Senate lawmakers have confirmed Loretta Lynch for the post of attorney general after a five-month delay, voting largely along party-lines, with Democrats in the chamber joined by 10 Republicans supporting her nomination.
A simple majority is all that was required to confirm Lynch and the 56 to 43 vote vote means that she will replace Eric Holder in the top post at the Justice Department. The nomination has been embroiled in a partisan fight between the Obama administration and Republican lawmakers opposed to the president’s executive actions to limit deportations for millions of illegal immigrants. Republicans were angered by Lynch’s support of the president’s stance on the controversial issue.
In an unexpected twist, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had kept her nomination from a vote for so many weeks, voted with the majority.
In February, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent her nomination to the full Senate, but Republican leaders delayed the vote for a variety of reasons.
As The Associated Press notes: “Democrats have grown incensed over the long delay in confirming Lynch, with Obama himself weighing in last week to lament Senate dysfunction and decry the wait as ‘crazy’ and ’embarrassing.'”
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