Dayhoff Soundtrack: “The letter written by Coretta Scott King about Jeff Sessions that Elizabeth Warren wasn't allowed to read on the Senate Floor.”

Wednesday, February 08, 2017

“The letter written by Coretta Scott King about Jeff Sessions that Elizabeth Warren wasn't allowed to read on the Senate Floor.”

Senate confirms Sessions as attorney general BY JORDAIN CARNEY - 02/08/17 07:20 PM EST http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/318608-senate-confirms-sessions-as-attorney-general

https://www.scribd.com/document/338729117/Scott-King-1986-Letter-and-Testimony-Signed

The Senate voted Wednesday night to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as attorney general, capping a vicious debate that left Democrats and Republicans alike seething at times.

No Republicans went against Sessions in the 52-47 vote. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was the only Democrat to back Sessions.

[…]

Republicans decried the Democratic tactics, arguing they were going to new lows to smear Sessions.

[…]

The fiery words in the last days of the debate over Sessions were somewhat surprising.

While the issue of race had always hung over the debate, Sessions is well-liked personally by many senators. That made the stinging words all the more noteworthy — and raises questions about the ability of lawmakers to work together going forward.

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March 19, 1986

According to the Washington Post, “Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., urged Congress in a letter to block the 1986 nomination of Jeff Sessions for federal judge, saying that allowing him to join the federal bench would ‘irreparably damage the work of my husband.’”

“In the letter, King writes that Sessions’s ascension to the federal bench ‘simply cannot be allowed to happen,’ arguing that as a U.S. attorney, the Alabama lawmaker pursued ‘politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions’ and that he ‘lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.’ She said Sessions’s conduct in prosecuting civil rights leaders in a voting-fraud case ‘raises serious questions about his commitment to the protection of the voting rights of all American citizens.’” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/read-the-letter-coretta-scott-king-wrote-opposing-sessionss-1986-federal-nomination/?utm_term=.dfbccea3ba10

“The letter written by Coretta Scott King about Jeff Sessions that Elizabeth Warren wasn't allowed to read on the Senate Floor.” https://www.scribd.com/document/338729117/Scott-King-1986-Letter-and-Testimony-Signed 338729117-Scott-King-1986-Letter-and-Testimony-Signed

Scott King 1986 Letter and Testimony Signed by David Moye on Scribd

Republicans vote to rebuke Elizabeth Warren, saying she impugned Sessions’s character By Paul Kane and Ed O'Keefe February 7 at 11:39 PM

“Senate Republicans passed a party-line rebuke Tuesday night of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for a speech opposing attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, striking down her words for impugning the Alabama senator’s character.

“In an extraordinarily rare move, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) interrupted Warren’s speech, in a near-empty chamber as debate on Sessions’s nomination heads toward a Wednesday evening vote, and said that she had breached Senate rules by reading past statements against Sessions from figures such as the late senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the late Coretta Scott King.”

[Trump’s pick for attorney general is shadowed by race and history]

[…]

The Senate voted, 49 to 43, strictly on party lines, to uphold the ruling that Warren violated Rule 19 of the Senate that says senators are not allowed to “directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.” Pursuant to that rule, Warren was ordered to sit down and forbidden from speaking during the remainder of the debate on the nomination of Sessions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/02/07/republicans-vote-to-rebuke-elizabeth-warren-for-impugning-sessionss-character/?utm_term=.7e2999b0a416&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation

Read the letter Coretta Scott King wrote opposing Sessions’s 1986 federal nomination By Wesley Lowery January 10, 2017 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/read-the-letter-coretta-scott-king-wrote-opposing-sessionss-1986-federal-nomination/?utm_term=.7dc2d18d9ab8

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