国际英语新闻:Obama's pick for attorney general heads for full-floor confirmation vote in Senate

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's pick for U.S. attorney general Loretta Lynch on Thursday passed a procedural vote in the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and was allowed to advance in the Senate for a full-floor confirmation voting later on.

Thursday's vote was 12-8, with favors including three Republicans in the committee backing her nomination.

Though Lynch's confirmation hearing began in late January, the voting was postponed by two weeks by the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee over Republicans' concerns about the nominee's public support for President Obama's contested 2014 executive actions for immigration.

Democrats have long demanded that the controversy over Obama's 2014 immigration policies should be stripped off Lynch's nomination battle, accusing Republicans of deliberately "slow- walking the vote".

The partisan battles over Obama's executive actions on immigration have also affected a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which is facing a partial shutdown should the Congress fails to pass a funding bill in less than two days.