On Thursday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Loretta Lynch as the next U.S. attorney general in a 56-43 vote. The confirmation is historic as Lynch will be the first African-American woman to serve as America's chief law enforcement official.

The Hill reported Thursday on how the senators voted and possibly why:

Civil conversation is hard.

Whenever people in a multifaceted, multicultural civilization try to have a civil discussion, things can get complicated very quickly. Our past experiences, our societal conditioning, our moral assumptions can place us in very different worlds when it comes to communicating. We talk to each other — sometimes using identical vocabulary — but we discover that words don’t necessarily mean the same things for people whose very lives function with an entirely different complex of meaning than our own.

It can be hard to keep super PAC names straight.

For example, there is Right to Rise, the committee supporting a presidential run by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and there is America Rising, another PAC designated to raise and spend unlimited sums of money in hopes of defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“After a long and dreary winter, the streets of Washington are once again in bloom. While the most vibrant displays of color and renewal can be found around the monuments and Tidal Basin, spring has also brought some surprising flourishes of possibility to Congress.” - Jason Grumet, President of the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)

Grumet and the BPC are respected on both sides of the partisan aisle for their innovative approaches and efforts to reduce divisiveness and improve government effectiveness.