NATION
Senate confirms Sessions for attorney general
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate
on Wednesday confirmed Sen. Jeff
Sessions to be attorney general in
the Trump administration despite
fierce Democratic opposition to the
Alabama Republican over his record
on civil rights and immigration.
The 52-47 nearly party-line vote
capped weeks of divisive battles
over Sessions, an early supporter of
President Donald Trump and one
of the Senate’s most conservative
lawmakers. After the vote was
announced, Sessions’ Republican
colleagues applauded the outcome
while barely a handful of Democrats
did the same.
In a post-vote valedictory speech,
Sessions alluded to the bitter partisan-
ship and wished for more collegiality.
“Denigrating people who disagree
with us, I think, is not a healthy trend
for our body,” he said.
Since Trump tapped Sessions,
Democrats have laced into the
lawmaker, casting him as too cozy
with Trump and too harsh on immi-
grants. They asserted he wouldn’t
do enough to protect voting rights of
minorities, protections for gays and
the legal right of women to obtain an
abortion. They fear immigrants in the
country illegally won’t receive due
process with Sessions as the top law
enforcement officer.
“His record raises doubts about
whether he can be a champion for
those who need this office most and
it also raises doubts about whether
he can curb unlawful overreach” by
Trump, said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.
Republicans say Sessions has
demonstrated over a long career in
public service — and two decades in
the Senate — that he possesses integ-
rity and honesty and is committed to
justice.
“He’s honest. He’s fair. He’s been
a friend to many of us, on both sides
of the aisle,” Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, R-Ky., said. “It’s been
tough to watch all this good man has
been put through in recent weeks.
This is a well-qualified colleague
with a deep reverence for the law. He
believes strongly in the equal applica-
tion of it to everyone.”
Sessions won unanimous backing
from Senate Republicans but picked
up the support of just one Democrat,
Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley
is expected to name a replacement
for sessions as early as Thursday.
Bentley has named six finalists for the
Senate appointment, including state
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File
In this Jan. 10 file photo, Attorney General-designate, Sen. Jeff
Sessions, R-Ala. testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington at his
confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Attorney General Luther Strange and
GOP Rep. Robert Aderholt.
Strange is considered a leading
candidate for the job since Bentley
interviewed potential replacements
for state attorney general, according
to people close to the process.
However, Bentley’s office has said he
has not made a decision.
Wednesday’s vote came amid
rising tension between Republicans
controlling the chamber over delaying
tactics by minority Democratic that
have left fewer of Trump’s picks in
place than President Barack Obama
had eight years ago.
Democrats no longer have fili-
buster power over Cabinet picks,
however, after changing Senate rules
when they controlled the chamber in
2013.
Next up for the Senate is Rep.
Tom Price, R-Ga., Trump’s pick
for health secretary. A final vote on
Price could come late Thursday and
success seemed certain.
Democrats have solidly opposed
Price, a staunch advocate of repealing
Obama’s health care overhaul and
reshaping and scaling back the
Medicare and Medicaid programs
that provide health care to older and
low-income people.
But they’ve mostly accused Price,
a wealthy former orthopedic surgeon,
of conflicts of interest by acquiring
stocks in health care companies and
pushing legislation that could help
those firms.
They’ve especially targeted his
acquisition of shares in Innate Immu-
notherapeutics, an Australian biotech
firm that’s said Price got a special
insider’s deal. Price, who has said
he learned of the opportunity from a
fellow lawmaker, Rep. Chris Collins,
R-N.Y., had testified to Congress
that the shares were available to all
investors.
“If I were a prosecutor, I’d say
this case has real potential,” Senate
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer,
D-N.Y., said Wednesday.
This week has featured overnight,
round-the-clock Senate sessions as
GOP leaders are grinding through a
thicket of controversial picks.
Epitomizing the sharp-edged
partisanship surrounding confirma-
tion of Trump’s Cabinet nominees,
Sen. Elizabeth Warren was given
a rare rebuke Tuesday evening for
quoting Coretta Scott King, widow
of the late civil rights leader Martin
Luther King Jr., in her 1986 criticism
of Sessions.
King wrote that as an acting federal
prosecutor in Alabama, Sessions used
his power to “chill the free exercise of
the vote by black citizens.”
McConnell held that the Massa-
chusetts Democrat had run afoul
of rules about impugning a fellow
senator.
Sessions’ nomination to a
federal judgeship was rejected three
decades ago by the Senate Judiciary
Committee after it was alleged that
as a federal prosecutor he had called
a black attorney “boy” and had said
organizations like the NAACP and
the American Civil Liberties Union
were un-American.
At his hearing last month, Sessions
said he had never harbored racial
animus.
East Oregonian
Page 9A
Rancorous Senate ‘silencing’
gives Warren a national boost
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The turbulent national debate
over race, gender and free
speech consumed the normally
staid Senate on Wednesday
after the GOP majority voted to
silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren,
abruptly elevating her celeb-
rity status at a moment when
liberals are hungry for a leader
to take on Donald Trump.
The highly unusual rebuke
of the Massachusetts Democrat
came as the Senate weighed
President Trump’s choice for
attorney general, GOP Sen.
Jeff Sessions of Alabama,
who secured confirmation
on a nearly party-line vote
Wednesday evening. It also
gave frustrated Democrats
a rallying cry weeks into a
presidency that is dividing the
country like few before.
“I certainly hope that this
anti-free-speech attitude is not
traveling down Pennsylvania
Avenue to our great chamber,”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer of New York warned
darkly as Democrats jumped at
an opening to link the GOP’s
conduct to that of Trump
himself. “This is not what
America is about — silencing
speech, especially in this
chamber.”
Republicans argued they
were just trying to enforce
necessary rules of decorum in a
Senate that is a last bulwark of
civil debate in an angry nation.
“I hope that maybe we’ve
all been chastened a little bit,”
chided the No. 2 Senate Repub-
lican, John Cornyn of Texas.
“We’re at a pretty challenging
time in our nation’s history
when many people who were
surprised and disappointed at
the last election are unwilling
to accept the results. ... I only
hope that after the passage of
some time they will return to
their senses.”
But the debate immediately
took on overtones of race and
gender. Warren was rebuked
as she was reading a letter
by Martin Luther King Jr’s
widow, Coretta Scott King,
opposing Sessions’ ultimately
unsuccessful nomination to
a federal judgeship in 1986.
Subsequently several male
Democratic senators stood up
and read from the same letter
but without drawing objections,
leading Democratic activists to
proclaim that Senate Repub-
licans were interested only in
silencing a woman.
The moment inspired a
Twitter hashtag, #LetLizSpeak,
and clips from C-SPAN2 went
viral. “By silencing Elizabeth
Warren, the GOP gave women
around the world a rallying
cry,” fellow Democratic Sen.
Kamala Harris of California
said over Twitter.
Warren was chastised under
a little-used Senate regulation,
Rule 19, which bars any senator
from impugning the motives
of any other or imputing “any
conduct or motive unworthy or
unbecoming of a senator.” The
Senate historian’s office could
not immediately say when
the rule was last invoked, but
Democrats accused Republi-
cans of selectively enforcing
it. They noted the GOP did not
apply it when, for example,
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas accused
Majority Leader Mitch McCo-
nnell of lying in relation to a
dispute over the Export-Import
Bank two years ago.
This time, Warren drew a
warning from the presiding
officer as she quoted Tuesday
evening from a letter written
by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy
of Massachusetts that referred
to Sessions as “a disgrace.” She
continued with her speech, and
began quoting from Coretta
Scott King’s letter and an
accompanying statement that
accused Sessions, a federal
prosecutor at the time, of using
the power of his office to “chill
the free exercise of the vote by
black citizens.”
Democrats are portraying
Sessions as a threat to civil
rights, voting rights and
immigration; Republicans have
defended Trump’s choice to be
the top law enforcement officer
as a man of integrity who will
be an independent voice in the
new administration.
McConnell
stood
and
invoked Rule 19, saying that
Warren has “impugned the
motives and conduct of our
colleague from Alabama” in
quoting the words from Mrs.
King.
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