Democrats Bring Resolution to Bypass Tuberville’s Holds on Military Nominations

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) (L) and ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) preside over U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Timothy Haugh's confirmation hearing to be the next leader of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 20, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Senate Democrats are advancing a resolution in an effort to break through a hold Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has placed on confirmation votes for military nominees.

On Wednesday, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) introduced a resolution that would create a standing rule to allow confirmations of multiple military nominees at one time through a single en bloc vote.

Under its existing rules, the Senate has been able to confirm multiple nominees of a kind in a single en bloc vote using the Senate’s unanimous consent procedures. The Senate has historically used this en bloc voting method under the unanimous consent rules to rapidly approve multiple military promotions and nominees in a single vote. For months, however, Mr. Tuberville has objected to unanimous consent requests for military nominees, forcing the Senate to instead rely on the cloture process to confirm nominees on individual votes. Mr. Tuberville has maintained this hold on military nominees as a means of pressuring the Department of Defense to withdraw a policy to compensate its personnel for abortion-related travel costs and give them time for such travel without being charged leave time.

Mr. Reed’s resolution would bypass the Alabama Republican’s hold on mass confirmations of military nominees by creating a standing rule that would allow a senator to present a cloture motion to consider multiple military nominees en bloc rather than through the unanimous consent process. Mr. Reed’s resolution would make such en bloc cloture motions in order when the specified nominations have been formally introduced before the Senate for at least a day and have received a favorable report from the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The resolution includes a limited exception that bars en bloc considerations for nominees to positions on the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and for commanding officers of the various military combatant commands. The standing rule would not apply to non-military nominees awaiting Senate confirmation.

The standing rule would also have a limited duration. Mr. Reed’s resolution specifies this standing rule would be in place “during the 118th Congress,” which ends on Jan. 3, 2023.

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Mr. Reed’s resolution comes as Senators have deliberated on a variety of ways to overcome Mr. Tuberville’s hold on military nominations, including changing senate rules. In comments to NBC News, Mr. Reed described his proposal as “a suspension of the rules technically” rather than a permanent or even temporary rule change.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has placed his support behind Mr. Reed’s resolution, stating he will bring the bill to the Senate floor.

Resolution Could Divide Republicans

Before Mr. Reed’s resolution can proceed, the Senate must first determine the number of votes it will require to pass. Democrats currently occupy 48 of the Senate’s 100 seats and control the Senate Majority with the support of three independent Senators, while Republicans control the 49 remaining Senate seats. The higher the vote threshold needed for Mr. Reed’s resolution, the more he will need Republican support for it to pass.

NTD News contacted the office of Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough for her assessment on the vote threshold Mr. Reed’s resolution would have to meet to pass, but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.

While Senate Democrats have been unified in their opposition to Mr. Tuberville’s holds on military nominations, the views from Senate Republicans have been mixed. Many Republicans have supported the Alabama Senators’ pressure tactic against the DOD abortion travel policy, but some have raised concerns about the more than 370 military officers awaiting Senate action on their promotions and nominations.

On Wednesday evening, Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) spent more than four hours on the Senate floor requesting unanimous consent to hold individual confirmation votes on 61 military nominees. Their proposal would have entailed a slower process than approving military nominees en bloc under the unanimous consent procedures but would allow them to process individual confirmation votes more quickly than they would under the existing cloture process.

At times on Wednesday night, the four Republican senators times voiced their opposition to the DOD abortion-travel policy but expressed concern that Mr. Tuberville’s method of forcing a change in policy had begun to harm military readiness and was unfair to the pending nominees. Still, Mr. Tuberville objected to the unanimous consent requests.

So far, no Senate Republican has publicly offered their support for Mr. Reed’s resolution.

From NTD News