Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ripped into the chamber’s Rebublicans on Thursday over the delay in confirming Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch, even as lawmakers prepared to vote within hours.
“Republicans have become so blinded by their nastiness, they have made the filibuster of cabinet members the norm around here,” Reid, D-Nev., said in a floor speech. “How unfortunate this is how Republicans portend to govern.”
Lynch is expected to be confirmed at 2 p.m., following a procedural vote on her nomination before noon.
But Senate Democrats are planning to step up their criticism of the GOP nonetheless, with a planned afternoon press conference that will urge Republicans to “break the unfounded logjam and quickly confirm more judges.”
Lynch, currently serving as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, was nominated in November, but her confirmation was tied up in a battle over a human-trafficking bill that Democrats were blocking in protest of language prohibiting federal spending on abortion services.
Republican and Democratic senators reached an agreement on the trafficking bill and it passed Wednesday, clearing the way for the vote on Lynch.
Reid took aim at an April 22 Wall Street Journal editorial that gave the GOP credit for not giving in to Democratic demands on the trafficking bill, praising them for refusing to confirm Lynch until the legislation passed without allowing federal funding for abortion services.
“Republicans didn’t yield,” the editorial said. “And on Tuesday Democrats capitulated.”
Reid disagreed.
“The Republicans capitulated to what we wanted,” Reid said. “So for them to say that they beat Harry Reid, they didn’t beat Harry Reid. What they did was beat up on themselves.”
