The tide is turning on the timing of the confirmation process for President Obama’ s nominee for attorney general, likely pushing off a vote into the new year.
Senate Democratic sources late last week started suggesting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., could try to ram through U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch’s nomination during the lame duck while Democrats still control the majority.
But that prospect is growing dimmer by the day as lame duck legislative priorities have piled up. Even though Senate Republicans are gearing up for a bruising battle on the nomination, Lynch’s selection was viewed as far less controversial than other contenders for the top Justice Department post, and GOP sources predict her nomination will be approved in a Republican-controlled Senate.
Right after the election, when Lynch’s name first started circulating for the top post, the Washington Examiner reported that it would take six to seven weeks to confirm the next attorney general and that most of the process, including the final vote, likely would take place in early 2015.
Along with a busy to-do list that includes funding the government and passing a new authorization of force for military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who chairs the Judiciary Committee, also is dead set on passing an overhaul of the National Security Agency before Democrats lose control of the majority by the end of the year.
Such a busy lame duck schedule would inevitably push most of Lynch’s confirmation process into the new year, especially if Senate Democrats want to pass other priorities, including more than 100 of Obama’s languishing judicial and ambassadorial nominees, as well as those for other administration posts.
Confirming Lynch this year will be very difficult if Reid wants to approve a package of nominees in the lame duck as well, according to Democratic sources familiar with the process.
“The only way I see her getting through is if the package deal blows up, and Reid just” decides to push her through in retaliation, one source noted.
Democrats still could hold an initial hearing on Lynch’s nomination during the lame duck session, a decision they are mulling as Congress returns to Washington this week.
The decision-making has been further complicated by confusion about who in the administration is “running point” on Lynch’s nomination, Democratic sources said. A White House spokesman was traveling with the president in China and didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Late last week, after Democratic sources started suggesting that Reid was leaning toward trying to push Lynch’s nomination through the lame duck session, Republican leaders lined up to reject the idea.
“Ms. Lynch will receive fair consideration by the Senate. And her nomination should be considered in the new Congress through regular order,” incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement Friday.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the third-ranking member of the Senate GOP leadership, echoed the statement in an interview on CNN Sunday.
