The U.S. Senate, circumventing holds by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, on Thursday confirmed the nominations of two senior military leaders, including the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Adm. Lisa Franchetti was confirmed by a vote of 95-1 to lead the Navy, making her the first woman to serve as a Pentagon service chief and hold a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. David Allvin was also confirmed by a vote of 95-1 to be chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force. The Senate was expected to vote later Thursday to confirm Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney to serve as assistant commandant for the U.S. Marine Corps.
Franchetti’s historic confirmation as the chief of naval operations comes as Tuberville has drawn bipartisan criticism for holding up almost 400 military nominations in an effort to protest Pentagon abortion policy. In a remarkable display, several Republican senators angrily held the floor for more than four hours on Wednesday evening and called up 61 of the nominations for votes, praising each nominee for their military service. Tuberville, of Alabama, showed no signs of letting up, standing and objecting to each one.
Allvin is the vice chief of staff of the Air Force but has been serving as acting chief, since the previous top Air Force officer, Gen. CQ Brown, became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oct. 1. Allvin is a career air mobility pilot with more than 4,600 flight hours and key deployments in Afghanistan and Europe.
If they could just DO it, in spite of Tuberville, why haven’t they until jusy now? What changed? The article doesn’t mention.
It I recall correctly, they can still do it but it’s one at a time. They can’t do who large batches like normal and there is a huge backlog. They have been doing a few here and there to critical positions.
I’ll attempt to explain. They are currently backed up 300+ promotions. In order to do one at a time, Schmumer has to file cloture for each one to bring them to the floor. When the matter gets to the floor, there’s a minimum one hour debate time. Let’s call floor time an hour and a hal per promotion. That brings the total of Senate floor time to 450 hours. While that’s happening, more promotions are being submitted.
It required changes to senate rules. Chuck Schumer opposed changing the rules because it would likely be a permanent change and allow either party to ram votes through, instead of working towards consensus like most things in Senate. This could lead to Republicans ramming extreme stuff through senate when they eventually take over in the future.
So, he finally just gave up and changed the rules?
No, the rules have always allowed them to consider promotions individually. It’s voting on promos as a bloc that requires unanimous consent.
I would also like to know this.