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Black Caucus Dems take to Senate to protest Sessions

By Mark Hensch - 02/08/17 03:02 PM EST
 

Congressional Black Caucus members led a group of House Democrats to the Senate floor Wednesday in protest of Sen. Jeff SessionsJefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTuberville incorrectly says Gore was president-elect in 2000 Next attorney general must embrace marijuana law reforms Tuberville unseats Jones in Alabama Senate race MORE (R-Ala.) for attorney general, the Washington Examiner reported.

“Sen. Sessions may be one of the most incompatible nominees to the Department of Justice that we’ve seen in decades — that department is a department of the vulnerable,” Rep. Sheila Jackson LeeSheila Jackson LeePocan won't seek another term as Progressive Caucus co-chair Grand jury charges no officers in Breonna Taylor death Hillicon Valley: Murky TikTok deal raises questions about China's role | Twitter investigating automated image previews over apparent algorithmic bias | House approves bill making hacking federal voting systems a crime MORE (D-Texas) said after exiting the Senate floor.

"It is a department that deals with the issues of civil rights mostly; it deals with the issue of voting rights and the empowerment of women,” the CBC member continued.

“It deals with the issues of protecting those on the question of marriage equality, gender discrimination — and no record has been more potent against all of those issues.”

Democratic Reps. Lacy Clay (Mo.), Hank Johnson (Ga.) and John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), Steve Cohen (Tenn.) and Jamie Raskin (Md.) joined in.

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Jackson Lee said the group is “outraged” by GOP senators voting to prevent Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenOn The Money: 12 million to lose federal unemployment benefits after Christmas | Warren urges Biden to cancel student debt | Stocks close with losses as states, cities reimpose COVID-19 restrictions Warren urges Biden to cancel student debt: 'Single biggest stimulus we could add' Democrats vent to Schumer over Senate majority failure MORE (D-Mass.) from speaking out against Sessions late Tuesday.

“I think last night and the treatment of Sen. Warren spoke loudly to the crux of our concern," she said.

"Will there be any free speech and freedom in the Department of Justice, a place where you are to uphold the Constitution, if Elizabeth Warren cannot read from our beloved Coretta Scott King’s letter?”

The Senate voted to bar Warren from speaking on the floor late Tuesday after she fiercely criticized Sessions.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellOn The Money: 12 million to lose federal unemployment benefits after Christmas | Warren urges Biden to cancel student debt | Stocks close with losses as states, cities reimpose COVID-19 restrictions Hillicon Valley: Trump fires top federal cybersecurity official, GOP senators push back | Apple to pay 3 million to resolve fight over batteries | Los Angeles Police ban use of third-party facial recognition software Overnight Health Care: US passes 250K COVID deaths | Pfizer says vaccine shows 95-percent efficacy | Coronavirus relief at a standstill MORE (R-Ky.) said Warren violated Senate rules having “impugned” Sessions’s character.

Warren quoted a letter from the late Coretta Scott King, a civil rights activist and Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow, during her blistering remarks on Sessions.

Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 that Sessions “had used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.”

The message was penned before Sessions’s failed confirmation hearing for a federal judgeship that year and targeted his work as a U.S. attorney in Alabama.

Tags Congressional Black Caucus CBC Sheila Jackson Lee Elizabeth Warren Mitch McConnell Jeff Sessions House Senate Blacks Cabinet