Loretta Lynch Attorney General Update: Nominee’s North Carolina Supporters To Lobby Republicans For Senate Vote

Democrats may be fuming mad that a vote on the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as U.S. attorney general has been delayed in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, but it’s supporters from Lynch's home state who seem the most disappointed. North Carolina residents were expected in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to try and convince their two Republican U.S. senators to change their minds about opposing Lynch, the Associated Press reported.

If confirmed, Lynch, a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, would become the first the African-American female attorney general. She would succeed Eric Holder, who was the first black person ever appointed to the job.

North Carolina’s state NAACP branch said a women's coalition would travel to the Capitol with the branch president, the Rev. William Barber, where they planned to hold a news conference and press for a meeting with their senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis. The senators are among several prominent Senate Republicans who pledged to oppose Lynch because of her agreement with the legal basis for President Barack Obama’s immigration reform policies, among other concerns.

Burr and Tillis have also cited pending elections-law litigation by the U.S. Department of Justice against North Carolina, which they believe would continue if Lynch is confirmed, according to the AP. Democrats, and several Republicans, have lauded Lynch, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District New York, for her record as a knowledgeable and fair federal prosecutor. An announcement earlier this week by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that Lynch’s confirmation would be delayed, at least until another piece of legislation moved through the chamber, drew sharp reaction from Democrats and civil rights leaders Monday.

The Obama administration, which announced Lynch as the nominee in November, was among those blasting Senate Republicans.

“It’s an unconscionable delay,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday. In the more than four months since Lynch was nominated, Earnest noted, she had answered more than 600 written questions from senators, held private meetings with members and sat for more than eight hours of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“There is not a single legitimate question that has been raised about her aptitude for this job,” Earnest said. “Instead, all we’ve seen is a bunch of political obstruction from Republicans that, again, does not speak well of Republicans’ efforts to run the Senate in an effective fashion and certainly not in a way that’s in the best interests of the country.”