Tag Archives: Loretta Lynch

national news, political news

Absence same as 'no' vote? No … it isn't

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I really do like having Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate.

He offers so much grist for folks like me on which to comment.

The freshman Republican senator said this the other day about his absence on a vote that confirmed Loretta Lynch as the latest U.S. attorney general: “Absence is the equivalent of a ‘no’ vote.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/ted-cruz-loretta-lynch-no-vote-explanation-117528.html?hp=l2_4

There you have it. He missed the vote because he had a prior commitment to attend a fundraiser back home in Texas. Cruz had voted earlier on a motion to end a filibuster on Lynch’s nomination; he voted to keep the filibuster going.

The filibuster was broken, the vote took place, Lynch had the votes to win confirmation. So, what was the point of Cruz being there to cast his expected “no” vote on Lynch?

Well shoot, senator. It mattered because you didn’t put it on the record. It’s not part of the Senate’s official voting record.

I’m still uncertain precisely why Cruz disapproves so strongly of Lynch’s ascending to the office of attorney general, other than her support of President Obama’s executive order granting temporary amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. I guess Cruz doesn’t much like the notion of an attorney general supporting the policies of the president who appoints her to the Cabinet, where everyone serves at the pleasure of the president of the United States.

That’s been the mantra of other senators who opposed Lynch, even those who said upon the announcement of her appointment that she is “highly qualified.” Some of those former supporters changed their mind when she declared her backing for the president’s action on immigration.

I think it’s strange. Then again, that’s just me.

What the heck. Sen. Cruz was entitled to attend the fundraiser. He’s running for president, after all. Let’s not assume, though, that this issue of non-voting on this confirmation — as well as other key votes he’s missed while campaigning for the White House — will disappear.

It’s the price a sitting member of Congress pays when he or she seeks the highest office in the land. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton paid it when they ran in 2008. Sen. Cruz can expect the same thing in 2016.

 

 

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Lynch gets key GOP ally

Politics occasionally produces peculiar alliances that develop at key moments.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch’s confirmation vote over an unrelated bill dealing with human trafficking. Then the Senate approved the trafficking bill. What did McConnell do then? He rounded up enough votes to get Lynch confirmed.

McConnell whipped for Lynch, avoiding nuclear fallout

His work to end a filibuster that had stopped Lynch’s confirmation apparently has angered the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz and other members of the Senate’s TEA party caucus.

My reaction? Live with it.

This seeming reversal gets to a key element of McConnell’s leadership. He can be a fierce partisan when the opportunity presents itself, but he knows how the Senate is supposed to work and he knows how to deal with the “other side,” namely Democrats, when that opportunity presents itself.

Compromise, therefore, isn’t a bad thing when a failure to compromise gums up the legislative works — as it did while Loretta Lynch waited an interminable length of time to be confirmed as the nation’s next attorney general.

So, now let’s move on to the next congressional crisis.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Lynch finally confirmed as AG

The vote was 56-43.

The only reason the full U.S. Senate didn’t vote on this key appointment was that Republican Ted Cruz of Texas didn’t cast a vote. He didn’t like the nominee being considered for attorney general.

Welcome to the U.S. Justice Department, Loretta Lynch.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/239878-senate-votes-to-confirm-lynch-as-attorney-general

A number of Republicans voted to confirm Lynch, whose nomination should have been decided weeks ago. It was bogged down by the Senate Republican leadership’s insistence that it deal first with a bill that had nothing to do with Lynch’s nomination.

But she’s in. That’s good. She’s qualified and she deserved long ago to get a vote by senators on her nomination.

But here’s a curious element to the vote. One of the “no” votes came from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who said this:  “The question for me from the start has been whether Ms. Lynch will make a clean break from (President Obama’s) policies and take the department in a new direction.”

So, the chairman wants the new attorney general to break away from the policies of the president who appointed her. When has that ever happened? When has a Cabinet official ever promised to go against the individual who selected him or her?

The bogeyman for Grassley and other Republicans was Obama’s executive order on immigration that delays deportation for an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants. He wanted her to say she opposed the order. Good luck with that one, Mr. Chairman.

But what the heck. She waited longer than any other recent Cabinet appointment to get confirmed.

Let’s hope her new job will have been worth the wait.

 

national news, political news, Uncategorized

President, Congress head for rocky stretch run

There ought to be little doubt left that President Barack Obama’s final laps at the White House are going to be full of bitter quarrels with another “co-equal branch of government,” the U.S. Congress.

It didn’t need to come to this. But it has.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/barack-obama-delaying-loretta-lynch-vote-embarrassing-gop-117081.html?hp=b1_r1

The president took particular umbrage the other day at the Senate’s inexcusable delays in confirming Loretta Lynch to become the next attorney general.

“Nobody can describe a reason for it beyond political gamesmanship in the Senate,” Obama said during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. “I have to say that there are times where the dysfunction in the Senate just goes too far. This is an example of it.”

As Politico reports, part of the reason for this dysfunction appears to be that the previous Congress opted out of deciding Lynch’s nomination, preferring to hand the job over to the current Congress. I’ll admit to supporting that view, given that the 113th Congress was leaving office. I put some measure of faith in the 114th Congress being able to do right by Lynch, the president and the cause of ensuring that we have a fully functioning Justice Department.

I guess I should have known better. My bad.

The delay now has nothing to do with her qualifications, which are superlative. It has everything to do with side issues that Senate Republicans have concocted as a pretext.

And the president calls it an “embarrassment.” Do you think? I do.

And get this, also from Politico: “Lynch was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 26, so her nomination has lingered on the Senate floor for 50 days. That is longer than the previous seven attorneys general had to wait from committee approval to floor confirmation vote — combined.”

No wonder the president is angry.

It’s not going to get any better, Mr. President. Bet on a rough ride until the end of your presidency.

 

national news, political news

Reid to go 'nuclear' on Lynch nomination?

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U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is a lame-duck Democrat in a body controlled by Republicans.

He’s not going back into private life without a fight. He’s picked a doozy to wage with his GOP colleagues.

Frankly, it’s a fight worth having.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/harry-reid-says-he-can-force-vote-loretta-lynch-nomination

Reid wants to force the Senate to vote on the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be the nation’s next attorney general. She’s been waiting seemingly since The Flood to get a vote by the full Senate, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell keeps digging in, resisting the vote for this reason and that reason — none of which has any bearing on Lynch’s qualifications for the job to which she’s been nominated by President Obama.

She is highly qualified. She has deserved a full vote since the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended her appointment.

McConnell, though, is holding her hostage to other legislation.

Reid’s role as minority leader is supposed to put him in a subordinate capacity. However, he said this week that if he gets 51 senators to sign on, he can call for a full Senate vote and circumvent the authority reserved customarily for the majority leader.

He’s going to enrage McConnell if he manages to schedule the vote. A majority of senators already has said they plan to confirm Lynch as AG. The trick, then, is to get a majority to agree simply to a vote.

Lynch would succeed Eric Holder at Justice. Republicans already detest Holder. Every day Lynch is delayed from taking her job is a day that Holder remains at his post. Why in the world, if you’re a Senate Republican, do you want to keep someone on the job that you cannot stand?

Senate protocol and decorum are supposed to inviolable. A lot of it has been tossed aside in recent years as the parties have fought tooth-and-nail with each other. Democrats changed the filibuster rules in the previous Congress. And just recently, a group of Republicans sent a letter to the Iranian mullahs telling them the nuclear deal worked out could be tossed aside when the next president takes office in January 2017.

Decorum? Protocol? It’s gone, mostly.

Harry Reid’s set to play some hardball. If it gets Loretta Lynch confirmed as the next attorney general, well, let him throw the first pitch.

 

national news, political news

Graham writes strategy for GOP failure

Lindsey Graham is saying things his fellow Republicans don’t want to hear.

But they should.

That is why the U.S. senator from South Carolina’s expected bid to become the next president of the United States is likely going to fail. He will be unable to persuade the fire-breathing GOP base that he’s tell them a harsh truth: You can’t govern if you’re angry.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/lindsey-graham-2016-ted-cruz-116372.html?hp=lc1_4

As Politico reports, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas vows to “repeal ‘every word’ of Obamacare and Common Core if he becomes president. He would ‘abolish’ the IRS, flatten the Tax Code so Americans can fill out their taxes on a postcard, and ‘finally, finally, finally’ secure the border.”

Graham is trying to talk some sense into his fellow Republicans by reminding them that governing is a shared responsibility. They need to work with Democrats, not against them, if they expect to get anything done.

My hunch is that his message is falling on mostly deaf ears.

Republicans are mad at Democrats for what they perceive has been a shutting-them-out of the governing process. The GOP response now that it has control of both legislative houses? Payback, man.

Graham said it won’t work.

Here’s how Politico profiles Graham: “Graham, who has served in Congress since 1995 and is an attorney in the Air Force Reserve, is not without a wide range of votes that add to his baggage headed into 2016. He voted for both of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominees. He backs Loretta Lynch to be attorney general. He believes climate change is real and that the federal government should do something about it. He’s open to a Simpson-Bowles-type approach to rein in big deficits, something that would raise tax revenues. And he was an architect of the comprehensive immigration bill, something the right wing of his party despises.”

What in the world is so unreasonable about Graham’s approach to governing?

Everything, apparently, according to the far right wing of the Republican Party. Too bad.

 

legal news, political news

AG vote delay: preposterous

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder wants to go home, wants to hand his job over to someone else and wants to bow out of the public eye.

He’s infuriated that he cannot do any of that because the people with whom he’s had the most serious disputes during his time as head of the Justice Department — congressional Republicans — won’t vote on whether to confirm his successor-to-be, Loretta Lynch.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/eric-holder-lynch-nomination-delay-116274.html?hp=lc2_4

The U.S. Senate has delayed Lynch’s confirmation vote because Republicans are mad at Democrats over an abortion provision in an anti-human trafficking bill.

What does that have to do with Lynch’s nomination? Beats me. It also puzzles Holder and President Obama, who nominated Lynch to become the first African-American woman to lead the Justice Department.

“When we show the American people the dysfunction that has gripped Washington over the last few years, and add yet another layer of dysfunction, this erodes faith in our institutions. And that’s just not good for the country over the long term,” Holder said.

Dysfunction? Yes, there’s been a lot of it, Mr. Attorney General.

Lynch’s qualifications are yet to be challenge seriously. Some Senate Republicans want her to disagree publicly with the president on his immigration-related executive order. Fat chance, folks.

So now we’re still stuck. Lynch is waiting and waiting for a vote that she — and the country — deserve to take place.

Meanwhile, the man the Senate GOP loves to loathe remains on the job — where I only can suppose these senators want him to vacate.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Race enters Lynch debate over AG vote

I didn’t predict it would happen, but the debate over when to vote on the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as the next U.S. attorney general has taken an unsurprising turn.

The issue of race has entered this debate, as Lynch is the first African-American woman ever nominated to head the Justice Department.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/dick-durbin-loretta-lynch-back-of-bus-116180.html?hp=t1_r

The introduction was made by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who said the delays in voting on Lynch’s confirmation has forced the nominee to “sit at the back of the bus.” Durbin’s reference, of course, was to the great Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon who famously refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in the 1950s.

To my mind, the issue more about partisan politics than it is about race and Durbin should not have gone there during his Senate floor speech.

Durbin drew the expected criticism from Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the Senate’s lone black Republican, who accused Durbin of being a race-baiter.

“It is helpful to have a long memory and to remember that Durbin voted against Condoleezza Rice during the 40th anniversary of the March [on Selma]. So I think, in context, it’s just offensive that we have folks who are willing to race bait on such an important issue as human trafficking,” Scott said. “Sometimes people use race as an issue that is hopefully going to motivate folks for their fight. But what it does, is it infuriates people.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is wrong to hold up the Lynch vote. She needs to be confirmed and the Justice Department needs to get refocused exclusively on its job, which is to enforce federal law.

I just wish we could have kept the race argument out of this so we can stick instead to the raw political gamesmanship that the GOP leadership is playing while delaying Lynch’s confirmation vote.

 

legal news, national news, political news

McConnell up to old tricks in Senate

Mitch McConnell promised to make the U.S. Senate work better if he became its majority leader.

The upper legislative chamber would start governing again, he said.

OK, so how’s he doing on his pledge? Not very well.

The Kentucky Republican has announced he plans to hold up a confirmation vote on Loretta Lynch to become the next attorney general if Democrats don’t play ball on a controversial human trafficking bill.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/235753-mcconnell-will-delay-lynch-unless-democrats-cooperate

What does one thing have to do with the other? Not nearly enough to justify holding up Lynch’s confirmation vote.

Democrats are holding back their support of a trafficking bill that was supposed to be a non-controversial piece of legislation. Then they read some of the fine print in it and are now balking. McConnell said the Senate needs to clear that bill off the table before it considers Lynch’s nomination to succeed Eric Holder as the nation’s AG.

Holy obstruction, Batman!

This nomination needs to move forward. Lynch is highly qualified to be the nation’s attorney general. Republicans keep saying how much they dislike the way Holder does his job. Meanwhile, the Senate majority leader is doing all he can to ensure Holder stays on the job.

What gives?

As The Hill notes, Lynch has been twisting in the wind long enough: “Lynch’s nomination has been awaiting confirmation for 128 days, longer than the past five attorneys general. Holder, by comparison, had to wait only 64 days before receiving Senate confirmation.”

Schedule a vote, Mr. Majority Leader, and allow Loretta Lynch to be confirmed.

legal news, national news, political news

Lynch nomination a cliffhanger? Why?

Sometimes I can be a bit slow on the uptake. I get that. I concede it’s a weakness.

But for the life of me, I do not understand why Loretta Lynch’s nomination to become the next U.S. attorney general is hanging by a thread. Someone will have to explain this one to me.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/loretta-lynch-nomination-close-116032.html?hp=t2_r

Lynch is supposed to replace Eric Holder as AG. She was thought to be set for a relatively easy confirmation. Then the man who appointed her, President Obama, decided to issue an executive order that delayed deportation of some 5 million illegal immigrants; the order allows them to seek work permits while they stay in the United States.

The order enraged Senate Republicans. So what did they do? They began questioning Lynch about whether she supported the president’s executive decision.

What on God’s Earth did they expect her to say?

“Well, senator, since you asked, I think that’s the dumbest damn idea I’ve ever heard. It’s illegal. It violates the Constitution. The president has rocks in his head and he should be impeached just for being stupid enough to issue the order.”

Is that what they want her to say? I’m beginning to think that’s the case.

Instead, she has declared her support of the president’s decision. As if that’s some big surprise to the senators, some of whom said they’d support her initially, but then changed their mind because — gasp! — she’s endorsing a key policy of the man who wants her to become the next attorney general.

Who’da thunk such a thing?

Loretta Lynch is eminently qualified to assume this important post. Republicans have made no secret of their intense dislike of Holder, who said he’d stay on the job until the next AG is confirmed.

I believe Holder has done just fine as attorney general, but he wants to move on, spend time with his family, pursue other interests … all those clichés. So, let him do it.

First, though, confirm Loretta Lynch.