Both of North Carolina’s Republican senators on Thursday said they’d reject North Carolina native Loretta Lynch’s nomination as U.S. attorney general.
Sen. Thom Tillis voted against Lynch in the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying he felt she wouldn’t be a good manager.
The state’s senior senator, Republican Richard Burr, issued a statement later in the day saying he would oppose Lynch when her nomination reaches the full Senate – likely next month – because she supported a Justice Department lawsuit against North Carolina’s new election law.
“I wish Ms. Lynch the best in her future endeavors,” Burr said, “but she is not the right choice for attorney general.”
Lynch received the Judiciary Committee’s endorsement with a 12-8 vote, benefiting from the backing of three Republicans: Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Jeff Flake of Arizona. All three said she was well-qualified.
“The case against her confirmation, as far as I can tell, essentially ignores her professional career and focuses on about six hours she spent before this committee on Jan. 28,” said Hatch, a former Judiciary Committee chairman and the Senate’s most senior Republican. “I do not believe that is a proper way to evaluate any nominee’s fitness for any position.”
Lynch is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate, but perhaps narrowly.
A native of Greensboro who attended high school in Durham, Lynch received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her law degree from its law school. She has a 30-year legal career and currently is the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, including Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. Senators praised her on Thursday for her tough prosecution of criminals and terrorists.
Tillis, speaking during the hearing before the vote, called Lynch someone with “a remarkable track record.”
“She was raised right,” he said, as her father, the Rev. Lorenzo Lynch of Durham, a Baptist pastor, sat just behind him. “She was clearly somebody who came up with a strong work ethic. She’s done a great job as U.S. attorney.”
But Tillis, a senator only since the first of the year, said he would not vote for her, adding, “This is the most difficult decision I’ve had to make in my 45 days on this job.”
He said the main reason for his opposition was management.
“I would be shocked if Ms. Lynch had a divergence of positions from the president,” Tillis told the committee. “So I’m not going to judge her positions on policy. I’m looking at this purely from the perspective of the chief executive of a 100,000-person organization. I do not see someone who’s going to recognize that there are legitimate issues that need to be addressed and is going to take that seriously.”
In a statement before the vote, however, Tillis did appear to be judging her on policy grounds: her stance on the lawsuit against North Carolina to overturn its voter ID law, and her view that President Barack Obama’s executive order on immigration in November was legal. The order would shield more than four million immigrants from deportation.
After the hearing, Tillis said in an interview that there was no discrepancy. He said that during the hearing he didn’t want to repeat what others had said.
“She’s a native of North Carolina,” he said. “She’d be the first African American female attorney general. She will most likely be confirmed. I look forward to working with her. I was looking for a reason to feel comfortable with supporting her nomination, but I do think that a lack or absence of any indication that she would manage the department differently is ultimately what led me to it.”
Burr said his opposition to Lynch was based on “her advocacy for continuing federal lawsuits against states like North Carolina who seek to uphold the integrity of their elections.” He said the “hyper-partisan Justice Department has challenged voter ID laws for political advantage.”
Among other provisions, the new North Carolina,, which passed the state legislature when Tillis was speaker of the state House, requires a valid government-issued ID. Tillis, a defendant in the case, raised that issue with Lynch during her confirmation hearing in January.
“I look forward to learning more about it should I be confirmed, and I believe the matter will proceed to court and we will await the results there,” Lynch said at the time.
Tillis reminded her that she had said in 2104 that “people try and take over the statehouse and reverse the goals that have been made in voting in this country.”
“I presume,” Tilli said at the January hearing, “since I was the person that took over the statehouse, I would be included by reference.” He said that he’d taken efforts to preserve citizens’ rights to vote.
Civil rights groups supported Lynch’s nomination. Her father was a pastor in Greensboro during the lunch-counter sit-ins and civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s. Lynch said during her confirmation hearing that he opened his church to protesters, “standing with them while carrying me on his shoulders.”
The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, criticized Tillis for voting against her.
“To see other southern Republican senators put aside the politics of extremism and support attorney Lynch’s nomination and then watch Thom Tillis refuse is a tragic misrepresentation of the values of North Carolina and the call of history. Shameful,” he said in a statement.
Senate Historian Donald A. Ritchie said it was not unprecedented for a senator to oppose a nominee from the same state, but of a different party. But it’s rare for a Cabinet nominee to be rejected, he said. The Senate has rejected fewer than 5 percent of Cabinet nominees.
“For the most part, the Senate has been willing to let presidents have people in top levels who agree with them, even if the senators don’t necessarily agree with them,” Ritchie said.
The Republicans who voted for Lynch made it clear they didn’t agree with her on Obama’s immigration order.
Hatch took umbrage that 51 House Republicans sent committee members a letter objecting to Obama’s immigration order and telling the senators to reject Lynch’s nomination in retaliation.
"A vote for this nominee should fairly be considered a vote in favor of the president's lawlessness and against the will of the American people," the House members wrote.
“That is ridiculous on its face,” Hatch said. “No senator has opposed the president’s serious…overreaching actions more than I have.”
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Jeff Sessions of Alabama raised the immigration order as a key reason they opposed Obama’s nominee. South Carolina’s Graham said he also felt “disdain” for Obama’s actions on immigration, but argued it was up to the courts to decide whether he overstepped his authority.
“I’m sorry the president has created this mess, but I’m not going to add to it,” he said. “I’m going to vote for this lady because I think she’s qualified.”
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