Marine Corps without leader as Sen. Tommy Tuberville holds up nomination votes
WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps was without a Senate-confirmed commandant for the first time in 164 years Monday as Sen. Tommy Tuberville continued his monthslong blockade on Pentagon appointments in protest of military abortion access policies.
Now-former Commandant Gen. David H. Berger held an unusual “relinquishment of command” ceremony at Marine Barracks Washington, ending his term as the corps’ top officer without formally handing the position over to a successor.
Typically, that happens with a “change of command” ceremony.
But as Tuberville (R-Ala.) refuses to relent on his boycott, Berger’s would-be successor, Gen. Eric M. Smith, could only take over as acting commandant.
“We’ll get one thing out of the way very quickly. If you’re saying, ‘What am I supposed to call you?'” Smith said during the ceremony. “‘ACTMC’ [pronounced Act-Mac]. That is my title, and one that I’m proud of.”
Tuberville has single-handedly prevented hundreds of Defense Department nominations from being approved by voice vote since March in protest of new Pentagon rules that reimburse and provide paid leave to service members who travel to receive an abortion or other reproductive care, such as in vitro fertilization.
The policy was put in place after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Former and current Pentagon leaders had held out hope that Tuberville would relent at least for the confirmations of senior leaders on national security grounds, but he has refused to do so, even after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters he does not support the boycott.
Monday’s ceremony came just a day before the Senate takes up the next — and arguably most important — military leader confirmation hearing: that of Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, whom President Biden tapped to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Tuberville is again expected to block Brown’s confirmation, which would leave the nation without a confirmed top officer in the military when the current chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley, retires later this year.
After Biden announced Brown’s nomination, a bipartisan group of seven former US defense secretaries wrote Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and McConnell, urging them to “lift the blanket hold and promptly vot[e] to confirm these uniformed nominees.”
The signatories — William Perry, William Cohen, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, Jim Mattis and Mark Esper — said holding up confirmation votes “at a time of enormous geopolitical uncertainty sends the wrong message to our adversaries and could weaken our deterrence.”
Tuberville and a handful of other Republicans insist Schumer could schedule additional procedural votes to get around the blockade or hold votes to confirm individual nominees such as Brown.
Members of Senate leadership and their allies reject that idea, saying the procedural votes would be unnecessarily time-consuming and holding votes for key nominees only would validate the Alabaman’s approach.
During the Monday ceremony, current Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Senate confirmations of military leaders are “crucial for our military readiness,” adding that service members and their families “shouldn’t be weighed down with any extra uncertainty.”
“Smooth and timely transitions of confirmed leadership are central to the defense of the United States and to the full strength of the most powerful fighting force in history,” Austin said. “Stable and orderly leadership transitions are also vital to maintaining our unmatched network of allies and partners.”
Austin also chided Tuberville’s protest as an active choice to fail the armed services, though he did not mention the senator by name.
“We have a sacred duty to do right by those who volunteer to wear the cloth of our nation, and I remain confident that all Americans can come together to agree on that basic obligation to those who keep us safe,” Austin said.
“I am also confident that the United States Senate will meet its responsibilities and I look forward to welcoming an outstanding new commandant for our Marine Corps and to adding many other distinguished senior leaders across the joint force,” he added.
