Cruz: Block Lynch until Obama blinks on immigration
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is demanding that Republicans block the nomination of Loretta Lynch as attorney general until President Barack Obama relents on his immigration policies. The likely presidential candidate said in an interview Tuesday that Republicans should use âevery procedural toolâ to block Obamaâs move to defer deportations for roughly 5 million undocumented immigrants â calling on the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee to block her nomination and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to deny her a confirmation vote on the floor. Story Continued Below âFor several months now, I have called on the Senate majority leader to halt confirmations of every nominee executive and judicial, other than vital national security positions, unless or until the president rescinds his unconstitutional amnesty,â Cruz told POLITICO in the Capitol. âWe have an opportunity in front of us right now with Loretta Lynch â a nominee for attorney general â who has fully embraced and flat-out promised to implement the unconstitutional amnesty.â Denying her confirmation, the conservative firebrand said, is âa concrete and definitive step we can take right now, using the tools that the Constitution gives Congress to rein in the presidentâs lawlessness.â The sharpened rhetoric comes as Republicans face a political quandary on immigration. Senate Democrats on Tuesday filibustered a $39.7 billion House bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security because Republicans included provisions to block the presidentâs post-election immigration move, along with a 2012 action to defer deportations for people brought to the U.S. illegally at a young age. But McConnell and top Republicans have vowed not to shut down the vital security agency, forcing the GOP to decide how else to respond forcefully to the administration. Yet the Senate GOP Conference has little appetite so far for denying Lynchâs nomination, given that a number of Republicans have lauded her qualifications as a federal prosecutor. Plus she would be the first female African-American attorney general and would succeed an official the GOP largely disdains: Eric Holder. In an interview Friday, McConnell said he âabsolutelyâ would give Lynch a vote on the floor. âI canât imagine any circumstance in which a presidentâs nominee for a Cabinet position would not be given a courtesy of a vote on the floor of the Senate,â McConnell said. At her confirmation hearings last week, Lynch said she was not involved in the presidentâs immigration decisions but contended that the administrationâs legal rationale was âreasonable.â âI donât see any reason to doubt the reasonableness of those views,â Lynch told the Senate Judiciary Committee. With the GOP set up for its biggest clash with the White House since taking control of both houses of Congress a month ago, the tensions are running high over immigration. At a news conference Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner singled out Cruz and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), another immigration hard-liner, calling on them to lead the Senate push to block Obamaâs executive action. âItâs time for Sen. Cruz and Sen. Sessions and Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats to stand with the American people and to block the presidentâs actions,â Boehner said. Cruz said he hadnât seen the speakerâs remarks and declined to comment Tuesday morning. But the 44-year-old former Texas solicitor general said Republicans needed to âhonor the commitments and do what we said we would doâ before Novemberâs elections. âFar too many Americans are losing faith in our elected officials,â said Cruz, who was elected in 2012. âTheyâve seen too many times politicians who say one thing and do another.â