McConnell says Senate will vote on AG nominee Loretta Lynch next week

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Tuesday that the Senate would vote sometime next week on the nomination of Loretta Lynch, President Barack Obama's nominee to be the next Attorney General.

McConnell has always said he'd allow a vote on Lynch, despite opposition from many conservative Republicans in the Senate, but had yet to set any timeline for a vote until Tuesday afternoon.

Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch will get a vote in the Senate next week. Image: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

That delay had prompted Democrats to come to the Senate floor almost every day to complain that Lynch is the most delayed Attorney General nominee ever. Some Democrats have said openly that the GOP has delayed the nomination because Lynch is a woman.

"I guess because she's a woman, what I kind of object to, is that she is singled out," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said back in February during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

The top Democrat on that committee, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), has also said he believes Lynch has been slow-walked because of her gender.

Many Republicans oppose Lynch because she defended Obama's executive action on immigration during a committee hearing in January. In that hearing, Lynch dodged technical questions about whether Obama's plan to give millions illegal immigrants the right to stay and work in the United States violates the Constitution, and leaned heavily on the general notion that the White House has the authority to prioritize certain immigrants for deportation.

Her answers have led some Republicans to argue that Lynch would be an even worse Attorney General than Eric Holder, who has clashed repeatedly with the GOP during his tenure. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), for example, has said Lynch has refused to answer whether there are any limits on presidential power, and that the GOP shouldn't be surprised if she green-lights anything Obama wants to do via executive power in the future.

Despite this controversy, she's expected to be confirmed. With 46 Democrats in the House, Lynch can win the vote if just a handful of Republicans vote for her, and some have already said they would do that.