Senator Elizabeth Warren
tried to speak from the congressional floor on Tuesday evening to
express her opposition to the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions for
attorney general, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quickly intervened
and initiated a vote that banned her for speaking for the rest of
the
debate. Her crime was
simple and her punishment symbolic: Warren had intended to read the
letter that the late Coretta Scott King sent to the Senate in 1986 to
oppose the nomination of Sessions, then Alabama attorney general, to be a
federal judge. Warren had already cited unequivocal criticisms of
Sessions for his abysmal record on civil rights, particularly from that
1986 debate which in the end denied him a position on the federal bench.
But it was King, a civil rights icon and Martin Luther King Jr.'s wife,
who pushed them to revolt. "Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of
his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black
voters," she wrote. "For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be
rewarded with a federal judgeship."
And
in maybe the best use of Facebook Live ever, Warren read the letter
that had been struck from the Senate record immediately outside of
congressional chambers.
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