[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 20, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4620-S4621]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Military Promotions
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, the senior Senator from Alabama,
Senator Tuberville, for more than 6 months, has continued his brazen,
reckless hold of hundreds of routine, nonpolitical promotions of senior
military officers.
Democrats have said all along that these promotions should move
forward together as these nominations have for decades in the past.
They should have happened a long time ago. They should have happened
the way these promotions have been done in the Senate until Senator
Tuberville arrived. They should have been done quickly and in a
bipartisan way.
Instead, the Senator from Alabama decided he would take the
unprecedented step of holding up these promotions because he held a
political position on abortion that doesn't have the votes to pass the
Senate and is opposed by the Commander in Chief and the Secretary of
Defense. This poorly conceived tactic has also been opposed by the
Senate Republican leadership. Leader McConnell and Senator Thune have
both voiced grave concerns about the path that Senator Tuberville is
taking. And Speaker McCarthy, when asked about it this week, demurred
and said: I am the Speaker of the House.
Senator Tuberville's tactics have been opposed by top Republicans in
Congress. It has been opposed by Republican Presidential candidates. It
has been denounced by military families from one end of America to the
other, and it has been denounced by veterans groups. Polls show that
the American people strongly oppose what Senator Tuberville is doing. A
recent poll showed that even 58 percent of Alabama voters believe
Senator Tuberville should allow the promotions to go forward.
Simply put, besides the most extreme elements of the Republican
Party, no one thinks this is a good idea. In the face of that
opposition, it seems that Senator Tuberville is becoming more and more
desperate to get out of the box he has put himself in. He is desperate
to shift the responsibility onto others, but I have made it clear that
we will not allow anyone to shift this onto Democrats. The blame--the
blame--falls squarely on the shoulders of the senior Senator from
Alabama.
I offered to give him a vote to get the Department of Defense to do
what he wants on abortion in the NDAA. He never--never--took me up on
that vote. When Democrats tried to move all of the nominations--because
Democrats don't want to leave anyone in our military behind--Senator
Tuberville objected. And now, in a further act of desperation, Senator
Tuberville is seeking to use a procedural step to overcome his very own
holds. Yes, you heard that right. Senator Tuberville is seeking to undo
his own holds. The man who is holding everything up is trying to
obfuscate things by playing this ruse on the floor.
Senator Tuberville is essentially trying to make himself the
gatekeeper of which officers are promoted and who sits and waits.
Instead of just getting out of the way and allowing the Senate to
approve the promotions that these decorated military officers deserve,
the Senator from Alabama, unfortunately and wrongly, is using them as
pawns.
What Senator Tuberville is doing will set the military and the Senate
down a path to vote on every single military promotion. It will make
every single military officer's promotion subject to the political
whims of the Senate and even of one Senator. It will change the nature
of our nonpolitical military. It will hamstring the Senate and further
bog down this body and make it harder for us to legislate. It will take
away time from appropriations. It will make it harder to get things
done to benefit the American people. The decision by the senior Senator
from Alabama will have long lasting repercussions that may not be
apparent right away but that we may come to regret. I believe we will
come to regret them.
Due to the extraordinary circumstances of Senator Tuberville's
reckless decisions, Democrats will take action. It is not the path the
vast majority of Senators on either side of the aisle wants to go down,
but Senator Tuberville is forcing us to confront his obstruction head
on.
I want to make clear to my Republican colleagues: This cannot
continue. We cannot continue down this path. It threatens the ability
of the Senate and the leadership of both sides to work together to get
things done for the American people, and it threatens the nonpolitical
nature of our military servicemembers. Senator Tuberville's obstruction
is pushing the Senate down this road, and where it goes from here will
depend on all of us.
The Senate runs on unanimous consent, and we depend on each other to
ensure this institution functions smoothly. That is how we make things
happen around here. If everyone objected to everything to get leverage
for their pet priorities, it would grind this body to a halt. Either we
choose a different direction or we continue down the road of more and
more obstruction.
It is my hope--indeed, it is my prayer--that we find a better way.
Our military deserves better. We cannot allow Senator Tuberville to set
us on a path that no Senator wants to travel. We cannot allow Senator
Tuberville to decide which of our dedicated and brave servicemembers
get promoted and which get to languish, which military families are
able to settle in their new posts and which must remain in limbo. We
cannot and we should not allow that to be the case.
So I have just filed cloture on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Army Chief of Staff.
These men should have already been confirmed. They should already be
serving in their new positions. The Senate should not have to go
through procedural hoops just to please one brazen and misguided
Senator, but this is where we are.
In the end, the Senate will overwhelmingly vote to overcome Senator
Tuberville's blockade of these three nominees by voting for cloture.
Then the Senate will overwhelmingly vote to confirm them, and these
three honorable men will finally be able to assume their positions. And
the abortion policy that Senator Tuberville abhors will remain in
place. Senator Tuberville will have accomplished nothing, but the harm
he is doing to the military and their families remains and,
unfortunately, continues for hundreds of others.
For the information of all Senators, now that I have filed these
motions, I will request consent to collapse the time and hold these
votes later this afternoon. I hope Senator Tuberville does not object,
but if he does, Senators should expect votes on Friday and possibly
Saturday to finish the consideration of these nominations. Again, I
will shortly move to speed up the votes on these amendments this
afternoon, and I hope the Senator will not object, but if he does, we
will stay until we get them done.
Finally, Senator Tuberville's unprecedented disrespect of the men and
women who lead our military has unsurprisingly caused many of our
colleagues to discuss ways to change the way we process military
nominations. They recognize that the Senate process is being abused and
that Senator Tuberville's reckless actions are harming hundreds of
military families.
Once again, I wish we were not in this position. I wish my Republican
colleagues who do care deeply about keeping our military strong were
able to prevail on Senator Tuberville to completely change his tactics.
They clearly made some progress, which forced him to vainly attempt a
procedural play, but this is not a sustainable path. Senator
Tuberville's continued abuse of his privilege will continue to disrupt
the lives of hundreds of our Nation's finest and most dedicated
military officers and their families. While we Democrats didn't choose
this fight, we are ready to put an end to this sooner rather than
later.
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