Loretta Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on her nomination to be U.S. attorney general on Jan. 28, 2015 in Washington, D.C. A civil rights group is launching a fast until the Senate votes on Lynch's confirmation. File photo by Pete Marovich/UPI |
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WASHINGTON, April 15 (UPI) -- Five months after President Barack Obama nominated U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch for the position of attorney general, she still hasn't been confirmed, and a civil rights group is launching a fasting campaign in response.
The National Action Network, founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, announced the Confirm Lynch Fast campaign Wednesday. The group said the fast is inspired by nonviolent protests by leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Cesar Chavez.
"As long as the Senate refuses to take 15 minutes to confirm someone for attorney general that they have already confirmed twice for U.S. attorney, NAN and our allies will do everything in our power to draw attention to this completely unfair and unnecessary delay to vote to confirm Loretta Lynch," Sharpton said.
The confirmation has been held up by the Senate a number of times. First, Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, threatened to block her in November since so many members of the 113th Congress had lost their seats in the recent election.
It's no secret that Republican senators are on the fence about Lynch; many wanted her to disapprove of Obama's executive action on immigration.
Her nomination then was held up by an anti-abortion provision in a human-trafficking bill in March.
"We have to finish the human-trafficking bill," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on CNN's State of the Union at the time. "The Loretta Lynch nomination comes next."
"It sounds like you are threatening to hold up Loretta Lynch, who has been in limbo for months and months," CNN host Dana Bash said.
"It's not a threat," McConnell said. "We need to finish this human-trafficking bill that came out of the Judiciary Committee unanimously."
As of this week, Lynch's nomination was still stalled over the abortion debate.
Lynch, who was first appointed as U.S. attorney by President Clinton in 2000 and again by Obama in 2010, would be the second woman, and first African-American woman to hold the attorney general job.
In 2010, she was confirmed in the Senate by voice vote, meaning her nomination was uncontroversial. She is known for her successful prosecution in 1997 of a white police officer who sodomized Haitian immigrant Abner Louima with a broken broomstick, a case that became the symbol of police brutality.
In her role as U.S. attorney, she oversees cases in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island, including many terrorism cases that have given her experience dealing with matters of national security. She also chairs the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, a group of U.S. Attorneys who advise the attorney general.
