Sessions defends his record on race

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) defended his record on civil rights and vented frustration with those who have sought to cast him as a racist at an unruly Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday punctuated by frequent interruptions from protesters.

Several Democrats asked the would-be attorney general pointed questions about his record on civil rights and voting rights but there were few fireworks, disappointing the liberal activists who have vehemently opposed his nomination.

The daylong hearing, carried live nearly from gavel-to-gavel by CNN, made for good theater. Two men were tossed from the crowded hearing room for dressing up in Ku Klux Klan hoods, while liberal activists chanted “no fascist USA.”

{mosads}Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim Army captain killed in Iraq who became a media sensation by opposing President-elect Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention, sat in the audience to protest Sessions’ nomination.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) had one of the fiercest exchanges, accusing Sessions of misrepresenting his civil rights record by overstating the number of desegregation cases he had prosecuted.

Yet the marathon day appeared unlikely to change the outcome of a confirmation vote or cost Sessions any support.

Sessions, who needs just 50 votes to win confirmation in a Senate with 52 Republicans, took on charges that he’s made past intemperate remarks about African-Americans head on. The Alabamian lost a confirmation battle for a federal judgeship in 1986 because of those claims, but he was better prepared to respond to those accusations this time around.

“I do not harbor those kinds of animosities and race-based ideas I was accused of,” Sessions said under questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

“I didn’t prepare well in 1986, and there was an effort to characterize me as something untrue,” he said in a later exchange with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

“It was very painful. It wasn’t accurate then, and it’s not accurate now,” he continued. “As a Southerner who saw discrimination, I have no doubt it existed in a negative and powerful way to millions of people in the South. I know that was wrong, and we need to do better. We can never go back.”

Sessions, a 20-year veteran of the Senate, is well-regarded by his colleagues and has been known to cross the aisle to work with Democrats on legislation despite his reputation as a conservative firebrand.

For the most part, he was treated cordially by his colleagues, though Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) will testify as a witness against Sessions on Wednesday. That will mark the first time in history that a sitting senator has acted as a witness against a colleague seeking a Cabinet post.

The toughest treatment for Sessions on Tuesday came from the dozens of protesters who waited for him outside the Capitol and infiltrated the hearing room.

Capitol Hill police had their hands full as they pulled more than a dozen protesters one by one out from the room for causing disruption and delay. 

Senators couldn’t help but comment on the frequency of the protests.

“If nothing else I’m clearing the room,” Graham joked after one group of protesters was removed from the room during his questioning.

Republican senators repeatedly sought to highlight instances in which Sessions had been involved in civil rights cases.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) recalled Sessions’s successful prosecution against a Klansman for murdering a young black man. The Klansman was later sentenced to death and executed.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) noted the late Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who cast one of the deciding votes to derail Sessions’s nomination to a federal district court in 1986, came to regret that vote after getting to know Sessions.

The Democrats quizzing Sessions did not accuse him of being racist, but rather challenged him on issues related to civil rights and voting rights for African-Americans.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) asked Sessions why he had refused to lead an effort aimed at shutting down prison chain gangs and hitching posts, which inmates could be chained to for hours in the heat without water or a means of using the bathroom. Coons said the unorthodox and cruel punishment that was used for a time in Alabama was disproportionately levied against minorities.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) pressed Sessions on his support for the Voting Rights Act, which Sessions said he supported in full. Sessions stood by his support for voter ID laws, which liberals say disenfranchise minorities.

And in the testiest exchange, Franken accused Sessions of inflating the number of desegregation cases he has prosecuted.

In a 2009 interview, Sessions put the number at between 20 or 30. He acknowledged on Tuesday that the number of cases in which he served as lead prosecutor was likely well smaller than that.

“Our country needs an attorney general who doesn’t overstate his record,” Franken said.

Democrats also spread their concerns about Sessions’s nomination across other issues.

The socially conservative Sessions was pressed on his opposition to abortion, gay marriage and laws expanding hate crime protections to LGBT Americans. 

In all of those instances, Sessions said that while he disagrees with the underlying policies, he would uphold the laws as they had been passed by Congress or ruled on by the Supreme Court.

“It’s the law of the land, established and settled for a long time. It deserves respect and I would respect and follow it,” Sessions said of Roe v. Wade.

Feinstein expressed concern that Sessions would act as a rubber stamp for Trump’s agenda.

“You simply have to help the president do things he might desire in a lawful way, and you have to be willing to say no,” Sessions responded.

And several Democrats appeared alarmed by what Sessions, the Senate’s foremost immigration hawk, has in mind for young people in the country illegally who are protected from deportation and can legally work under President Obama’s executive action, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

“As you know, we’re not able financially or any other way to seek out and remove everyone in the country illegally,” Sessions said in response to questioning from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). 

But Sessions dodged specifics about what would become of the young immigrants protected by the DREAM Act, saying only that he would enforce the laws as they are passed by Congress.