This year was the first time I had heard about these requirements for military promotions. I always had the impression that civilian branches of government kept arm’s length from the military, except for funding. From the New York Times in June:
…scores of officers…have been picked to be promoted to full colonel this year. Typically, such promotions are backed by Army and Pentagon officials before moving to the White House for final approval and then to the Senate for a confirmation vote.
At what level does this approve become a requirement for a promotion? Is this a rubber stamp or has the White House ever denied a promotion, or the Senate failed to confirm? Are these done in batches, or does the Senate have a separate vote for each promotion?
As I understand 10 U.S.C. 624, the Preisdent is authorized to appoint (without Senate confirmation) military officers to the ranks of O-1 through O-3. The Senate confirms all appointments (promotions) to O-4 and up. The vast majority of these promotions (thousands each year) go thorough the Senate en masse (I think even by unanimous consent without recorded vote).
My understanding is that mostly nobody cares who is promoted, it’s a historical restriction both on the size of the standing army and on the size of the military budget – both areas well within the remit of civilian government.
Every now and then, a name may be withheld or an entire promotion list held up to make a point. The Vindman promotion (forestalled, I believe by his requested retirement) is a recent example of the latter at least being threatened, and there are a couple examples of the former just off the top of my head. Most notably, in Navy circles, the repeated removal of one Kirk Lippold from the promotion list by an unknown Senator (until very recently, it was possible for a Senator to pull a name anonymously), almost certainly as a result of his having had command of USS Cole when it was attacked by a suicide boat off Yemen in 2000. To be clear, Senators can still pull individual names for basically any reason or no reason at all, but they can’t do it anonymously anymore, IIRC.
I would imagine that they would have to for the O-4 and O-5 level promotions, as there are a LOT of them. Not so sure what the story is with O-6, but I’d be willing to bet that the flag rank promotions get a lot more scrutiny (O-7 and above- various flavors of General and Admiral).