Business As Usual

Five months ago, President Barack Obama nominated Loretta E. Lynch ’81, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, to replace Eric Holder as United States attorney general. Instead of immediately calling for a debate and vote on her nomination, however, Senate Republicans led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided to hold up a vote on her confirmation, demanding that the Senate first pass a human trafficking bill with a potential expansion of the controversial Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortions. McConnell’s decision to attach the outcome of a human trafficking bill to a vote on a nominee for attorney general is obstructionism at its worst.

More than 150 days after the announcement of Lynch's nomination, we are still waiting on a conformation vote in the Senate. On Tuesday, news broke of the deal that would bring up a vote. Republicans were able to claim that they did not expand federal funding of abortion while Democrats could claim that they did not allow abortion restrictions to increase.

This deal is a sign that compromise is still possible in the Senate, and in that sense it is laudable. But the amount of time it took to get to the point of holding a vote was unnecessary and a sign of the unfortunate state of lawmaking.  Obstructionism by both parties has become so common that the media speaks of the obstacles to Lynch’s nomination as if they were entirely unavoidable, even though they were immeasurable worsened by political brinksmanship over an unrelated and contentious issue. Moreover, the controversy over Lynch’s nomination is particularly ironic coming after Senator McConnell pledged that his time as majority leader would see an end to “gridlock and dysfunction.” This episode indicates that the Republican majority is simply content to continue business as usual.

Understanding exactly how the nomination process should work makes the delay in confirming Lynch even more infuriating. As with all nominations, the role of the Senate is to give "advice and consent." Tying a vote on a highly qualified nominee to a controversial abortion funding provision of a human trafficking bill is not advising the president on his nominee. The senator who has the power to determine which bills are considered should not refuse to entertain a qualified nominee for attorney general simply because of partisan rancor. At some point, deference to the Constitution’s separation of powers and to the needs of governance must supersede politics. Even prominent Republicans like potential presidential candidate Jeb Bush have called for the approval vote to take place.

In a perfect world, the deal that broke on Tuesday would be a sign that the two parties were ready to put aside politics on vital votes. But the delay in confirming even an eminently qualified nominee suggests that America’s once great deliberative chamber remains a place of partisan division, where compromise is a last resort and obstructionism a favored tactic. The American people deserve better from their Senate.