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Both the Greensboro News & Record and Raleigh’s News & Observer take Senator Thom Tillis to task this morning for his “‘no” vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday on the confirmation of Attorney General nominee (and North Carolina native) Loretta Lynch.

Lynch’s one-time hometown paper, the News & Record pus it this way:

tillis-newsandrecord“Thom Tillis said it was his most difficult decision in 45 days as a U.S. senator to oppose Greensboro native Loretta Lynch’s confirmation as attorney general.

It didn’t seem hard for him at all. While he made condescending comments about Lynch’s family ‘beaming with pride’ at her confirmation hearing last month, noting ‘she was raised right,’ he was clearly against her from the start….

Lynch was ‘raised right’ in Greensboro and Durham. She was raised in a family that participated in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. It is disappointing but not surprising, given his record as a state legislator, that Tillis has little appreciation for those experiences and how they would shape Lynch’s views today.

Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Jeff Flake of Arizona joined Judiciary Committee Democrats in voting for Lynch’s confirmation. The favorable vote of 12-8 will move the nomination to the Senate floor. It’s a shame that Tillis, Lynch’s home-state senator, couldn’t join those 12.”

And here’s the N&O – which blasted Richard Burr as well:

“Beyond being wrongheaded about the confirmation process, Tillis and Burr are simply classless in standing against Lynch. Read More

News
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#ConfirmLoretta2

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has approved the nomination of North Carolina native Loretta Lynch to serve as the country’s next Attorney General by a 12-8 vote.

The vote fell largely along party lines, with three Republican senators — Orrin Hatch, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake — joining all nine Democratic senators on the committee in voting “yes.”

North Carolina’s new senator, former state House Speaker Thom Tillis, voted “no” on the Lynch nomination, a decision he announced via Twitter just shortly before the committee meeting this morning.

Screen Shot 2015-02-26 at 9.30.33 AM

In a later release, Tillis elaborated on his reasons — which included the Justice Department’s voting rights lawsuit against the state and Lynch’s alleged stance on the President’s immigration policies — but said that if Lynch was confirmed he would work with her “on key areas of agreement.”

I hope she will prove my concerns unfounded by rebuilding the Department of Justice’s fractured relationship with Congress, put an end to the costly and politically motivated ligation against North Carolina, and most importantly, restore the Department’s reputation for legal integrity that is divorced from politics.

With the committee’s approval, Lynch now moves to a vote by the full Senate, on a date and time yet to be set. If confirmed there, Lynch will become the first African-American woman and the first native North Carolinian to serve in that role.

The daughter of a black Baptist minister and a school librarian who once picked cotton in the eastern part of North Carolina, Lynch made her way from Durham to Brooklyn, where she has twice led the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

As chief there, Lynch earned the respect of law enforcement officials and prosecutors from both sides of the aisle, many of whom voiced support for her nomination at the time of her committee confirmation hearing in January.

And prior to the committee vote this morning, even those Republican senators voting “no” on her nomination conceded that she was immensely qualified and had done an impeccable job leading one of the most active and effective U.S. Attorney’s offices in the country.

None had voiced opposition during Lynch’s confirmation hearing, but in the time since partisan pressure built among Republicans to defeat her nomination.

In a February 19 letter, fifty-one Republican senators urged Judiciary Committee members to oppose her nomination, saying they suspected that Lynch would likely continue the policies of Eric Holder, whom she’d succeed as Attorney General.

 

News
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Loretta LynchThe U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote this morning on the nomination of North Carolina native Loretta Lynch to serve as the nation’s next Attorney General.

If approved by the Committee, her nomination will move to the full Senate for a final vote, and if confirmed there Lynch will become the first African-American woman to serve in that role.

The daughter of a black Baptist minister and a school librarian who once picked cotton in the eastern part of North Carolina, Lynch made her way from Durham to Brooklyn, where she has twice led the U.S. Attorney’s Office there.

Colleagues and adversaries alike have called her a tough, fair, and independent lawyer and a leader of one of the most active and effective U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the nation.

New York Police Commissioner William Bratton called her “a remarkable prosecutor with a clear sense of justice without fear or favor.

Former NYC Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly praised Lynch as a person who “upholds the highest ethical standard” and “would serve our country well” as the attorney general.

And former FBI director Louis Freeh wrote in a letter to Judiciary Committee leadership that he couldn’t think of “a more qualified nominee” and was “happy to give Ms. Lynch my highest personal and professional recommendation.”

Lynch also garnered the respect of several senators serving on the 20-member Committee, before whom she appeared for questioning in late January.

Eleven of those senators are Republican — including newly-minted North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis – and nine are Democrats.

With a supporting vote, Tillis could help make Lynch the first North Carolinian to lead the Justice Department.

But he has not publicly announced his support, and his office did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.

Others on both sides of the aisle have expressed their support, though.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Lynch’s performance at her confirmation hearing one of the best she’d witnessed.

“I see the combination of steel and velvet,” Feinstein said.

And Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said he was impressed by Lynch and plans to support her.

Despite that support, an effort is apparently underway among Republicans in the Senate to derail her nomination, according to this report in the News & Observer.

Fifty-one Republican senators have signed a letter urging Judiciary Committee members to oppose her nomination, saying they suspected that Lynch would likely continue the policies of Eric Holder, whom she’d succeed as Attorney General.

Holder made few friends among Republicans in the Senate, and during her confirmation hearing, Lynch found herself being pushed to distance herself from that.

“If confirmed as attorney general, I would be myself,” she said in response to questioning.

“I would be Loretta Lynch.”

 

Commentary
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Thom_Tillis_official_portraitIf the simple and undeniable fact that lots of humans fail at basic hygiene procedures without reminders and rules isn’t enough to convince Senator Thom Tillis of the need for “burdensome” hand washing rules in restaurants (see the post below), here’s another fact that you would think would be persuasive: the widespread lack of paid sick days laws. Thanks to Tillis and his conservative friends, the U.S. is one of a small handful of countries that doesn’t guarantee workers some paid time off when they or a family member gets sick. Needless to say, North Carolina doesn’t require them either.

The result, of course, is that lots of people come to work — including in restaurants and other businesses in which they interact with the public — sick and contagious. Given such an absurd situation, you’d think the least Tillis and his fellow ideologues could do is toss the public a bone in the form of support for strong hygiene laws.

Absent some kind of turnaround on the Senator’s part, however, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. According to Typhoid Thom and his fellow ideologues, the “genius of the market” will take care of the problem since consumers will stop patronizing restaurants where people are known to get sick.

All of which begs the question, of course, of whether we should also repeal such rules for hygiene in other private businesses like hospitals and other health care facilities. Maybe the senator can clarify his position on such a question in the coming days. We can’t wait.

Commentary
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Pat McCrory 4Thom TillisWhat is it about the title “partner” that’s so attractive and impressive that prominent pols would go out of their way — and even stretch the truth a smidgen — to leave voters with the impression that they were in fact holders of such a moniker during their lives in the private sector?

First, it was new U.S. Senator Thom Tillis who went out of his way to make sure everyone knew that he was a “partner” at the corporate giants PriceWaterhouseCoopers and IBM before becoming a politician. As WRAL’s Mark Binker reported last year, this claim may have been sort of kind of technically true, but was also a bit of a stretch once Tillis landed at IBM.

Now the pol whose previous claims of “partner” status are in question is Gov. Pat McCrory. As the editorial page of the Charlotte Observer notes this morning in an op-ed entitled “McCrory vs. the truth — again”:

“Was Pat McCrory fibbing then, or is he fibbing now?

For years, McCrory was declared a partner in his brother’s firm. But on state ethics forms, the governor claimed he was merely a consultant, not a partner. There’s a big difference. Read More

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