[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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