Eric Holder’s waiting game may be coming to an end.

After a week of waiting, the Senate Judiciary Committee today approved the 58-year-old as our nation’s next Attorney General. The vote will now go to the rest of the Senate.

Republicans held up the confirmation last week over Holder’s assertion that waterboarding constitutes torture. Some senators, including John Cornyn, worried that the Attorney General would use his powers to prosecute intelligence officials who had previously used questionable interrogation methods. Cornyn and his allies were also concerned about former Bill Clinton staffer Holder’s pardon of crooked financier Marc Rich, a move Holder described as a mistake.

Holder will still have a tough time with the torture issue — he’ll have to strike a balance between worried Republicans and Democrats who aren’t as wary of prosecutions. Senator Patrick Leahy, for example, said he would not vote for an Attorney General who wouldn’t examine each case on an individual basis.

The entire Senate could vote as early as tomorrow. If approved, Holder will be the nation’s first African American Attorney General.