Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah are making an impossible demand of the woman selected by President Obama to become the nation’s next attorney general.
They want Loretta Lynch to state up front whether a presidential executive order regarding U.S. immigration policy is constitutional and legal. More to the point, they are demanding that she declare such an action unconstitutional and illegal.
Let’s think about this for a moment.
What they’re demanding is that the woman who wants to be attorney generalĀ stick a dagger in the back of the individual who has nominated her to that high office.
Cruz and Lee do not appear interested in simply hearing her out. Both men already have declared that they believe such a move — which the president has all but telegraphed will occur — doesn’t pass constitutional muster.
They are among congressional Republicans who already are angry over Obama’s use of executive authority to tweak and tinker with the Affordable Care Act. These men both are dead set against reforming immigration policy at least during the current congressional session.
So now they’re threatening to hold the attorney general nomination hostage to their own agenda.
What’s more, they’re asking the AG-designate to betray the president who’s nominated her.
Good luck with that, senators.