Second, regardless of where the committee votes might be, Republican Leadership could simply decide not to report the nomination to the floor. If Leadership did so, the nomination would be rejected—and there is no procedural mechanism for Democrats to change the outcome.

Unfortunately, Leadership is loath to do so. It would somehow be “unfriendly” to do so. Nonsense. We should, of course, always be respectful. But there is a reason the Senate is given constitutional authority over “advice and consent.” We were not elected to be a “fraternal order,” as Reagan famously put it. Rather, we were elected to defend the Constitution.

Some argue that rejecting Ms. Lynch’s nomination would just keep Eric Holder in office. It is true that Holder has abused the office, turning a Department of Justice that had built a long bipartisan tradition of impartially enforcing the law into effectively a partisan arm of the Democratic Party. And he has repeatedly ignored the law and the Constitution, so much so that he is the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress.

But Holder’s lawless behavior occurred after he was confirmed. It is altogether different for the Senate to confirm a nominee who tells us ahead of time she will ignore the law.