Posted on 03/16/2015 4:43:07 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
As a partisan clash over abortion threatens to further delay Loretta Lynch’s confirmation vote, the White House lashed out at Senate Republicans Monday, calling the brinksmanship surrounding her nomination for attorney general “unconscionable.”
“There is no question that Republicans are playing politics with the nomination,” Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday. “It should come to an end.”
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed the Senate will finish work on a human trafficking bill before taking up Lynch. But that trafficking measure includes abortion language that most Democrats would filibuster unless it’s removed.
Now, Democrats want a win on the abortion issue — and a prompt vote on Lynch . “There is a quick and very easy solution: Take the abortion language out of the bill,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor on Monday. “The Republican leadership doesn’t seem to be interested in a solution, though. The Senate Republican leadership, they’re all too anxious to shut down debate without fixing the problem.”
But GOP leadership is sticking by McConnell’s strategy. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the choice to delay Lynch until after the Senate finishes the trafficking bill is “exactly the right decision.”
“There’s no excuse for not passing this legislation,” Cornyn, the chief Republican backer of the trafficking bill, said Monday. “All the excuses that have been raised are phony excuses.”
So far, neither party seems willing to back down, which means Lynch’s fate could hang in limbo for days or even weeks. Lawmakers only have two weeks in session before they leave town for a long Easter recess, and neither party seems ready to blink yet.
Lynch has already waited for a confirmation vote longer than any other recent attorney general nominee.
The overall impasse is an ugly moment for the Senate, stalling Lynch’s expected confirmation and a bill that appeared to have close to unanimous support before the abortion row. Notably, Democrats declined to take her nomination up during last year’s lame duck while they were still in power, convinced that Lynch would win broad bipartisan support even in a Senate controlled by the GOP.
But while Lynch’s hearings went smoothly, many Republicans decided to oppose her as a show of distaste for President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration and some of the Justice Department policies of Attorney General Eric Holder. On Monday, Tennessee Republican Bob Corker said he would oppose Lynch’s nomination.
Nonetheless, Lynch appears to have enough GOP support remaining for confirmation.
The current legislative stalemate, however, carries risks for both parties. Democrats appear to be blocking a bipartisan trafficking bill over an abortion provision that they didn’t notice was in the bill until it hit the floor. And they probably won’t be able to maintain party unity when the trafficking bill comes up for procedural votes this week, as several Democratic senators are expected to vote in favor of the bill even with the provision denying use of restitution funds collected under the bill for abortions.
That stands in contrast with Reid’s most recent success, when Democrats held firm and unanimously voted against a Department of Homeland Security funding bill laden with immigration riders, earning Democrats a big win with a clean, year-long DHs fund bill.
Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin of West Virginia are expected to vote with Republicans, sources familiar with their plans said. Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana is another possible defector. But it’s unlikely that Republicans will pick off enough Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster.
Democrats didn’t notice the abortion language as the measure sailed through committee to the floor, but now they don’t have enough votes to remove the provision through amendments. Most Democrats oppose the trafficking bill with the abortion language attached. And Reid (D-Nev.) is urging his 46-member caucus to kill the bill as written.
Despite the escalating dispute, and likely delays for the trafficking bill, GOP leadership on Monday stood by McConnell’s strategy. And Cornyn criticized Democrats for blocking the anti-trafficking legislation — which should be a clear win for both parties — over an abortion provision that has long been on the books in some form.
“It’s been law of the land for 39 years,” Cornyn said. “This is a phony issue. They’ve voted on it time and time again. … And we have them an opportunity to vote on it, and they rejected that. So, tells me they’re not serious.”
But Republicans, too, could take a political hit if they’re seen as holding up a confirmation vote for Lynch, who would be the first black woman to be attorney general.
Ever since the Senate confirmed Defense Secretary Ash Carter earlier this year, Democrats have been complaining that it Lynch, too, deserved an up-or-down vote by the full Senate. But they were infuriated at the latest obstacle thrown in her path to confirmation.
“I honestly cannot believe they would do this unfair, unjust thing to a good woman,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat. “It’s leverage, but tell you what: I don’t think the public is going to embrace this strategy. It’s a cruel strategy.”
Hillary Clinton also joined the fracas on Monday, lambasting Congress for the delays in several tweets.“Congressional trifecta against women today: 1) Blocking great nominee, 1st African American woman AG, for longer than any AG in 30 years….” Clinton’s first tweet read, followed by “…2) Playing politics with trafficking victims….3) Threatening women’s health & rights.”
Somewhat ironically, Lynch is being held up over an issue she said she would prioritize if confirmed. When Cornyn asked her in February to name three ways she splits with current attorney general Eric Holder, she instead listed her three top priorities for DOJ — combating trafficking among them.
“If I am fortunate enough to be confirmed as attorney general, I would bring my own personal approach to decisions about the Department’s priorities, an approach that would emphasize … committing additional attention to the scourge of human trafficking which subjects the most vulnerable among us to a modern-day nightmare of sexual slavery,” Lynch said in a written response to Cornyn.
With Lynch’s confirmation mired down in the abortion fight, Lynch’s supporters have tried to draw attention to that fact — arguing that installing her as the nation’s chief law enforcement official was one way to fight trafficking.
If senators wanted to combat sex trafficking, “they would want to see Loretta Lynch as attorney general and not be delaying a vote on her nomination,” Marcia Greenberger, president of the National Women’s Law Center, said on a conference call with reporters on Monday.
So now, the AG is a must be black job
a quota
Even ol’ Strom might vote for her if he will still alive to show he was never “racist”.
““There is a quick and very easy solution: Take the abortion language out of the bill,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said”
What harry said, they’ll take abortion out of the Trafficking Bill just what harry and the democrats want pass it, then approve lynch. Simple no problems just cave and give the democrats what they want. After all republicans must get this minor stuff out of the way so they can hurry up and cave on the budget and credit resolution.
How much money is Mitch McConnell getting from the democrats for this?
No worries, turtle will cave. No matter what.
McConnell is wrong. The vote on Lynch should not be tied to anything else. And she should be REJECTED.
So there are no qualified white people for the job of AG .... got to have another radical communist black person?
The Republicans in power will continue to trash Conservatives and sell us out until people start leaving in droves and contributions dry up.
Yes.
It’s all Kabuki theater. He did everything he could, you see.
Because Democrats are always so fair and honorable, and would never EVER think of playing politics with a cabinet nomination.
Totally agree. We should call McConnell and Boehner the Washington Kabuki players.
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