Following President Barack Obama's nomination this weekend, Loretta Lynch is poised to succeed Eric Holder as the next US Attorney General of the United States. Should the Senate Republicans already hostile to her nomination wind up confirming her, Lynch will become the second black person—and first black woman—to hold the position. She is currently the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a title she also held from 1999-2001, when President Bill Clinton appointed her to the role."It's pretty hard to be more qualified for this job than Loretta," Obama said in a ceremony announcing Lynch's formal nomination on Saturday. "Throughout her 30-year career, she has distinguished herself as tough, as fair, an independent lawyer who has twice headed one of the most prominent US Attorney's offices in the country. She has spent years in the trenches as a prosecutor, aggressively fighting terrorism, financial fraud, cybercrime, all while vigorously defending civil rights."Political observers analyzing Holder's legacy as US Attorney General are wondering whether Lynch will uphold his strengths in criminal justice police reform, and inherit his weakness for Wall Street bankers. In her career, Lynch oversaw the prosecution of NYPD officers responsible for the assault and brutal sodomy of Abner Louima, and also helped investigate Citibank's sale of mortgage securities before the company reached a $7 billion settlement with federal authorities.Whether Lynch will uphold Holder's legacy for drug policy reform is a particularly salient question, particularly in light of the growing trend toward legalization in the states. Holder oversaw the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington, and Lynch is poised to usher in the legal framework in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington DC, which all voted in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana in last week's midterms. So far, though, her public remarks present a positive picture for the drug policies she will support as Attorney General.As drug policy reform activist Tom Angell detailed in a post for Marijuana.com, Lynch has expressed her concern that the criminal justice system is stacked against minority groups, and relies too heavily on policing methods. "I do think that there were a lot of issues that went on with the war on drugs — its inception and the way it was carried out," she said in a 2001 PBS interview. In the same clip, she harangued the "disparate way" drug crimes affect the population, particularly how "crack cocaine is treated within the criminal system," and "has had a huge collateral consequence in the minority community."She has also said: "Arresting more people or building more jails is not the ultimate solution to crime in our society. If there's one thing we've learned it is that there is no one solution."Despite her strong background on criminal justice reform, Lynch's record on reeling in the financial sector is less promising. At Salon, David Dayen warns against hoping that Lynch will go further than her predecessor, and start jailing bankers responsible for the 2008-2009 economic meltdown, citing her "long history [of] interacting with a certain class of corporate lawyers and executives, understanding their perspective in critical ways." In between her two stints as US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Lynch spent nearly a decade in corporate law."Given that we've seen in the past decade a virtual crime wave among this very class, it's just not that likely Lynch would have the will to crack down on malfeasance in the executive suites, which could implicate her colleagues and friends. It's not corruption, more like mindshare," Dayen wrote.Liberals frustrated with the government's failure to hold Wall Street accountable are not the only ones worried about Lynch's appointment: Republicans in the Senate are not exactly cozying up to the potential new Attorney General either. Though the Senate confirmed Lynch twice—each time she was appointed US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York—GOP leaders are already trying to push back Lynch's confirmation to January, when their party will take control of the Senate, likely making it more difficult for Lynch to get confirmed."When reviewing a candidate to serve as our nation's chief law enforcement officer, a full and fair confirmation process is always essential, and its importance has only increased in light of the troubling abuses under the current Attorney General," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said in a statement, "I look forward to hearing Ms. Lynch's plans for restoring trust in the Department of Justice."Should Lynch win the support of the Senate, the trajectory of her term will probably be similar to Holder's, which is to say, that she will advance criminal justice reform, but only around the margins. While we can probably expect to see her loosen penalties for low-level drug crimes, whether she will finally crack down on Wall Street is another question altogether.Follow Kristen on Twitter
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