Saturday, March 28, 2015

Black Women March to Senate Leader’s Office in Protest Over Loretta Lynch

[ SOURCE] About 20 prominent black women arrived at the ornate office suites of McConnell Thursday morning, asking to meet with him—even if for only a few minutes in the hallway—over the delay in confirming Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch. They were told McConnell was too busy. The women did meet with McConnell's chief of staff for about 20 minutes.

The group that arrived at his door included Williams-Skinner; attorney Barbara Arnwine, president of the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights; Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation; Sheila Tyson, a city councilwoman from Birmingham, Ala.; and Marcia Dyson, CEO of the Women's Global Initiative.

They asserted that the treatment of Lynch was a double standard rarely if ever applied to any other nominee for attorney general. Lynch, a career prosecutor who earned a degree from Harvard Law in 1984, has already been confirmed by the Senate twice before. If confirmed currently, Lynch would be the first African-American female attorney general of the 82 individuals who have been confirmed over 225 years.

Lynch has now waited longer for confirmation than any other attorney general nominee in 31 years, and longer than the last five nominees combined. The average wait time for an attorney general nominee is 18 days. Lynch, who has nominated by President Barack Obama Nov. 8, has now waited 138 days.

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