Sixty-six senators, including 20 Republicans, voted to end debate on Loretta Lynch’s nomination for attorney general today, setting up a final vote for her confirmation and averting the first major test of the so-called “nuclear option” since Republicans took control of the upper chamber.
Lynch cleared the hurdle despite deep Republican opposition to her nomination, in light of her stated belief that President Obama’s executive orders on immigration were constitutional.
“Senate Republicans had ample opportunity to stop the nomination of Loretta Lynch as attorney general and demand that the president nominate someone who will respect the rule of law,” said Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) in a statement. “She supported the administration’s boundless legal theory to justify ignoring our nation’s immigration laws. In my view, this makes her unfit to be the attorney general.”
#related#By clearing 60 votes, though, Senate Republicans avoided a fight over the nuclear option, the procedural move that then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) took last Congress to prevent Republicans from filibustering President Obama’s nominees to positions in the executive branch and the lower courts. If fewer than 60 senators had voted to end debate on her nomination, any lawmaker could have called for a vote to reverse the nuclear option. But Senate Republicans are in the midst of an internal struggle over the wisdom of such a reversal.
“It’s all about protecting the true fight for the nuclear option for another day, because they weren’t ready to have it today,” says one GOP Senate aide.