Senate GOP targets Pentagon policy chief nominee in bid to break Tuberville logjam

Senate Republicans are urging Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) to narrow his hold on Pentagon promotions to civilian nominees, with the White House’s pick for policy chief as their top target.

Tuberville since March has blocked the Senate from quickly approving hundreds of nominations in protest of the Pentagon’s decision to pay for the travel expenses of servicewomen seeking abortions.

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Republicans almost uniformly oppose the policy, viewed as a way around a federal ban on taxpayer funding for abortions, but have grown exasperated over Tuberville’s tactics, which they say are punishing uniformed officers and their families who have nothing to do with the decision.

Those tensions boiled over on Wednesday night as a group of Republican defense hawks staged an unsuccessful attempt to break the logjam on the Senate floor.

The architects of that protest were Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK), who requested dozens of voice votes on the nominees, only for Tuberville to object to each one. But those same two lawmakers have been at the center of less-heated conversations with Tuberville to find an off-ramp to the impasse.

Tuberville has been offered a vote to reverse the policy. There has even been talk of lifting the holds for all but high-ranking nominees. But the latest push is an end to the blockade with one exception: the nomination of Derek Chollet, the White House’s choice for undersecretary of defense for policy.

Chollet, nominated in July, has yet to be approved by the Armed Services Committee, but if he is — the panel held a hearing on his nomination in September — Sullivan plans to place a hold on him.

The move reflects a desire to shift the hold to administrative appointees, viewing the position, one of the top jobs at the Pentagon, as tailor-made to Republicans’ opposition to the abortion policy.

U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet speaks and gestures ahead of a meeting with Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023.

Darko Vojinovic/AP

“He is the No. 3 guy in the Pentagon, and he’s the undersecretary for policy. He is the exact guy we should put a hold on if you care about this issue,” Sullivan, a reservist in the Marine Corps, told the Washington Examiner.

Senate Republicans have discussed the idea ever since Chollet’s hearing, according to Ernst.

“The focus of holds should be on political nominees, not the men and women in uniform that have nothing to do with the policy,” Ernst, a member of Senate GOP leadership who served in the Iowa National Guard, told the Washington Examiner. “So, we will be looking at this other nominee, again, a political civilian nominee, and we’ve offered to Coach to take this person and put a hold on this person and then let the military nominees go.”

Tuberville acknowledged he’s been approached about such a compromise but, as with other attempts, has rejected it, insisting the Pentagon must first reverse what he considers to be an unconstitutional policy.

“I mean, I’m on the right side here. They’re not,” Tuberville said. “So, I’m not bending the rules for people who want to break the rules.”

His refusal puts Senate Republicans back at square one. The conference could support a Democratic resolution making its way through the Rules Committee that would circumvent the blockade except for select high-ranking posts, but there are not yet nine GOP votes for the resolution to pass.

It may only be a matter of time, however, before that changes, with one Senate GOP aide familiar with discussions predicting the chamber is headed in that direction given how dug in Tuberville is.

Notably, Ernst and Sullivan, who were joined by four other Republican senators on the floor Wednesday, have not ruled out such a step, though the goal is still to find a Republican solution to the impasse. “That would be my preference,” Sullivan said.

To that end, Ernst and Sullivan intend to keep pressure on Tuberville. Sullivan is contemplating another marathon session on the Senate floor in the coming days, according to his office, and Ernst has collected signatures to force votes on two nominees caught up in Tuberville’s blockade, that of deputy U.S. Central Command commander and U.S. Northern Command commander.

“If we don’t see some sort of resolution, then I’ll probably file those next week,” she said.

The hope is the pressure campaign, combined with the threat of being circumvented, will change Tuberville’s mind, in which case a hold on Chollet becomes one of several possible off-ramps. A vote to reverse the policy, which would fail given Democrats’ control of the chamber, is another option still on the table, according to one Republican senator familiar with the conversations.

The conference plans to hold a lunch early next week to discuss a path forward.

Abortion policy aside, Senate Republicans were already disappointed by Chollet, whose role at the State Department during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan opened him up to criticism during his confirmation hearing.

Republicans had a chilly relationship with the last Pentagon policy chief, Colin Kahl, due to his support for the Iran nuclear deal and social media posts critical of the GOP.

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There is some hope among Republicans, according to two sources, that Chollet’s hearing performance could imperil his nomination with Democrats, something that could give Tuberville a face-saving win if he redirects his holds. That hope is merely speculative, however.

If he advances out of committee, Senate Democrats could still schedule a vote on Chollet’s nomination despite the hold, which merely slows down consideration of the promotion.