Twenty-two weeks after she was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the next attorney general, it looks like Loretta Lynch finally has amassed enough votes to reach confirmation in the Senate when it returns from a two-week break on April 13.
However, the confirmation first must make it to the Senate floor.
MSNBC noted that Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., has become the fifth Republican to back Lynch's nomination, so far held hostage by GOP senators over her statement that she believes Obama's executive actions on amnesty for illegal aliens to be legal.
Kirk, who announced his support at a City Club of Chicago luncheon Thursday,
told Politico: "I am confident from my conversation with Loretta Lynch that she will be a valuable partner in confronting the gang violence that is robbing families of their children every day in Chicago. We need the help of the attorney general in fighting gangs of national significance through U.S. marshals and prosecutors, and to address organized crime like drug and child sex trafficking."
Kirk thus joins GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham, Orrin Hatch, Jeff Flake, and Susan Collins in supporting the Lynch nomination. Assuming all Senate Democrats vote for her, she would have the 51 votes needed to approve her nomination without the necessity of Vice President Joe Biden casting a tie-breaking vote, Politico reports.
The nomination of Lynch to replace Attorney General Eric Holder has roused senatorial passions and
Breitbart reported that with his support for Lynch, Kirk "will reportedly cave to President Barack Obama's executive amnesty."
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said he finds Lynch's "unambiguous statement" that illegal aliens have the "right and obligation to work" regardless of their immigration status, troubling.
"President Obama's executive amnesty represents one of the most breathtaking exertions of executive power in the history of this country," Sessions said, adding, "essential to civil rights is the equal and uniform application of the laws. When the president capriciously suspends those laws and provides benefits to people here unlawfully, he injures the rights of lawful workers, denying them the protections Congress passed to secure their jobs and wages."
Breitbart reported.
Sessions said: "No senator should vote to confirm anyone for this position, the top law enforcement job in America, who supported the president's unlawful actions. Congress must defend its constitutional role, which is clearly threatened," Breitbart reported.
Lynch may yet pick up additional votes from Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Politico notes.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has indicated he would stall a vote on Lynch until passage of the human-trafficking bill, hung up over abortion language, MSNBC reports, so the Lynch nomination may remain up in the air longer, despite the vote count.