Politico:
Tuberville’s move to force a cloture vote is rare for a member of the minority party. Arnold Punaro, a former staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee, condemned Tuberville’s move as “a very serious breach of conventions,” noting that typically only the Senate majority leader invokes cloture.
Punaro said the decision to use cloture for military confirmations will set “a bad precedent” and politicize the process.
“I was around when they did cloture for the first federal judge and said ‘we’re not going to do it again.’ And now 100 percent are having to go through cloture to get [judges] confirmed in a Republican or Democratic administration,” Punaro said. “We politicized the federal judiciary. We certainly don’t want to politicize the military promotion process, which is sacrosanct.”
