November 14, 2023
Washington, D.C.

Conservatives are proud to stand behind Sen. Tommy Tuberville in his fight to protect the lives of the unborn. For months, Sen. Tuberville has stood fearlessly and alone in protest of an illegal policy implemented by the Department of Defense (DOD) to pay for service member travel in order to obtain an abortion.

He has done so by objecting to the unanimous consent passage of military promotions, using the leverage granted to every single Senator to slow down these promotions in protest of the DOD’s illegal policy.

Sen. Tuberville’s stand is unique. When the DOD signaled they would implement this abortion travel policy, he warned them not to do it. DOD Secretary Lloyd Austin did it anyway. Yet instead of simply demanding a vote on legislation he knows will fail, Sen. Tuberville chose to maximize his leverage with a tactic that actually withholds something the White House wants.

To be clear, Sen. Tuberville is merely blocking the unanimous consent package of groups of these promotions – which Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could still bring to the floor and vote on at any time. Schumer has chosen not to do so, which has resulted in a backlog of military promotions. (To hear more from Sen. Tuberville, watch his recent interview with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.)

Sen. Tuberville has faced constant attacks by Democrats for his stand. But lately, he is coming under fire from some in his own party who are publicly attacking him for his tactic while offering no proposals of their own to credibly address DOD’s outrageous policy.

Even worse, there are some Senate Republicans who now want to unite with Senate Democrats to modify Senate procedures to strip every senator of the right to block the unanimous consent passage of military nominations and promotions. We strongly oppose this effort, which would further degrade the rights of elected senators. Moreover, because this Standing Order is only being proposed to block Sen. Tuberville’s efforts to respond to DOD’s abortion policy, we view a vote on this Standing Order as a proxy vote on the abortion policy itself.

Specifically, this Standing Order would allow any senator to proceed to up to two or more nominations or promotions at a time, with a single vote. While this sounds innocuous, this undercuts the efforts of conservative senators (the senators most willing to use their procedural rights to fight for just causes) to use their leverage to block or respond to efforts by the left.

Furthermore, this Standing Order has no limiting principle. It is not far-fetched to suggest that a process put in place to confirm “two or more” military nominations or promotions will then quickly turn into confirming ambassadors in large groups, then judges, and also combining large numbers of bills into one package, for one vote. This rapid devolution is exactly what we saw when the nuclear option was imposed on the Senate. The nuclear option – which eliminated the filibuster for nominations – was originally imposed for a select group of judicial and executive branch nominations. In under a decade, it expanded to cover nominations to the Supreme Court, Cabinet level officials, and even the post-cloture debate time on huge categories of nominations.

Rather than attacking Sen. Tuberville publicly over his tactic and threatening to join Democrats in changing the rules of the Senate, Senate Republicans should either back up their colleague, or propose a different solution to credibly fight this outrageous policy from Biden’s DOD.

It is rare to find true courage in Washington. It is even more uncommon to find sustained courage under pressure – but this defines Sen. Tuberville’s sustained fight for human dignity and pro-life values against a lawless and inhumane administration. We are proud to stand with Sen. Tuberville. We oppose any effort to undermine him by changing the Senate’s rules, and we urge all Senate Republicans to support him in opposing this the Biden administration’s blatant attack on life.

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