USAToday reports that Republican Senator Tuberville’s hold on over 400 military promotions (excluding four-star nominees) has ended. https://tinyurl.com/yeyvkxk5

The former football coach turned U.S. lawmaker in one of the world’s most important deliberative bodies has stymied the promotions for 10 months while trying to force the Pentagon to yield to his desire to stop the Pentagon from giving service members time off and pay for travel to have an abortion. The policy was put into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

Thus, we have a government in which a single Senator, one of one hundred, can stymy the earned promotions of hundreds of military personnel vital to the nation’s defense because he, one Senator out of a hundred, objects to a Pentagon policy. Not coincidentally, note that the policy he wanted to thwart directly helps only women. And, of course,

The retired college football coach said he has no regrets blocking the nominations in protest of the Pentagon’s policy.

Of course he has no regrets. The Senator will now try to force the Pentagon to his will by having Republicans in the House, where they have a very slim majority, to force the Pentagon’s hand through the annual defense spending bill. After all, who needs defense when you are trying to impose your religious views on the entire government? Even Mitch McConnell apparently thought Tuberville was off base on this one, calling his action “dangerous.”

Among other preposterous and grossly irresponsible aspects of Tuberville’s blockade was that it led a group of senators to spend five hours in November on the Senate floor trying to secure individual votes on each promotion. Apparently, the great deliberative body had plenty of time on its hands, so no problem jumping through procedural hoops trying to overcome the obstinate resistance of one Senator.

This is no way to run a government. A single legislator, elected by 1,392,076 voters, representing 1.7 percent of the 80,821,083 total votes cast for Senators in 2020, is able to dictate policy to the entire government. I rest my case.