Loretta Lynch confirmed as the United States of America’s new Attorney General

Well, it’s final­ly hap­pened. After many con­temptible delays, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate final­ly took up Loret­ta Lynch’s nom­i­na­tion today and vot­ed to con­firm her as the nation’s next Attor­ney Gen­er­al, which means that incum­bent Eric Hold­er can final­ly pack his bags and leave office, as he has want­ed to do for many months.

A relieved Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma hailed the vote.

“Loret­ta has spent her life fight­ing for the fair and equal jus­tice that is the foun­da­tion of our democ­ra­cy,” the Pres­i­dent said in a statement.

“As head of the Jus­tice Depart­ment, she will over­see a vast port­fo­lio of cas­es, includ­ing coun­tert­er­ror­ism and vot­ing rights; pub­lic cor­rup­tion and white-col­lar crime; judi­cial rec­om­men­da­tions and pol­i­cy reviews – all of which mat­ter to the lives of every Amer­i­can, and shape the sto­ry of our country.”

“She will bring to bear her expe­ri­ence as a tough, inde­pen­dent, and well-respect­ed pros­e­cu­tor on key, bipar­ti­san pri­or­i­ties like crim­i­nal jus­tice reform. And she will build on our progress in com­bat­ting new­er threats like cyber­crime. Loretta’s con­fir­ma­tion ensures that we are bet­ter posi­tioned to keep our com­mu­ni­ties safe, keep our nation secure, and ensure that every Amer­i­can expe­ri­ences jus­tice under the law.”

The U.S. Sen­ate’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus vot­ed in uni­son to con­firm Lynch, joined by Bernie Sanders and Angus King, the two inde­pen­dents who cau­cus with them.

Ten Repub­li­cans crossed over to pro­vide the votes need­ed for Lynch to win a major­i­ty. The remain­ing Repub­li­cans vot­ed nay.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was a par­ty-line vote:

Vot­ing Aye: Democ­rats Maria Cantwell and Pat­ty Mur­ray (WA), Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (OR), Jon Tester (MT)

Vot­ing Nay: Repub­li­cans Jim Risch and Mike Crapo (ID), Steve Daines (MT), Lisa Murkows­ki and Dan Sul­li­van (AK)

The ten Repub­li­cans who crossed over to back Lynch on con­fir­ma­tion were Kel­ly Ayotte of New Hamp­shire, Susan Collins of Maine, Thad Cochran of Mis­sisip­pi, Jeff Flake of Ari­zona, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Ron John­son of Wis­con­sin, Ron Kirk of Illi­nois, Mitch McConnell of Ken­tucky (show­ing lead­er­ship for a change), Lind­sey Gra­ham of South Car­oli­na, and Rob Port­man of Ohio.

Sen­a­tor Ted Cruz of Texas did not par­tic­i­pate in the final vote (he was the only sen­a­tor who was absent), but nev­er­the­less lam­bast­ed Mitch McConnell from afar for lin­ing up votes for clo­ture and then for vot­ing to con­firm Lynch.

The vote on clo­ture was 66–34. Cruz par­tic­i­pat­ed in that vote.

Even though Repub­li­cans now have the U.S. Sen­ate major­i­ty, Cruz is still com­plete­ly unin­ter­est­ed in gov­ern­ing. With­out ques­tion, he’s about the fur­thest from pres­i­den­tial mate­r­i­al that the Repub­li­cans have, with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of Don­ald Trump, who is a com­plete and utter joke.

We extend our con­grat­u­la­tions to Loret­ta Lynch, Amer­i­ca’s first black female attor­ney gen­er­al. We look for­ward to see­ing her assume her new duties.