Senator Tommy Tuberville Calls into Questions the Power of Senate Holds

How much turmoil can one man cause? When it comes to the American Senate, more than you may realize. For six months, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has blocked hundreds of military promotions and nominations, placing multiple officers and their families at risk, harming the strength of the U.S. military, and ultimately threatening the national security of the United States as a whole. 

To do this, Tuberville invoked a “Senate hold.” Senate holds are considered an informal power that can be exercised by a Senator to block an unanimous consent request from coming to the floor. A unanimous consent request is a preemptive Senate-wide agreement on a matter or case to accelerate proceedings within the Senate. Most unanimous consent requests are used for routine procedures, such as date setting or approving a nomination. To enact a hold, a Senator must contact their majority leader, stating that they will not adhere to the unanimous consent. This forces the majority leader to revert to more formal proceedings which are typically much slower than unanimous consent proceedings. When first implemented, Senate holds were generally used to exhibit policy preferences; however, as an article in Forbes states, “overtime they’ve become like ‘silent filibusters.’”

In this situation, Tuberville is using his hold to block military nominations. Normally, military promotions are unanimous within the Senate and can be moved in blocks, a few hundred at a time. The use of this hold forces each nomination to be approved individually and with 300+ nominations needed for military leaders, Tuberville’s hold could congest the Senate for multiple weeks. The following CNN article puts this delay into perspective, it will “take the Senate approximately 700 hours of floor time to individually process and vote on…military officers whose promotions are being blocked.” Ignoring other bills and projects that require the Senate's attention, these nominations would take over a month.

But the question still stands, why? One contentious word: abortion. Tuberville states that he wants to overturn the Pentagon’s abortion policy that provides money for travel and job leave to military members whose state does not allow legal abortions. This policy finances a servicemember's trip to get an abortion. It was implemented because women do not choose where they are stationed, therefore this gives them the ability to get an abortion legally if needed. An NPR report on this summarizes how Tuberville stated that taxpayers should not have to fund this initiative. To back his claim, he invoked the Hyde Amendment, which states that federal funding should not be used for abortion. Until this is done, he will continue to block the ability for the Senate to jointly nominate each military promotion or nomination. 

There are multiple consequences to Tuberville’s actions. By holding up the promotions and nominations, multiple positions will be vacated and unable to be replaced, harming the overall national security of the country. Military families will also be forced into distressing positions, not knowing when or where they will have to move in the coming months. Furthermore, recruitment for the military is at risk of dropping further, as upward mobilization is impeded by the hold. 

As military commanders step down or retire, Tuberville’s hold has caused their vacated positions to remain empty or be filled on an “acting” basis. However, this “substitute” does not have the power to hire new people, move to their new office, or settle into their new position. The effect of this is immense as these temporary members are unable to carry out long term development plans for the military. Without the official confirmation from the Senate, these positions remain basically powerless. 

The implications of this also threaten the national security of the United States. With powerful positions being in transition, multiple areas of the U.S. military are not prepared to defend our country. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, the three secretaries of affected military branches –  Army, Navy and Airforce –  accentuate this point,  “these jobs…are being performed by acting officials without the full range of legal authorities necessary to make the decisions that will sustain the United States’ military edge.” Tuberville’s actions have put the U.S. military on their heels and in a very precarious position if the United States needed to act quickly to defend domestic or foreign interests. 

This issue is very real. In fact, it is affecting U.S. appointments in the Middle East right now. Tuberville’s blocks have left top officer positions in the Middle East, commanders of the Navy Fleet and Air Force Central, in limbo. Because of this, they are unable to initiate responses to the recent conflict in Israel that could potentially spread to other regions of the Middle East. Tuberville’s actions are similar to other Republican Senators, who are blocking the confirmation of key diplomats, such as the position of the U.S. ambassador to Israel. As a result, there is no leader to guide U.S. foreign military action in response to Israel's declaration of war against Hamas, a Palenstein terrorist group. To overcome this, the Democratic Senators had to hastily organize a swift, formal confirmation for nominee Jack Lew, which will be performed on October 18. This chaotic response exhibits how much Tuberville’s and other Senators' blocks have and could affect U.S. foreign policy.

Moreover, this also places military families in a very unsettling position. Spouses of servicemembers cannot look for jobs or houses and their children do not know where they will go to school because they don't know when or where they will have to move. Considering the sacrifices these families already make, this consequence should be enough to revoke the hold.

Lastly, the uncertainty of nominations may discourage future members from serving in the armed forces. Military positions are partially volunteer-based. Most of the members could earn more competitive pay elsewhere yet they stay to serve their country. Without the guarantee of upward mobilization, recruitment numbers could drop if the hold is not lifted. This is further highlighted by an article in the New York Times, where they describe how, “The military manages to keep many of these people by promoting them to more senior and challenging positions.” Without this assured inducement, less servicemembers will be inclined to stay and new members may choose to explore private sectors instead of serve.

These consequences question the necessity and legitimacy of Senate holds. In Tuberville’s case, the hold is not being used as it was originally intended; it is being used as an egregious abuse of power. Without reform, these holds could continue to be used to further personal political agendas within the Senate. 

This is not the first time these holds have been reformed or attempted to be reformed. In 1999, the Wyden-Grassley initiative was implemented. This amendment did not prohibit Senators from placing a hold, however it required that they publicly disclose their actions. The idea was that Senators would be more accountable if their name was publicly tied to their use of the hold. However, this reform has fallen short, as stated in a Brookings article, “such informal efforts have been plagued by loopholes and by the lack of an enforcement mechanism.” These attempts to reform the holds have been unsuccessful because they still allow a single senator the same level of power. 

Instead of implementing indirect reforms, these holds need to be directly altered to limit the amount of power one Senator can have over the legislative process. There are two possible reforms that the Senate can explore. 

The first reform would be to require three to five senators to create a coalition in order to block a certain request. This would make it harder for a single senator to block a unanimous request from coming to the floor. By enacting this change, the hold would be more focused on legislative measures and nominations instead of the powers of a single senator. However, this reform would reduce the power of a single senator, as he/she would have to appeal to their colleagues in order to use the hold. 

Another solution would be to limit the motion to proceed. To do this, the Senate would limit the debate time on certain measures based on the amount of support for a hold. By doing so, Senators could still enact holds, but Senate leaders could still bring those measures to the floor and overturn the filibuster in formal proceedings. This would discourage the use of single-vote holds because the formal process would not be substantially longer than the unanimous consent request. As outlined in a report by Brookings, “The direct consequence of limiting debate on the motion to proceed outside the morning hour will likely be to take the bite out of holds.” Unless the Senator can get the majority of the Senate, the single-Senate vote will have no effect. Moreover, this would not affect minority party Senators’ rights to filibuster conference motions, amendments or bills. However, this reform would dramatically reduce the power of Senate holds. Despite their negative reputation at the moment, Senate holds are still an important power given to minorities within the Senate. With this informal power, they can encourage certain measures to be debated longer on the floor. When used correctly, these holds give minority party Senators a platform to voice their policy preferences for a certain proceeding. This amendment would basically make them obsolete, weakening the influence of minorities in the Senate. 

Both of these reforms would successfully stifle future attempts at filibustering unanimous consent requests held by the Senate. This is a necessary change, as Tuberville’s actions have displayed how holds can potentially be abused to obstruct Senate progress. As summarized in an article by Brookings, “the hold indelibly affects the fate of legislative and executive business, often introducing unnecessary delay and parochial politics into the Senate.” The Senate needs to learn from this situation. 

The bottom line is the lives of 300+ servicemembers and their families should not rely on the political agenda of one man. Without reform, this informal power will continue to get abused by future Senators. As we have seen it only takes one to foolishly hold up the lives of hundreds, but it will take our whole government to ensure it can never happen again.