Senate Republicans are delaying and denying Loretta Lynch the vote to become attorney general, the head of the Justice Department. That is a beautiful art deco building named for Robert F. Kennedy. Lynch should be in charge already.

Yet wheels are turning slowly for the eloquent African-American woman with a distinguished law enforcement career up before the Senate for the plum job. All the Senate has to do is vote "up or down." But for weeks, they can't find the time. It's a Washington drama playing out day by day, in an agonizing standstill. Meanwhile Lynch is put at "the back of the bus," as a Democratic senator voiced it.

A historic first is being delayed and denied. Lynch, nominated to succeed Eric Holder, would become the first black woman attorney general of the United States. A New Yorker, she nailed her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing back in January with her crisp presence and clear, well-thought-out answers.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Leader, is the man of the hour. He controls the time. The shrewd Kentucky senator and his second-in-command, John Cornyn of Texas, are holding the process hostage. They are delaying, denying and defying the president's wishes to fill a key Cabinet post promptly.

President Obama named Lynch, the top federal prosecutor of the Eastern District of New York, as his pick months ago. However, the administration seemed aloof and far from the fray until White House spokesman Josh Earnest denounced the Senate delay as "unconscionable."

Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., cut to the sad rhyme with times past: He declared that Lynch was figuratively in the back of the bus, (in Women's History Month, no less.)

Second-class citizenship is what Durbin meant, which civil rights heroine Rosa Parks famously resisted 60 years ago. It was a provocative comment that did not go unnoticed, connecting past struggles for equal treatment with today's cuts and arrows.

Fifty years since 1965, the year of the Selma march and the Voting Rights Act, the Senate still has its share of white Southern men who come from places where people were kept in their place. The states on the wrong side of history. There are only two African-Americans out of 100 senators, a Democratic man and a Republican man. The optics are pretty much the same as far as race.

Then there was the sharp contrast to Ashton Carter, Obama's new defense secretary. In Washington policy circles, "Ash" knows everyone and everyone knows him, even those who don't. Carter had his Senate hearing and his confirmation floor vote within the first two weeks of February.

Surprise: The Senate is no country for women, either. There are only 20, mostly Democrats. That's certainly enough to effect change, and so far, they have not stayed silent. Senator Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said, "Sen. McConnell is holding her nomination hostage at a time when our nation is facing serious terrorist threats, serious criminal threats and an urgent and ongoing need to see that our nation's civil rights laws are being enforced," Baldwin said. She described "an egregious delay."

This is taking place in plain sight, which might be why it's working so well. Week after week, roughly 50 days now, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has delayed the fair and square vote that Loretta Lynch deserves to be confirmed as attorney general. Everyone is attuned to the backstory intrigue in "House of Cards." What's happening now is pure old-fashioned stonewalling.

McConnell is holding Lynch's vote to passage of a human trafficking bill that has language the Democrats can't accept — and weren't told about — on reproductive rights. It's a mess because victims of sex trafficking could be under pressure to bear children born of rape. Democrats are incensed that this restrictive language on the health and choices of women and girls is tied up on the floor. Vote after vote, day by day, tests and tries to break Democratic resolve. McConnell refuses to put forth a bipartisan "clean" bill on trafficking that the Senate will approve.

Why Obama left Lynch to the mercy of McConnell and a Republican Senate when a Democratic Senate would have confirmed her in a heartbeat last fall, I don't know.

Justice department delayed is Justice department denied.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit Creators.com