U.S. Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch testifies during her confirmation hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 28. Lynch is expected to be confirmed Thursday. (Andrew Harnik/For The Washington Post)
Loretta E. Lynch’s long wait to win confirmation as U.S. attorney general is expected to end Thursday, with the Senate scheduled to take an afternoon vote on the veteran New York prosecutor’s appointment.
Lynch’s confirmation appears assured, with five Republicans joining the Senate’s 44 Democrats and two independents in declaring their support for Lynch. But getting the Senate to a final vote has been a slow and rancorous affair, one President Obama deemed “embarrassing” last week.
“Her nomination has languished longer than the last seven Attorney General nominees combined,” Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement Wednesday hailing the impending vote. “This is wrong.”
[Eyeing big work ahead, senators cut deal on Loretta Lynch confirmation]
Obama nominated Lynch, 55, to replace Eric H. Holder Jr. in November. The Senate, then under Democratic control, did not act on the nomination, preferring to spend precious time in the lame-duck session on judicial appointments that party leaders believed would stall in a Republican-controlled Senate.
But Lynch’s nomination stirred plenty of controversy, especially after she became entangled in a deep partisan rift over immigration policy. During questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee in late January, Lynch said she believed Obama’s executive actions on immigration last year passed legal and constitutional muster — angering Republicans who considered them an overreach.
It took nearly a month for the panel to advance Lynch’s nomination, and once it did, the nomination soon became caught up in an unrelated political dispute.
[Loretta Lynch stays in limbo as Senate prepares to take up other matters]
An otherwise noncontroversial bill to combat sex trafficking became stuck on the Senate floor after pro-abortion-rights Democrats objected to provisions that would extend existing federal restrictions on abortion funding to a new victims’ compensation fund. At that point, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried to force Democrats to accept the language by tying Lynch’s nomination to the anti-trafficking bill’s passage.
The move incensed Democrats, some of whom spoke in racial terms about what they saw as shabby treatment of the first African American woman to be named attorney general. Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), for instance, said Lynch was “asked to sit in the back of the bus” by Republicans in a reference to civil-rights icon Rosa Parks.
Obama did not blame Lynch’s race for the delay, but he showed exasperation regardless. “It’s gone too far,” he said last week. “Enough. Enough. Call Loretta Lynch for a vote. Get her confirmed. Put her in place. Let her do her job.”
The deadlock broke Monday when party leaders agreed to restrict the victims’ fund to non-medical purposes, making trafficking victims instead eligible for health care under an existing federal program already subject to abortion restrictions.
The anti-trafficking bill passed Wednesday afternoon on a 99-to-0 vote.
[Senate passes legislation targeting sex trafficking after lengthy delay]
On Thursday, senators will take a morning procedural vote ,then debate Lynch’s confirmation for up to two hours, setting up a final confirmation vote in the afternoon.
While only 51 senators have publicly vowed to support Lynch, that support could grow modestly. Three senators who have not yet indicated how they intend to vote — Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) — declined to discuss their intentions Wednesday.
Mike DeBonis covers Congress and national politics for The Washington Post. He previously covered D.C. politics and government from 2007 to 2015.
Continue reading
0 comments:
Post a Comment