Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois makes remarks to the media. Lynch nomination fight takes on racial tinge The Senate’s lone black Republican accuses Democrats of using ‘race bait’ in invoking Rosa Parks.

On Wednesday morning, the No. 2 Senate Democrat accused Republicans of putting the African-American nominee for attorney general in “the back of the bus.” Hours later, Tim Scott, the Senate’s only African-American Republican, shot back that Democrats are using “race bait” in the fight over the long-stalled nomination.

To the already contentious battle over Loretta Lynch’s confirmation vote, add a dose of racial politics to the mix.


The bad blood comes at a moment of rising frustration among both parties over a stalemate on abortion language in a human-trafficking bill that shows no signs of abating. That impasse has swept up Lynch since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he will not allow a vote on the attorney general nominee until the trafficking bill passes. It failed again on Wednesday afternoon.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) took the first shot in the latest round of sparring with a Wednesday morning speech on the Senate floor that compared Lynch to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

“Loretta Lynch, the first African-American woman nominated to be attorney general, is asked to sit in the back of the bus when it comes to the Senate calendar,” the Democratic whip declared. “That is unfair, it’s unjust, it is beneath the decorum and dignity of the United States Senate.”

In a floor speech after Durbin’s remarks, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), the only other African-American in the Senate, noted how much longer Lynch has waited than previous nominees, asking: “Why do we have almost a double standard for Ms. Lynch for her and her nomination?"

Top Republican aides privately fumed but held their fire. But Scott, the first Southern African-American Republican elected to the Senate since Reconstruction, did not mince words in an interview, calling Durbin’s comments “factually and patently false. Period.”

“It is helpful to have a long memory and to remember that Durbin voted against Condoleezza Rice during the 40th anniversary of the March [on Selma]. So I think, in context, it’s just offensive that we have folks who are willing to race bait on such an important issue as human trafficking,” Scott said. “Sometimes people use race as an issue that is hopefully going to motivate folks for their fight. But what it does, is it infuriates people.”

The response from Durbin? “I’m sorry he was” offended, Durbin said in an interview later Wednesday. “I’m sorry they are holding Loretta Lynch, too.”

Durbin said he thought “long and hard” about his comparison of Lynch to Parks. Ultimately, he decided to take to the floor and attempt “to look at at the sweep of history and her place in that.”

“She is a civil rights moment in America,” he said.

In addition to his vote against Rice, Republican aides also noted that Durbin had voted against Janice Rogers Brown, an African-American judicial appointee of President George W. Bush. Democrats responded that all Senate Republicans had voted against Staci Michelle Yandle, a gay African-American judge in Illinois.

But Durbin said his point had nothing to do with the GOP’s mounting opposition to Lynch or his own votes against Republican nominees. He’s angry that Republicans are tying her confirmation to an unrelated bill.

“I’m not saying they all have to vote for her. But to stick her on the calendar and to leave her there indefinitely? I just don’t think it’s fair. It’s not fair to her. It’s sure not fair to the president, although they don’t worry about it too much,” Durbin said.

The tit for tat came a day after Congressional Black Caucus Chairman G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) said that “race can be certainly considered as a major factor and the reason for this delay” of Lynch’s confirmation vote.

But not all Democrats were ready to assign racial motivations to the wait on Lynch’s nomination. After meeting with Lynch on Wednesday morning, moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he didn’t believe it is a factor in Republicans’ strategic calculations.

“No, I really don’t,” Manchin said when asked whether race was a factor in the delay. “I can’t see that whatsoever.”

Lynch was nominated at the end of last year, but Democrats chose to leave her confirmation to the new Republican majority rather than confirm her in the lame-duck session. Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, said Lynch’s confirmation vote is next in the Senate queue, as soon as the chamber finishes a trafficking bill that contains abortion restrictions that Democrats failed to notice until the bill came to the floor.

“The only thing holding up that vote is the Democrats’ filibuster of a bill that would help prevent kids from being sold into sex slavery. The sooner they allow the Senate to pass that bipartisan bill, the sooner the Senate can move to the Lynch nomination,” Stewart said.

One of Lynch’s chief critics, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, called Durbin’s comments “an unfair thing to say.” And one of her few GOP supporters, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), compared the current African-American attorney general Eric Holder to his likely successor: “I guess we just don’t like black women vs. black men? I mean, that’s a ridiculous argument.”

But Graham also seemed to question why Republicans had not yet given Lynch a confirmation vote to send Holder – who’s long had a contentious relationship with congressional Republicans – out of office.

“Only in America would you have this: You’ve got a guy you held in contempt and you wanna make sure he doesn’t leave, for a lady that seems to be pretty well-qualified, according to Rudy Giuliani,” Graham remarked. “I can’t explain this.”