville threatened to bring the confirmation vote for Gen. Brown to the Senate floor himself.

This would have put Mr. Schumer and Democrats in the position of having to vote for Gen. Brown’s confirmation, thereby destroying the false narrative that Mr. Tuberville was blocking his nomination. Or Mr. Schumer could have blocked the vote on Gen. Brown, once again exposing the lie that Mr. Tuberville was blocking his nomination.

This highlights the fact that Mr. Schumer always had the option to bring any of the confirmations to the floor but didn’t.

Fortunately, along with the false narrative-driven attacks, Mr. Tuberville has also been showered with support from a wide cross-section of America. Those who care about both the military and a culture of life understand that Mr. Schumer could have been advancing the “all-important” confirmations any time he chose. And they appreciate Mr. Tuberville’s principled stand to draw attention to the Biden administration’s unprecedented use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion expenses. And that’s a good thing.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.