The White House indicated on Friday it would support a potential Senate vote in the lame-duck session to confirm the next U.S. attorney general, after Eric Holder announced his resignation on Thursday.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama isn’t ready to nominate Holder’s successor just yet, but he rebutted an argument made by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) that the Senate shouldn’t vote on the nomination before January, when the next Congress is sworn in.
“There is a precedent for presidents making important cabinet nominations and counting on Congress to confirm them promptly even in the context of a lame duck session, if necessary,” Earnest said, pointing out that a Republican-led Senate confirmed President George W. Bush’s nominee for secretary of defense, Robert Gates, in December 2006, just weeks before Democrats claimed control of the chamber.
“This is a priority. This is something that my White House colleagues are already hard at work on,” he said. “We would hope that members of Congress will act with the same sense of urgency to confirm Attorney General Holder’s replacement.”
In a Thursday statement on Holder’s resignation, Cruz said that it would be an “abuse of power” to permit Democrats who are defeated in the Nov. 4 elections to vote on the country’s next top law enforcement officer.
“To ensure that justice is served and that the Attorney General is not simply replaced with another extreme partisan who will likewise disregard the law, the Senate should wait until the new Congress is sworn in before confirming the next Attorney General,” he said. “Allowing Democratic senators, many of whom will likely have just been defeated at the polls, to confirm Holder’s successor would be an abuse of power that should not be countenanced.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks at the fourth annual Texas Tribune Festival held at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014. (AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Rodolfo Gonzalez)
The emerging partisan battle has important implications. Obama would have an easier time confirming his pick for the next AG this year, when Democrats have 55 votes and only 50 votes are required to ensure success. In January, that job could become tougher if Democrats lose seats, and potentially in real jeopardy if Republicans win the majority, in which case they would be able to block any Obama nominee from coming up for a vote.
Lame-duck confirmation of Holder’s successor is “certainly possible,” said a senior Democratic Senate aide, “though it will depend on how quickly we have a nominee.”
A lame-duck vote would require Obama to nominate someone relatively soon. Democrats would have eight weeks — which include recess periods and holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years — to hold a Judiciary committee hearing, a committee vote, a floor debate, a “cloture” vote to end debate and a final confirmation vote. Holidays aside, Congress’s lame-duck schedule could be busy: It must pass another bill before Dec. 11 to keep the government open.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called on Republicans to “work with Senate Democrats to give swift and fair consideration to President Obama’s next nominee for this important position.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., left, accompanied by Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Ill., speak to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 22, 2014. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is also gearing up for battle, calling on all senators to “firmly reject” any AG nominee unless he or she opposes Obama’s planned executive action to halt deportations of certain undocumented immigrants. If his argument gains traction, it could further complicate the confirmation.
“No Senator should vote to confirm anyone to this position who does not firmly reject the President’s planned executive amnesty—or any other scheme to circumvent our nation’s immigration laws—and who does not pledge to serve the laws and people of the United States,” he said in a statement on Friday, first reported by the conservative website Breitbart.com.
Earnest said the White House doesn’t have any updates on when Obama will announce the nomination, or whom he might choose.
“Either way,” he said, “whether or not the nominee would need to be confirmed in the lame duck session, or would need to be confirmed by a new Senate, that in either case we anticipate that the Senate would act promptly and in a bipartisan fashion.”
