[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 9 (Friday, January 13, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E62-E63]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS: THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION NOMINEES

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 12, 2017

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, as a senior member of the House 
Committees 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 views regarding the more troubling 
nominations made by the President-Elect to fill the important Cabinet 
posts at the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and 
Energy.
  Let me begin with the nomination of U.S. Senator Jefferson Beauregard 
``Jeff' Sessions III of Alabama to be the next Attorney General of the 
United States.
  Mr. Speaker, those of us who oppose the nomination of Senator 
Sessions to be Attorney General owe a responsibility to the public to 
be clear and forthright in stating the reasons they believe he should 
not be confirmed as the Attorney General of the United States.
  Many of the senator's supporters, ranging from his Republican 
colleagues in the Senate to current and former staffers to home state 
friends and constituents, praise the senator for his modesty and 
courtesy and manners.
  The four-term senator and former state and federal prosecutor is, we 
are told, learned in the law, a person of deep faith, a good man who 
loves his family, his state, and his country.
  We can, as the lawyers say, stipulate that these assertions are true.
  But that does not make him an appropriate and deserving candidate to 
be Attorney General of the United States.
  And that is because the office of Attorney General and the Department 
of Justice he or she leads is different in a very fundamental way from 
every other Cabinet department.
  Unlike the Secretary of Transportation or Commerce or Education, or 
even the Secretary of Defense or State, the Attorney General leads a 
department that is charged with administering the laws and enforcing 
the Constitutional guarantees and protections that directly affect 
every American, all 320 million of us.
  To quote then-Senator Joseph Biden during the 2001 confirmation 
hearing of Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft:

       This Cabinet position is the single most unique position of 
     any Cabinet office.
       For it's the only one where the nominee or the Cabinet 
     officer has an equally strong and stronger, quite frankly, 
     responsibility to the American people as he does to the 
     person who nominates him.

  At that same confirmation hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois 
observed that ``the attorney general, more than any other Cabinet 
officer, is entrusted with protecting the civil rights of Americans.''
  The Attorney General is not the lawyer for the President; the 
Attorney General is the lawyer, and the Department of Justice the law 
firm, for the American people.
  That is why I agree so strongly with then-Senator Biden when he said 
in 2001:

       [F]or the office of attorney general, first, the question 
     is whether the attorney general is willing to vigorously 
     enforce all the laws in the Constitution, even though he 
     might have philosophical disagreements.
       [The second question is] whether he possesses the standing 
     and temperament that will permit the vast majority of the 
     American people to believe that you can and will protect and 
     enforce their individual rights.

  Put another way, the U.S. Attorney General and Justice Department is 
not only the instrument of justice but also the living symbol of the 
Constitution's promise of equal justice under law.
  Mr. Speaker, the nation's greatest Attorney Generals conveyed this 
commitment to equal justice by their prior experience, their words and 
deed, and their character.
  Think Herbert Brownell, Attorney General for Republican President 
Eisenhower, who overaw the integration of Little Rock's Central High 
School.
  Think Robert Jackson, Attorney General for Democratic President 
Franklin Roosevelt, who led the prosecution team at the Nazi War Crimes 
trial in Nuremburg, Germany.
  Think Robert F. Kennedy, for whom the Main Justice Building is named, 
bringing to bear the instruments of federal power to protect 
Mississippi Freedom Riders and to stare down Governor George Wallace in 
the successful effort to integrate the University of Alabama.

  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.
  And 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.
  And his Senate voting record and rhetoric has endeared him to white 
nationalist websites and organizations like Breitbart and Stormfront.
  As a U.S. attorney, Senator Sessions was the first federal prosecutor 
in the country to bring charges against civil rights activists for 
voter fraud.
  Senator Sessions charged the group with 29 counts of voter fraud, 
facing over 100 years in prison.
  Senator Sessions has repeatedly denied the disproportionate impact of 
voting restrictions on minorities and has been a leader in the effort 
to undermine the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
  Senator Sessions has spoken out against the Voting Rights Act, 
calling it ``a piece of intrusive legislation.''
  Senator Sessions criticized Attorney General Eric Holder for 
challenging state election laws, claiming they are necessary to fight 
voter fraud.
  However, evidence supports that voter fraud is almost nonexistent, 
with 31 confirmed cases out of more than 1 billion ballots cast.
  As Attorney General of the state of Alabama, Senator Sessions fought 
to continue practices that harmed schools predominantly attended by 
African-American students.
  Senator Sessions led the fight to uphold the state of Alabama's 
inequitable school funding mechanism after it had been deemed 
unconstitutional by the Alabama circuit court.
  In the state of Alabama nearly a quarter of African-American students 
attend apartheid schools, meaning the school's white population is less 
than one percent.
  Although Senator Sessions has publically taken credit for 
desegregation efforts in the state of Alabama, there is no evidence of 
his participation in the desegregation of Alabama schools or any school 
desegregation lawsuits filed by then Attorney General Sessions.
  Mr. Speaker, 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.

[[Page E63]]

  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.
  Regrettably, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama is not that person and he 
should not be confirmed by the Senate to be the nation's 84th Attorney 
General.

                          ____________________