Tuberville Is Considering Options as Pressure Mounts To End Blockade on Promotions

Some Republican senators are pressuring their colleagues to resist supporting a Democratic resolution to circumnavigate Senator Tuberville’s blockade of military appointments and are instead pushing a Republican plan to end the blockage themselves.Democrats are ramping up the pressure to temporarily change Senate rules to allow them to make an end run around Mr. Tuberville’s one-man hold on military and Pentagon appointments and promotions.“Senator Tuberville doesn’t think his blockade on military promotions causes real damage to our readiness,” Senator Kelly said. “He either doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or he doesn’t care. He needs to release these holds. And if he won’t do it, we need to go around him.”Some Republican senators are attempting to convince their colleagues not to support the Democrats’ efforts. Among them is a senator of Florida, Rick Scott.“I support Tommy,” Mr. Scott told the Hill. “We ought to respect that a person has a different position, and actually I support his position. I think what the Biden administration did with regard to the abortion policy is not in compliance with the law.”Mr. Scott added: “We should have had conversations, we should have had meetings long before now to try to figure out how to get a resolution, and we have to figure out how we support people. Tommy ran on this issue.”While Mr. Scott and some colleagues, like Senator Vance, have expressed support for Mr. Tuberville, Senator McConnell and other Republicans, like Senator Graham, are positioning themselves in opposition to his months-long hold.Mr. McConnell has repeatedly called the hold “a bad idea.” Mr. Graham blamed Mr. Tuberville for single-handedly denying the nominee to be the deputy commander of the Pacific Air Forces, Laura Lenderman, on the floor of the Senate last week.“You’ve just denied this lady a promotion. You did that,” Mr. Graham said. “All of us are ready to promote her because she deserves to be promoted. She had nothing to do with this policy.”The internal battle on whether to attempt to end Mr. Tuberville’s hold within the Republican Senate conference is only the latest episode in a saga that has unfolded for more than nine months.Mr. Tuberville is blocking all military promotions and appointments as he objects to the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing service members for their expenses if they have to travel out of state from where they are stationed to receive an abortion.Mr. Tuberville says he’s reviewing his options for how to resolve his dispute with the Pentagon. He has previously favored Congress passing legislation to explicitly block the Department of Defense’s policy.Exiting a closed-door GOP Senate meeting Tuesday, Mr. Tuberville told the Associated Press that he “went in with one or two options. I’ve come out with five or six.”“There’s going to have to be some give-and-take,” the senator said.

Tuberville Is Considering Options as Pressure Mounts To End Blockade on Promotions

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