Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who has held up military promotions for nine months, slammed a proposal being floated to change the chamber’s rules to allow a vote on many of the nominations en masse and attacked the White House and Senate Democrats for not negotiating with him.
“It’s typical of this place. This administration would rather burn the Senate down and that’s what would happen. … If you change the rules of the Senate then it lasts forever,” Tuberville told CNN’s Manu Raju. “So they would rather burn down the Senate than negotiate.”
All Senate Democrats would have to join with nine Republicans for this latest plan to work. The bloc of nominees wouldn’t include some higher-level military promotions, which senators would still want to confirm one at a time. The proposal could go to the Senate Rules Committee as soon as this week, a source told CNN Thursday.
Tuberville has been holding up military promotions since February because of a Department of Defense policy that reimburses travel costs for military members requiring reproductive care outside of the state in which they are stationed. The department enacted the policy after the reversal of Roe v. Wade last year overturned the constitutional right to an abortion and left the issue to individual states.
The Alabama Republican added: “If they go around and, without negotiating, change the rules of the Senate it just goes to show you they want it their way or the highway.”
Tuberville, declining to provide specifics, said that members of the military tell him that his holds are not impacting readiness – something which the Pentagon and White House have repeatedly highlighted in their arguments urging the senator to lift his objections.
“If I thought this was happening, I wouldn’t be doing this. And I’ve told you that all along. And the people that I…
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