Elections Cloud Future For Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro

After a year in office, U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro cuts a tragic figure in Washington. Frustrated, bereft of any real authority, and barely able to even hire his own team to staff the Navy’s front office, Del Toro’s remaining tenure may well be measured in months.

Del Toro has little hope of clawing his way into relevance anytime soon. Battered by an ongoing bureaucratic battle with Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks over basic authorities and the shape of the future fleet, beset by a frozen budget and a scandal-prone fleet, the Navy secretary sits becalmed in an embarrassing bureaucratic limbo.

While Del Toro shows no sign of quitting, his ultimate fate may rest in the hands of voters from the 2^nd District of Virginia. In November, those voters will determine if Rep. Elaine Luria, a well-regarded naval advocate, returns to the House or goes back to Washington as America’s first female nominee for Navy secretary.

The Incredible Shrinking Navy Secretary

With the U.S. Navy desperately needing empowered leadership, Del Toro’s slow-motion defenestration is a tragedy. Today, the modern office of Navy Secretary is decidedly subordinate to the Department of Defense, and Del Toro, a former Navy ship captain and proud business owner, has obviously chafed at being put under the Pentagon’s heavy thumb. In return, the Department of Defense is letting Del Toro twist in the wind.

With a compromised Del Toro at the helm, the Navy is effectively rudderless. Right now, the organization is simply trying to get through the day without losing a ship, a fuel depot, or a sailor to another avoidable mishap. But the casualties keep stacking up. Last October, an unready wardroom on the USS Connecticut (SSN-22) drove their critical undersea command into the seafloor. New Navy Freedom-class warships, once meant to be the future of the fleet, are now early-decommissioning duds. Poor management and fuel leaks at the Hawaii Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility sickened sailors and poisoned the entire military’s relationship with the strategic island chain. Frustrated junior sailors protested in public—some even died by suicide—after a shambolic Navy refused to acknowledge widely-known quality of life challenges or hold leaders accountable for the welfare of junior sailors.

Each crisis and each new challenge offered Del Toro an opportunity to rise to the occasion. But, for whatever reason, Del Toro has failed to directly grapple with these emergent challenges in any noticeable and public way, preferring instead to work behind the scenes. To outsiders, Del Toro’s relentless positivity and oblique focus on causative issues feels unrelated to the problems at hand. The tone is, at best, jarring. Track his statements, and it’s like the Navy’s problems don’t exist and that everything is awesome. None of the major recent Navy crises—which have set the tone for Del Toro’s tenure to date—were directly addressed in Del Toro’s “Year in Review” message. And neither, for that matter, was seapower, Del Toro’s raison d’être.

And yet, the ugly hits may just keep coming. A new national strategy is rolling out, and a future Pentagon budget is getting worked up. Both are likely to downgrade the Navy, increasing the vast gulf between Del Toro and other key Pentagon leaders.

This fall, as the Navy attempts to justify its ever-shrinking slice of Pentagon funding, Navy performance will, again, be in the spotlight. Later this year, America’s most expensive ship, the $13.3 billion USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), is heading out on an attenuated, half-an-air-wing “show-deployment,” desperate, after five years in service, to convert itself from a floating berthing barge to at least something resembling a functional defense asset. What happens if the ship fails to meet the vessel’s already-lowered bar?

If the Navy fails to perform, things may get rough enough that Del Toro will have few options beyond resigning or departing semi-gracefully as part of a rumored post-mid-term reshuffle of the Pentagon’s top leadership. To stay longer, Del Toro will, at a minimum, need to keep out of the Pentagon’s crosshairs by taking a dutiful refuge in the secretary’s back-bencher role as a maritime diplomat and anodyne speaker at ceremonial Navy functions.

Should a frustrated Del Toro resign or get pushed out, Luria makes a good candidate for secretary of the Navy.

Known for holding Navy leaders to account and dishing out tough love to a Navy she served in for two decades as an officer, Luria is locked in a hard-fought re-election campaign. If Luria loses, a prominent Biden Administration post at the Pentagon makes a pretty good consolation prize for this well-organized and efficient leader.

The Navy’s Future Runs Through Virginia’s 2^nd District

Luria is certainly not out shopping for a new job.

Virginia’s 2^nd Congressional District is listed as a toss-up favoring the incumbent, and Luria is confident that Virginians will return her to Congress. But Virginia’s redistricting opened a viable path for a Republican opponent, leaving the Navy secretary job as a potential backup.

Luria, of course, is focused on winning, disavowing any suggestion she might forgo a long future on the Hill. She dismisses the idea, saying, “I remain focused on winning in November and delivering for Coastal Virginians, taking care of our veterans, and growing our Navy as a member of Congress.”

Luria’s office also noted she retired from the Navy in 2017, and that she will only be eligible to serve as secretary of the Navy without a congressional waiver after 2024.

While a congressional waiver would be a big political stretch for the Biden Administration, Luria is held in high enough regard in Congress that it is not out of the question. And until Luria’s congressional future is certain, the Department of Defense will keep an already constrained Del Toro on a very tight leash.

A shift to Luria offers the Department of Defense a refreshing change in direction for the Navy and a welcome opportunity to delegate active management of the Navy to a more trusted, results-oriented partner. Luria is a good fit. Reflecting the Biden Administration’s focus on governing, where possible, through bipartisan collaboration, Luria often transcends party lines. Her wonky and educational national security “dog-and-pony” shows with Mike Gallagher, Wisconsin’s firmly Republican 8^th District congressman, are in demand, serving as “must-see-TV” on the Washington podcast and talk show circuit. She has made no secret about joining Republicans in demanding a larger Pentagon budget, and in advocating for a larger Navy.

Despite occasionally bucking the “Party Line” on defense issues, Luria is a good soldier for her party. She is one of the few Democratic representatives from a “toss-up” district willing to serve on the “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United State Capital.” Rejecting timorous careerism, Luria took the high-profile assignment knowing it would spur a Republican backlash at her district’s ballot box.

Luria’s focus on doing what she thinks is right for America is her driving force. It allows Luria to balance her penchant to buck against low Democratic defense budgets with relatively thankless political taskings from Democratic Party leadership. But that ability to seamlessly blend her priorities with her party duties is what makes Luria a potential future power in Congress—even a candidate for House Speaker—someday.

Luria knows she can do a lot for the Navy from Congress. But if Virginia voters send Luria packing in November, the Navy secretary job is open for her, if she wants it.

Would Luria Take The Job?

If empowered to chart the Navy’s future and strategies, the accountability-focused Luria is an ideal pick for the Biden Administration’s next Navy secretary.

From the Pentagon, Luria can do a lot of good for a service that is, at best, beset by deep strategic and operational doldrums. Luria clearly wants to help the Navy do better, and with her bipartisan reputation and her friends in Congress, she would be well-positioned to show the Navy and nation a viable path towards a confident, reinvigorated, and fully functional maritime force.

Luria, however, is no bureaucratic cipher. While she knows how to take orders, she also marches to her own beat. That tension requires both adept management and, ultimately, a willingness at the Pentagon to grow the Navy budget. But if the Pentagon wants to keep the Navy secretary a largely ceremonial post for some big donor, then a new cross-cutting maritime-oriented Cabinet level post, crafted to organize America’s vast but poorly-resourced civilian maritime portfolio, might prove a tantalizing offer.

Should President Joe Biden agree that the U.S. maritime requires more funding over the next few years, Luria is the perfect person to go and get it. If the secretary of Defense grants Luria the operational freedom to lobby and advocate for her service, just as John Lehman did in his Reagan-era campaign for a 600-ship Navy, America may soon welcome the first female Navy secretary in history. If not, then Luria might be the right person to inaugurate a new position as a Cabinet-level maritime secretary, serving as a much-needed civilian leader for the orphaned U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Maritime Administration, helping to meld America’s oft-overlooked maritime investments into a more unified and strategically viable enterprise.