Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Senate Democrats rallied Tuesday evening to oppose President Trump’s attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), but the Senate floor got heated after a speech from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Warren questioned Sessions’ record on civil rights by quoting words from the late Sen. Ted Kennedy during the 1986 debate over Sessions’ nomination to be a federal judge.
“He is, I believe, a disgrace to the justice department and he should withdraw his nomination and withdraw from the Justice Department… Like he did, I will cast my nomination against the vote of Sen. Sessions,” she said.
The presiding officer, Sen. Steve Daines, reminded Warren of Senate Rule 19 which states that a senator cannot “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.”
Warren continued by quoting a letter that the late Coretta Scott King wrote about the nominee in 1986 during Sessions’ failed confirmation hearing. King said he “had used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens” when he was a U.S. attorney in Alabama.
When Warren recited those lines, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell came to the floor to cut her off.
“The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of the senator from Alabama,” McConnell said. “I call the senator to order under the provisions of Rule 19,” he said.
When McConnell called for a vote to determine if Warren was in violation of Rule XIX, the Senate voted along party lines 49-43. Because she failed to appeal, Warren will not be able to speak for the rest of the session, which is expected to carry on through Wednesday morning.
In a statement, DNC Interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile said it was “a sad day in America when the words of Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow are not allowed on the floor of the United States Senate.”
“Let Elizabeth Warren speak. The American people deserve to hear how Jeff Sessions is an extremist who will be a rubber stamp for this out-of-control Trump presidency,” she said in the statement.
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