Military spouses hand-delivered a petition to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) demanding that he end his blockade of military promotions.
Via AL.com, “An organization that advocates for military families on Monday hand delivered a petition signed by more than 500 active duty military spouses to Sen. Tommy Tuberville.”
The petition letter from the non-partisan Secure Families Initiative reads in part:
Let us be clear: Senator Tuberville is playing politics with our military. Senator Tuberville disagrees with the Department of Defense’s compDefense’spackage for active duty servicemembers and their families. As military families know all too well, service members and dependents do not choose where they live.
This is why the DoD guarantees a health care package that provides paid time off and reimburses travel costs for comprehensive health services that a servicemember or dependent cannot access at certain duty stations. if a Senator disagrees with DoD health care policy, they should settle it through normal legislative or administrative channels. It is highly inappropriate and unpatriotic to wage a political battle by using military service members as pawns.
Sen. Tuberville now has military families coming after him. The reality is that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell could end this situation in less than an hour if he wanted to. Until McConnell steps in, and the reason why he won’t is that the only other option to get the promotions done around Tuberville’s blockade would be a tedious floor process that would chew up the Senate calendar and, at minimum, delay more of Biden’s judicial nominees from being confirmed.
The military spouses are correct. This isn’t a Democratic or Republican issue. It is a matter of keeping our promises to those who risk their lives and serve.
Tuberville can go make his points about abortion somewhere else, military families should be off-limits.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
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Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association