WASHINGTON, D.C., April 20, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – President Obama and probable GOP presidential nominee Job Bush agree: The Senate should approve a pro-abortion nominee as Attorney General and allow Senate Democrats to continue holding up aid to sex trafficking victims over abortion.
Obama's nominee, Loretta Lynch, opposed the federal ban on partial-birth abortion in 2006.
Neither politician mentioned the underlying reason Lynch's nomination is stalled: as a means of spurring Senate Democrats into helping sex trafficking victims. Instead, President Obama called the hold-up “embarrassing” for the GOP.
Jeb Bush said the president deserved to have certain nominees accepted and his wish to see sitting Attorney General Eric Holder leave office.
“I hope that they get to a point – I think that presidents have a right to pick their team in general,” Bush said. “Someone who is supportive of the president’s policies, whether you agree with them or not, there should be some deference to the executive. This should not always be partisan.”
“The longer it takes to confirm her, the longer Eric Holder stays attorney general. Look at it that way,” Bush said.
President Obama chided Republicans. “Enough. Enough. Call Loretta Lynch for a vote, get her confirmed, let her do her job,” he said. “This is embarrassing” for Republicans, said the president at a joint White House press conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
“There are times where the dysfunction in the Senate just goes too far,” said the president, who cited Lynch's work with law enforcement and civil rights organizations as reasons for her to be approved.
He did not mention Democratic intransigence.
“This is an example of [dysfunction],” said the president, who also said there is no reason for holding up Lynch's nomination — the longest hold-up since 1984, according to CNN — except for “political gamesmanship.”
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Lynch's nomination likely has majority support in the Senate, and she has been promised a vote by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. However, Democrats have opposed a trafficking bill, because it would apply funding restrictions to some abortions.
Other than the trafficking bill, social issues have not played a major role in Lynch's nomination. She does support same-sex “marriage,” but declined to answer a question from Senator Lindsey Graham, R-SC, in January about the legal difference between same-sex “marriage” and polygamous “marriages.”
Graham also asked about her support for partial-birth abortion, which included signing an amicus brief in 2006 supporting Planned Parenthood's opposition to the federal ban on such abortions. Lynch told Graham that “the amicus brief that we signed was focused on the issue of the facial issues of the law, and how it might impact the perception of law enforcement's discretion and independence.”
Senate leaders say they are close to a deal on the trafficking bill, which is the only remaining barrier between Lynch and a term as Attorney General.
Majority Leader McConnell has continued to say that the bill must pass before Lynch gets a vote.
