While tax reform may be in the news (more on that later in the week), it’s not making progress in the Senate because the floor has been occupied with confirmation hearings and votes. Those confirmation hearings took a dramatic turn this week with two historic happenings: a tie-breaking vote from the Vice President to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education and the rebuke of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) during the confirmation hearing for Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) for Attorney General.
The rebuke of Warren came after she chose to read from a 1986 letter written by Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in opposition to Sessions. McConnell stopped Warren from speaking, saying, “The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama, as warned by the chair. Senator Warren said ‘Senator Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.'”
That language was taken from the King letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee as Sen. Sessions sought confirmation to serve as a federal judge. You can read the 1986 letter here.
Even then, Sessions encountered considerable opposition, including testimony that Sessions made racially offensive remarks, saying that he thought the Ku Klux Klan was “OK until I found out they smoked pot,” a statement Sessions agreed that he made but said was not serious. The Judiciary Committee twice voted whether to move the nomination to the Senate floor but could not draw a majority either time and the nomination was eventually withdrawn.
Warren objected to McConnell’s attempt to silence her, saying, “I am surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate.”
Nonetheless, McConnell accused Warren of violating Rule 19 and called for a vote to stop her from speaking. Specifically, Warren was accused of part 2 of Rule 19 which says:
No Senator in debate shall, 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.
Rule 19 wasn’t in the earliest iteration of the Senate rules. However, a little fist fight changed all of that. On February 22, 1902, Senator John McLaurin (D-SC) declared that Senator Ben Tillman (D-SC) was guilty of “a willful, malicious, and deliberate lie” after Tillman suggested that McLaurin was corrupt and had sold his vote in exchange for favors. Tillman subsequently punched McLaurin in the face. It wasn’t terribly out of character for the Senator who was nicknamed “Pitchfork Ben” for threatening to stab President Cleveland with a pitchfork, resulting in his being barred from entering the White House.
Less than a week after the fight, the Senate officially censured both McLaurin and Tillman. The Senate also added the language at Rule 19 that survives today.
The rule is rarely invoked in the modern day era. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the longest-serving member of the Senate, said about the Warren vote, “I never ever saw a time when a member of the Senate asked to put into the record a letter, especially by a civil rights icon, and somebody objected.” Nonetheless, the Senate sided with McConnell in a 49-43 vote. You can see how your Senator voted here.
Following the vote, McConnell noted that Warren had previously been warned after she quoted from former Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) who had called Sessions a “disgrace to the Justice Department.” He said, “Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”
McConnell’s words, “Nevertheless, she persisted” became something of a rallying cry on social media, inspiring a number of memes and tweets, including this one which was liked more than 1,000 times:
In the end, Sen. Sessions was confirmed as the next Attorney General by a 52-47 vote. You can find out how your Senator voted here.
