Senate moves forward with plans to promote 3 generals and circumvent Tommy Tuberville's ongoing blockade

• Senate Leader Chuck Schumer is trying to circumvent Tuberville's military promotion blockade.
• He filed three cloture motions to attempt to force the Senate to vote to promote three generals.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer filed three cloture motions to jumpstart the process to promote three generals to new leadership positions as GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville continues to block the Senate from mass-promoting hundreds of service members.

Schumer filed the cloture motions on Wednesday afternoon in an attempt to confirm Gen. Randy George to be the Army's new chief of staff, Gen. Eric Smith as the Marine Corp's chief of staff, and the Air Force's Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

By filing the cloture motions, Schumer forced the legislative body to promptly schedule cloture-related votes regarding the three generals. If the cloture motions pass with at least two-thirds of the Senate's vote, the lawmakers will then be required to vote on whether or not to confirm the three generals' promotions.

Traditionally, promoting service members to higher positions has been a relatively simple job for Senators: The majority leader would bring a vote to the floor with a long list of proposed promotions that could all be confirmed at once as long as each senator willingly consented.

In early 2023, however, Tuberville decided to disturb the process.

Upset over the Pentagon's decision to amend its abortion policy to cover expenses for service members traveling out of state for abortion-related services following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade's precedents, he's pledged he won't give his consent to a mass-vote.

Using this method, Tuberville's blockedhundreds of officers from being promoted in 2023 alone, leaving the Marine Corps without a Senate-confirmed commandant in over 150 years.

Earlier in the week, Tuberville told his GOP colleagues that he had planned to file a cloture motion to try and confirm Smith as the new commandant of the Marines, though he has yet to file it.