Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Senate Democrats are kowtowing to “left-wing lobbyists. Lynch nomination up in the air as Dems block anti-trafficking bill

Senate Republicans are in no hurry to confirm Loretta Lynch as attorney general, meaning a final vote on her nomination could slip into April as a floor fight over abortion continues to drag on and a battle over the budget waits in the wings.

Lynch still has enough Republican support to be confirmed, but before senators even get to a final vote, they have to resolve the abortion impasse — a feat that seems elusive at the moment.


Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dug in on Tuesday, demanding the chamber finish work on an anti-human trafficking measure before considering Lynch. The Kentucky Republican said the Senate would hold repeated votes on the bill in the coming days.

That leaves the Senate in a bind because Democrats have promised to filibuster the trafficking bill unless an abortion-related provision is stripped out. On Tuesday, 43 Democrats voted to block the measure on a procedural vote — denying Republicans the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation for final passage.

“We’re going to stay on the bill,” McConnell told reporters. “I’ve said all along I thought that the president’s nominee to be attorney general is entitled to be considered on the Senate floor. And she will be considered as soon as we finish this very important bill.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called McConnell’s plan to hold more votes “another wasted week,” adding that the trafficking measure “can’t pass with the abortion language in the bill.”

But Republicans showed no signs of relenting on the abortion provisions.

“I think there’s great virtue in trying to stop human trafficking. I kind of feel that that’s more important than some other issue,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said. “Loretta Lynch will be fine. The young women who are being sexually trafficked now and mistreated are not going to be fine. It’s disgraceful what the Democrats are doing, and they should be ashamed.”

If neither side relents, Lynch’s confirmation vote could slip until after the Senate’s two-week Easter recess, which starts at the end of March.

While Lynch is still expected to be confirmed as the nation’s top law enforcement official, her margin is looking increasingly slim. Just this week, Tennessee Republican Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander said they would oppose her. Most Republicans plan to oppose her, largely over her support of President Barack Obama’s executive actions that could stop deportations and give work permits to more than 4 million undocumented immigrants.

“This is an opportunity, within the Senate rules, to express my disapproval of the president’s abuse of executive authority,” Alexander said in a statement Tuesday. “And it’s an opportunity I intend to take.”

So far, just four GOP senators — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine — are publicly supporting Lynch. That’s just enough votes to win a simple majority vote to confirm her, as long as Vice President Joe Biden is called in to break a tie.

In a move that could give political cover for any remaining fence-sitting Republicans, Graham released a letter from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani that praised Lynch’s record as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The letter said the president deserves to have his pick of nominees, even if he disagrees with some of her views.

On Tuesday, Reid suggested there was some bipartisan movement to resolve the stalemate, although he didn’t offer much in the way of specifics.

“There’s work being done to take the abortion language out,” Reid told reporters. “And that impetus is coming from Republicans.”

While Reid has been able to muster enough votes to block the trafficking bill, four Democrats voted with Republicans on Tuesday to cut off debate and advance the bill. The defectors were Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

As long as Reid can keep the rest of his caucus in line on future cloture votes, the standoff is expected to continue.

The fight stems from just a few lines in the 68-page trafficking legislation — there since the bill was unveiled in January — that would restrict the money in a restitution fund from being used for abortions. Democrats apparently glossed over that language and did not notice it until it began to make its way to the floor early last week.

Both parties moved hastily to make political hay of the impasse. The National Republican Senatorial Committee immediately seized on the failed vote, announcing a series of robocalls criticizing Democratic Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada and Michael Bennet of Colorado for the filibuster. Both Bennet and Reid are up for reelection in 2016.

And the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee promptly issued a fundraising solicitation calling McConnell’s strategy “disgraceful” for holding Lynch’s “confirmation hostage to promote Republicans’ anti-abortion agenda.”

Lynch’s nomination has languished in limbo since Obama nominated her in November and the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared her with three Republican votes in late February.

Her supporters, now beyond impatient with the delay, are stepping up their push to confirm her. Reid, the Senate minority leader, called it “beyond irresponsible” for McConnell to hold up a vote on Lynch until there is a breakthrough.

“Every time you wait, yeah, it could put her nomination in jeopardy,” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the third-ranking Senate Democrat, said Tuesday. “We hope that doesn’t happen, but it’s sure possible.”

And a coalition of black leaders on and off Capitol Hill held a conference call Tuesday morning to urge senators for a vote. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters that his group is “disturbed” at the delay and “that’s putting it mildly.”

“One must wonder: What are the reasons?” Butterfield said. “I think race certainly can be considered as a major factor and the reason for this delay, but it’s also the irrationality of the new Republicans.”

There may be a path forward after Tuesday’s failed cloture vote. Two solutions have been floated by those who want the standoff resolved: either redraw the bill to mirror the House’s bill with no restitution fund so the language — derived from the 1970s-era Hyde amendment — isn’t needed, or make the bill’s spending subject to appropriations, which would automatically make it subject to the Hyde language.

Manu Raju contributed to this report.