Civil Rights Leaders Launch Hunger Strike to Urge Loretta Lynch Confirmation
Restless civil rights activists are launching a hunger strike in effort to push Republicans to confirm Loretta Lynch as the next U.S. Attorney General.
As of Thursday, Lynch has been waiting for 158 days for congress to take a vote on her nomination, which is more than five times the amount of time that Janet Reno waited to be confirmed as President Bill Clinton's attorney general, and three times the length of days that John Ashcroft waited to be confirmed as the attorney general under the George W. Bush Administration, reports The Huffington Post.
As a result, Lynch's allies announced on Wednesday that they are launching a hunger strike to help the Attorney General nominee move closer to becoming Eric Holder's successor.
The advocacy group, which was founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton and female civil-rights leaders, dubbed the hunger strike as the "Confirm Loretta Lynch Fast."
"As long as the Senate refuses to take fifteen minutes to confirm someone for Attorney General that they have already confirmed twice for U.S. Attorney," National Action Network and its allies "will do everything in our power to draw attention to this completely unfair and unnecessary delay to vote to confirm Loretta Lynch," said Sharpton, who founded NAN, on Wednesday, according to Politico.
"We stand with Loretta Lynch and are so in support of this cause that we are willing to sacrifice our daily meals to impress upon the U.S. Senate that it's time to call a vote," added NAN executive director Janaye Ingram
The hunger strike is part of a broader campaign to publicly pressure Republican leaders to hold a confirmation vote for Lynch, who was nominated five months ago after she cleared the Judiciary Committee. Lynch, the current U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, New York, would be the first African American woman to serve in the position.
Nevertheless, Republicans have shown no sign in confirming Lynch.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn warned that the Senate could bypass a sex trafficking bill that's been holding up Lynch's nomination in order to deal with Iegislation regarding the Iran.
"Iran is a special case, so I'm not suggesting we hold up Iran for this," Cornyn told reporters. "But I am suggesting we come back to it after Iran, particularly if [Democrats] want to release Eric Holder so they can let him make a lot of money in the private sector."
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