The Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as President Donald Trump’s attorney general.
Trump’s nomination of Sessions to lead the Justice Department, which is responsible for enforcing civil rights laws like the Voting Rights Act that Sessions has criticized in the past, was one of his more controversial picks.
During his confirmation hearings, Sessions spent ample time answering for controversial remarks he has made in the past. In his opening remarks, he mentioned voting rights and said that he would make it “a special priority” to enforce laws to “ensure access to the ballot for every eligible American voter, without hindrance or discrimination, and to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.”
Later in the hearing, though, Sessions defended his previous characterization of the Voting Rights Act as “intrusive” and said that “on the surface” voter ID laws did not disproportionally affect minority voters.
He would not say whether he would recuse himself from a case investigating the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), left, listens to Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) testifying against Sessions’ nomination. (Tom Williams/AP)
Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) testified against Sessions, as did Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). Booker’s testimony broke a long tradition of senators refraining from testifying against their colleagues.
“Sen. Sessions has not demonstrated a commitment to a central requirement of the job, to aggressively pursue the congressional mandate of civil rights, equal rights and justice for all of our citizens,” Booker said. “In fact, numerous times he has demonstrated a hostility towards these convictions and has worked to frustrate attempts to advance the common good.”
Sessions’ nomination prompted concern due to his hostility towards civil rights laws. He omitted a failed bid in 1986 for a federal judgeship from a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire he submitted in December.
Sessions’ nomination for Alabama’s U.S. District Court was rejected in 1986 after other U.S. attorneys testified that he was hostile to civil rights cases and once called an African-American lawyer “boy,” per a report by the New York Times.
The attorney in question testified that Sessions warned him to “be careful what you say to white folks,” according to a 2002 report by the New Republic.
Sessions denied making most of those comments, but did apologize for one remark he made in 1981, during a murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan: that he thought the Klan was alright until he heard that some members smoked marijuana. Sessions said the remark was a joke.
