Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) announced Tuesday that he is ending his months-long blockade on hundreds of military promotions.
Tuberville said he is jumping on board with an idea presented by Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) that would release all of his holds on military officers at the 3-star level and below.
A hold will remain in place for the roughly 10 nominations for 4-star generals and officers.
“I am not going to hold the promotions of these people any longer. We just released them,” Tuberville told reporters after informing Senate Republicans of his decision.
At issue was a Pentagon policy enacted last year allowing service members to be reimbursed for travel to receive abortion care. In total, the holds lasted nearly 10 months and became a thorn in the side of the Senate GOP conference, with many members hesitant to choose between the military and taking an anti-abortion stand.
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The pressure on Tuberville to alter his tactics only increased as Senate Democrats planned to hold a vote in the coming weeks that would temporarily change the rules of the upper chamber in order to advance the more than 400 nominees that were being affected.
Tuberville also faced tumult within the GOP over his holds. Sullivan, Ernst and multiple other GOP members with military backgrounds had gone to the Senate floor twice in recent weeks in an attempt to pass individual promotions, effectively taking the dispute public.
The Alabama Republican’s military roadblock prompted Senate leaders to take individual action on a number of top military posts in recent months. In addition to CQ Brown Jr.’s nomination to take over as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the upper chamber also held one-off votes on the Marine Corps commandant, Army chief of staff, chief of Naval operations, Air Force chief of staff and the Marine Corps’s second-in-command.
According to Tuberville and Sullivan, only roughly 10 nominees will remain subject to his holds, all of whom are set to become 4-star generals. Tuberville cited the need to vet the top officials for keeping the hold place for those individuals, who could also receive individual votes.
While many Senate Republicans were displeased with Tuberville’s tactics throughout the past 10 months, they were equally upset with the possibility of a vote to change the Senate’s rules in the coming weeks.
They were leery of creating a precedent for the chamber and did not want to alter the ability of a a single senator to place a hold on a nominee in the future. Senators have routinely noted that placing a hold is one of the few meaningful powers they have, and they did not want to see that ability curtailed moving forward.
“There’s no reason. We’re not the House,” Tuberville said. “We keep the rules the way they are.”
However, Tuberville expressed no regrets about how he handled matters throughout the blockade, though conceded that he didn’t get the “win that we wanted.”
“We’ve still got the bad [abortion] policy. We tried to stand up for the taxpayers,” he said.
The news brings to an end a roller-coaster stretch for Senate Republicans, who found themselves stymied at almost every turn in an attempt to find an offramp for the former Auburn University football coach. Tuberville also caused confusion at times as his demands shifted, though all centered on trying to reverse the Pentagon’s policy.
The military-minded senators in recent months panned the Alabama senator, especially over his claim that the blockade was not affecting military readiness. Sullivan, a member of the Marine Corps Reserve, pressed that the holds were “hugely disruptive” to readiness and were affecting military families that were kept in limbo for months.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said early on that he opposed Tuberville’s tactics but routinely came up empty in trying to navigate the tricky waters in search of a resolution.
Updated at 2:11 p.m. ET
