Is Tubervilleâs military promotion blockade nearing an end? âI want to get this over withâ
Sen. Tommy Tuberville is signaling that he might be interested in an end to his nine-month blockade of military promotions in the Senate.
Punchbowl News is reporting that Tuberville is expected to circulate a memo ahead of a special Republican conference Tuesday to outline some possible endgames for the ongoing standstill.
On Monday, Tuberville said, “We’ll just have a conversation and see if anybody’s got any solutions. Everybody’s interested in it now after nine months. Hopefully, we can come up with something that’ll work.”
The outlet reported Tuberville may be open to different options, but still wants some action related to the Defense Department’s abortion policy, which triggered the promotion halt.
Politico reported Tuberville as saying, “I want to get this over with, but do it the right way.
“It’s pretty important to my people back in the state that there’s got to be a way around this that … it’s not going to satisfy everybody, but I do want to move forward with this,” he said.
“We’ve got several things that we can do,” Tuberville told reporters. “I understand the urgency. I’m not just being hard-headed about this. I understand we’ve gotten into some unique problems the last few weeks.”
Democrats are reportedly looking to attempt an end-around the blockade by allowing multiple promotions to be voted on at the same time. This approach isn’t supported by all Republicans, who reportedly fear what Democrats might do in future with rules changes.
It also come a week after Tuberville faced off against his own Republican senatorial colleagues in a tense standoff, who said conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza illustrate a need for a resolution.
Tuberville began the blockade, which is impacting about 370 promotions, in protest to Pentagon policies that reimburse service members’ travel expenses for abortions if they are stationed in a state where the procedure is illegal.