WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved Loretta E. Lynch to be the next attorney general, sending her nomination to the full Senate for what is likely to be a contentious vote.
The panel voted 12-8 to advance Lynch, President Obama’s pick to replace Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., with all of the votes against her coming from Republicans. The full Senate will likely vote in the next week or two.
While praising Lynch’s credentials, Republicans made it clear that their objections to her nomination hinged on her belief in the legality of the president’s executive action on immigration, the same issue that has tied up the approval of funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Several Republicans said they did not believe that she would be willing to stand up to the president if needed. Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, said approving Lynch would amount to approving Obama’s policies.
“A vote for this nominee, in my opinion, who favors and will defend this unconstitutional action, does provide support for the president’s agenda, and I don’t think we should provide that,” he said.
But Lynch needed just two GOP votes to proceed to consideration by the full Senate. She got three — Senators Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina voted in favor of her.
Hatch said he thought Lynch would act more independently than Holder. He criticized his colleagues for opposing her based solely on some of her testimony before the committee and for dismissing her “substantial” career.
“I do not believe that that is the proper way to evaluate any nominee’s fitness,” he said.
Several senators criticized colleagues, saying they had hashed out the immigration debate in an inappropriate forum.
“The place for this fight is in the courts,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York.
Graham concurred, saying, “We can yell and scream all we like, but the courts are the right place for this to be resolved.” He added, “I’m sorry the president has created this mess, but I’m not going to add to it.”
As US attorney in Brooklyn, Lynch has already been confirmed by the Senate twice. But she is expected to meet resistance this time, with conservative Republicans such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas opposing her because of her defense of Obama’s immigration actions, and with others, such as Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, vowing to reject all of Obama’s choices.
On Thursday, Cruz on called Lynch “unsuitable” for the job, saying her confirmation would open a possibility that Obama would take broader action on immigration and other policies.
“In this instance, Ms. Lynch has sat in this room and told the members of this committee what she intends to do,” he said. “If those answers are not sufficient to vote against a nominee, I don’t know what answers will be.”
But a change to the Senate rules orchestrated by Democrats in 2013 means that only a simple majority — not the previous threshold of 60 votes — is needed to stop a filibuster and confirm a nominee. With a handful of Republicans already expressing their support for Lynch, it seems likely that she will be confirmed.
The vote Thursday came a month after her confirmation hearings, which featured criticism not of Lynch but of Holder. Senators quizzed her on her views on Holder’s policies, such as his choice not to defend a federal ban on same-sex marriage; she replied that she would make her own decisions.
Republicans postponed the committee vote two weeks ago, a move that Senate Democrats criticized. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the panel’s ranking Democrat, pointed out that Lynch has had the longest wait of any attorney general nominee in the modern era, with nearly four months passing since Obama announced her nomination. He said that she had answered an “unprecedented” number of written questions from the committee.
Holder, who in September revealed his plan to resign, has served for six years, drawing conservative ire for his outspoken, liberal approach to leading the Justice Department.
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