A slow-moving and sharply divided Senate is finally expected to confirm Loretta Lynch on Thursday as the next U.S. attorney general. Then the real testing starts.
A 55-year-old Greensboro, N.C., native, Lynch will immediately make history as the first African-American female to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Her broader legacy will be shaped, in part, by several longer-term questions:
– Can she repair the Department of Justice’s relations with Capitol Hill?
Well, they certainly cannot get any worse.
The relationship between congressional Republicans and Attorney General Eric Holder degenerated into one of mutual contempt. Literally. In June 2012, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives by a 255-67 margin voted to hold Holder in contempt.
Lynch, during her confirmation hearing, pledged to work toward “fostering a new and improved relationship” with Congress, and some Republicans seemed ready to turn the page. The term-limited departure of persistent Holder inquisitor Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., from chairmanship of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee could help temper the atmosphere, as well.
Lynch, moreover, repeatedly pledged some specific measures that could smooth over the rocky terrain on Capitol Hill. She said, for instance, that instead of invoking executive privilege to shield department documents from congressional oversight, she would “negotiate with Congress in order to accommodate” lawmakers. While any cabinet nominee would be a fool to say otherwise, it’s a start.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., summed it up simply when asked how Lynch could improve the Justice Department’s relations with Capitol Hill.
“Just not be Eric Holder,” Graham said.
– So it’s going to be all sweetness and light?
No way. The delay between Lynch’s Jan. 28 Senate Judiciary Committee appearance and the Senate confirmation vote, and the fact that the vast majority of Republicans may vote against her underscores the relentlessly toxic partisan atmosphere Lynch now inhabits.
The long delay shows that Republicans have calculated that their political benefits from opposing the White House exceed whatever costs might be associated with seeming intransigent. Besides, Republicans simply disagree with many White House priorities. This foreshadows endless Capitol Hill battles to come, even if they lack the personal heat of the Holder vs. GOP war.
“It looks like the same old stuff,” predicted Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “She’s a woman of principle. She’s going to stick by her guns.”
– OK, we get the ugly politics. Now, can she manage the sprawling Justice Department?
Yes, but only by some serious delegating.
Lynch, for all her strengths and prosecutorial skills, has no experience managing a bureaucracy as large as the Justice Department. As U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, she’s been responsible for a staff of about 170 attorneys and 150 support personnel.
The Justice Department, by contrast, has about 116,000 employees worldwide and an annual budget exceeding $27 billion. Simply managing the business of incarceration through the Bureau of Prisons, an area Lynch has little direct experience with, accounts for about one-third of the department’s overall budget.
Cabinet secretaries typically delegate day-to-day management tasks. Lynch must be careful, though, not to be caught short by a small scandal that can quickly metastasize into a career-consuming cancer. Recall, for example, how an obscure Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gun-running operation called Fast and Furious blew up into something big.
– Which of Holder’s priorities will she hold on to, and which might she alter?
Holder’s department has aggressively investigated state and local law enforcement agencies for discriminatory practices, opening a record number of “pattern or practice” cases such as the probe of the Ferguson Police Department in Missouri. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has also actively challenged state voting laws deemed likely to suppress minority voting. Lynch almost certainly will sustain both efforts.
“The Department of Justice has looked at these laws, and looked at what’s happening in the Deep South, and in my home state of North Carolina, (and) has brought lawsuits against those voting rights changes that seek to limit our ability to stand up and exercise our rights as citizens,” Lynch said in November, adding that “those lawsuits will continue.”
Lynch added during her confirmation hearing that “protecting the American people from terrorism must remain the primary mission” of the Justice Department. She promised to “expand and enhance our capabilities in order to effectively prevent ever-evolving attacks in cyberspace.” Both priorities essentially continue Holder’s work.
The two do differ on certain policies.
Holder, for instance, personally opposes the death penalty, while Lynch during her confirmation hearing said she supports it as being “effective.” Holder, though, has still authorized capital punishment, and it’s not clear whether Lynch’s different personal perspective will mean this could happen more often.
The federal government, in any event, currently holds only about 2 percent of the nation’s 3,019 death row inmates, so capital punishment decisions are not a big part of any attorney general’s job.
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