Sen. Joe Manchin III, the most vulnerable Democrat up for reelection, claims Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville is wrong about lawmakers like him being protected from voting on nominations that could hurt them this campaign cycle.
“I’m not afraid to vote on anything,” Mr. Manchin, of West Virginia, told The Washington Times.
Mr. Tuberville, of Alabama, has been blocking over 300 military nominations and promotions for several months over the Pentagon’s refusal to end its policy of paying for travel for a service member to go out of state to get an abortion procedure, as well as measures he says have politicized the military to make it a woke environment.
“I tell them just take the policy back, go back to old policy, bring it to a vote and we’ll vote on it. And whichever way it goes, I’m fine. They don’t want any vote on this, because there’s gonna be bad votes on the Democratic side,” Mr. Tuberville told Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham Wednesday night. The host named Mr. Manchin, Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana as vulnerable Democrats.
Mr. Tuberville also says that his office has vetted all 300 of the nominations and says there is a “huge percentage” of this pool that his opponents want to promote — possibly a four-star officer.
“We’ve already got 44 [four-star Generals]. That’s way too many as it is,” he said. “But there’s a lot of them that all they want to do is check boxes and talk about DEI. Everything is about equity.”
Mr. Tuberville accused Democratic leadership of not bringing nominations to the floor one at a time, because there are certain nominees that are more controversial for the more vulnerable Democratic lawmakers to support.
“It takes about three hours to do one nominee, which is why they’re not doing it…because they don’t want to put anybody [politically] in harm’s way.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, responded, “Sen. Tuberville has said a lot of things that aren’t correct.”
For decades, the Senate has grouped military nominations and approved them by voice vote as a way to avoid long roll-call votes. But Mr. Tuberville’s office said that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have threatened to block military promotions in the past.
Some Republican lawmakers suggested that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat, could hold votes on some of the most critical nominations, but Mr. Schumer rejected that approach.
“The bottom line is this is a problem created by Republicans, and it’s up to them to solve it,” Mr. Schumer said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said Mr. Schumer should schedule a vote on the Pentagon’s travel reimbursement policy related to abortions.
“I’d like to vote to rescind the policy, but I’m not going to hold the military up in perpetuity,” Mr. Graham said.
The Pentagon has yet to provide data on the number of service members who have relied on the new policy to get access to an abortion citing privacy issues.
It emphasizes that the new policy was in response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which created a situation where federal troops serving in one state may not have access to the same type of reproductive services available in others.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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