Hand it to Mitch McConnell, whether he's in the minority or the majority, he leads Republicans in setting all sorts of records for obstruction. It's particularly impressive, now that he's in control of the Senate, that he's
breaking new records with just one non-vote: Loretta Lynch's nomination to be attorney general.
Lynch is on course to be confirmed this month after the longest wait ever for a nominee to be attorney general—and very likely by the closest vote ever to put a new person in charge of the Justice Department. […]
For essentially the first two centuries under our Constitution, senators afforded the president free rein to stock his Cabinet as he chose, except in the most extraordinary circumstances. Getting over the "advice and consent" hurdle was about proving competence for public service, demonstrating good manners and keeping your moral nose clean. […]
This time, there's been an important additional twist: The single biggest reason Republicans oppose Lynch is that she disagrees with them on a single matter of public policy. They say her sticking up for the president's immigration executive orders reveals one of two larger problems: that she won't steer Justice in some fundamentally new and centrist direction (as if that was ever going to happen) and she can't be counted on for the independence an attorney general sometimes needs to pursue the rule of law over the pull of politics.
One issue—a political fight over immigration—that has nothing to do with her actual qualifications to hold the position has held up this vote. Plenty of folks have offered
some good reasons why Lynch perhaps should get a closer look, but shockingly only Sen. David Vitter
opposes her based on her actual record as a U.S. attorney in New York, specifically her failing to secure prosecutions of HSBC officials when they were caught laundering drug cartel money. Substance, though, has nothing to do with why Republicans are obstructing Republican leadership over this nomination.
Back when they were in the minority, Republicans achieved another dubious distinction, the first-ever filibuster of a secretary of defense nominee with Chuck Hagel. Maybe they're just so used to obstructing at this point that they'll keep on doing it, even as the majority.