[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 180 (Tuesday, December 13, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1714]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




REGARDING NOMINATION OF SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS OF ALABAMA TO BE ATTORNEY 
                      GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 13, 2016

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, as a senior member of the House 
Committee on the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committee, Ranking 
Member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland 
Security, and Investigations, and the Congressional Voting Rights 
Caucus, I rise today to express my initial views regarding the 
President-Elect's nomination of U.S. Senator Jefferson Beauregard 
``Jeff'' Sessions III of Alabama to be the next Attorney General of the 
United States.
  On Election Night the President-Elect pledged to the nation that he 
would be a president to all Americans.
  That pledge will ring hollow to tens of millions of Americans in 
light of his announced intention to nominate one of the U.S. Senate's 
most far-right members, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to be the next 
Attorney General of the United States.
  Perhaps nothing would do more to reassure the American people that 
the President-Elect is committed to unifying the nation than the 
nomination and appointment of a person to be Attorney General who has a 
record of championing and protecting, rather than opposing and 
undermining, the precious right to vote, the constitutionally 
guaranteed right of privacy, criminal justice reform, and support for 
reform of the nation's immigration system so that it is fair and 
humane.
  The nomination of Alabama Senator Sessions as Attorney General does 
not inspire the necessary confidence.
  As a U.S. Senator from Alabama, the state from which the infamous 
Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder originated, Senator 
Sessions has failed to play a constructive role in repairing the damage 
to voting rights caused by that decision.
  He was one of the leading opponents of the reauthorization of the 
Violence Against Women Act.
  He is one of the Senate's most hostile opponents of comprehensive 
immigration reform and was a principal architect of the draconian and 
incendiary immigration policy advocated by the President-Elect during 
the campaign.
  His record in support of efforts to bring needed reform to the 
nation's criminal justice system is virtually non-existent.
  In 1986, ten years before Senator Sessions was elected to the Senate, 
he was rejected for a U.S. District Court judgeship in view of 
documented incidents that revealed his lack of commitment to civil and 
voting rights, and to equal justice.
  His Senate voting record and rhetoric has endeared him to white 
nationalist websites and organizations like Breitbart and Stormfront.
  Should the President-Elect proceed with the nomination of Senator 
Sessions to be Attorney General, I call upon the Senate Judiciary 
Committee to subject the nomination to the most comprehensive, 
searching, and withering examination.
  The United States has been blessed to have been served as Attorney 
General by such illustrious figures as Robert Jackson, Robert Kennedy, 
Herbert Brownell, Ramsey Clark, Nicholas Katzenbach, Eric Holder, and 
Edward H. Levi.
  The duty of the U.S. Attorney General is to lead the Department of 
Justice in protecting and expanding the civil rights of all Americans 
and the pursuit of equal justice for all, not to turn back the clock on 
hard won rights and liberties.
  No Senator should vote to confirm the nomination of Jeff Sessions as 
U.S. Attorney General if there is the slightest doubt that he possesses 
the character, qualities, integrity, and commitment to justice and 
equality needed to lead a department, the headquarters building of 
which is named for Robert F. Kennedy, one of the nation's greatest and 
most indefatigable champions of civil rights and equal justice for all.

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