It’s been five months since President Obama nominated Loretta Lynch to take over the reins as the nation’s attorney general, and while the historic delay has finally ended, problems for the GOP are likely just beginning.
Days ago, the Republican-controlled Senate at last came to a vote concerning a piece of legislation that had served as the most recent obstacle to Lynch’s confirmation, bringing the 106-day delay in confirming Lynch to a close.
Lynch’s nomination came on the heels of current Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement back in September that he would be ending his tenure at the position – a period that had been rife with confrontation between him and members of the Republican Party – though, Holder remained in the position, pending Thursday’s vote.
Even President Obama had weighed in on the situation recently, characterizing the holdup as “dysfunctional,” while going on to say that the exercise of political posturing by Republicans in the Senate was “embarrassing.”
Simply put, folks had reached their wits’ ends concerning the confirmation, but with the Senate’s recent vote, it appears as though we’ll soon be seeing Mrs. Lynch take the oath to become the nation’s first African-American woman in the position as head of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Excuses for the wait came in two phases. Senate Republicans first attributed their stall to Lynch’s support for the President’s executive order regarding immigration, which, if not for litigation, would allow up to 5 million immigrants and their families to live in the U.S. without the constant fear of deportation, while prioritizing the deportation of felons.
The most recent focus of the excuse-ridden saga, however, centered around a contested provision of a human trafficking bill, which the right wing insisted had to be settled before holding a vote on Lynch’s confirmation. The dispute pertained to a section of the bill that would have banned the use of criminal fines collected as a result of the bill for abortions by victims of human trafficking and sexual assault.
In short, over the past months, the GOP had ensnared itself in a political catch 22 of sorts: allow Attorney General Eric Holder – someone they’d painted as a villain to their constituency – to continue at the position, or, confirm Loretta Lynch – someone they felt was equally opposed to the Republican platform (though, ironically, someone who has prosecuted international human trafficking rings and also someone that they conceded is a qualified nominee) – to the position as U.S. attorney general.
But while Republicans are likely counting the lengthy delay as a score in the never-ending game that is party-centric politics, they’ve forgotten one thing: Millennials hate stuff like this.
A 2014 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan fact tank, shows that Congress has just a 30 percent approval rating among Millennials.
While this figure happens to be the highest out of any of the polled “generations,” it should come as terrible news to the party that currently controls Congress. Younger voters – who some estimate could represent as much as 36 perecent of the eligible voting pool in the 2016 presidential election – have become increasingly jaded with the overall political process since the 2012 presidential election.
Some would argue these voters have grown to associate the Republican party with obstruction and inefficiency rather than meaningful political action.
The prospect of the GOP winning the Millennial vote becomes even bleaker when you consider the fact that even at a time of political apathy among young voters, just 23 percent of Millennials consider themselves to be Republican voters, while 43 percent of the demographic self-identifies as Democrat or “left-leaning.”
As it stands, securing the young vote in 2016 will continue to be an uphill battle for Republicans.
And with a popular candidate like Hillary Clinton – who has experienced a ton of support from young voters across the race-sex board since announcing her bid for the presidency on April 12 – coming from the left, the type of divisive politicking that Senate Republicans engaged in regarding the Lynch confirmation is exactly the kind of activity that will lose votes among the Millennial voting demographic come 2016.
Young voters are especially fed up with having an unproductive government (trust me). And if Republicans were really concerned with making inroads with young voters, they should have probably started by ending the 100+ day stunt that was the delay of confirming Loretta Lynch as our nation’s attorney general a lot sooner.
It went on far too long.
But we’ll see if younger voters remember come November 2016.
Brian C. Bush is a law student with an interest surrounding the interplay between race, gender, culture and the law. He can be reached on Twitter @BrianCB
