Alaska's senators split as Senate confirms Blanche 50-49

The U.S. Senate confirmed Todd Blanche of Florida as attorney general Saturday, 50-49, and Alaska's two senators landed on opposite sides. Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted no. Sen. Dan Sullivan voted yes.

The split repeated a procedural vote taken earlier in the day. The Senate invoked cloture on the nomination by the same 50-49 margin, with Murkowski again opposed and Sullivan in favor.

Murkowski announced her position the day before the vote. In a statement released Friday by her office, she called Blanche "decent and capable" and credited his trip to learn about Alaska, including rural areas, then said she would oppose him anyway. "The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration," Murkowski said in the statement. She cited the handling of the Epstein files, immunity protections granted to the president and his family, and a nearly $2 billion Justice Department fund she said remains blocked only while the Senate holds leverage over the nomination.

Republican supporters of the nomination, among them Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, framed Blanche as a confirmable nominee whose approval was necessary to staff the Justice Department and let the administration proceed with its agenda, according to reporting on Cassidy's decision to back the pick. Inside the department, the outcome determines who leads the agency and how it operates, including its priorities, internal policy direction and its handling of politically sensitive investigations. The roll call records list positions and totals only. They carry no explanation from either senator, and Sullivan issued no statement in the material available.

Divergence between the two has recurred through the session. Alaska News previously covered their split on final passage of a Senate reconciliation bill, on DACA amendments during budget votes, on a motion to discharge an Iran War Powers Resolution, and on the confirmation of Eighth Circuit judge Justin D. Smith. Both voted yes to advance H.R. 6500, the African trade measure that later divided them on a separate procedural motion.