Senators fear Sessions debate fuels animosity
Leaders say mutual respect is lost in bitter war of words
The bitter fight over the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general — marked by Republicans forcing Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren to stop speaking Tuesday night — is threatening to tear apart the chamber and derail bipartisan cooperation, Senate leaders of both parties warned Wednesday.
“I would yearn for the day when the Senate, and frankly the country as a whole, would pull back from the abyss of recrimination, personal attacks, and we would get back to doing what this institution was designed to do, which is to be a great body for deliberation and debate, and that we would treat each other with the civility (with which) we would all want to be treated,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday.
As Democrats staged an allnight filibuster of Sessions’ nomination, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., invoked a rarely used Senate rule — enforced by a party-line vote — to silence Warren after the Massachusetts senator read a letter critical of Sessions written by the late Coretta Scott King, the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
McConnell said Warren “impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama,” referring to Sessions, R-Ala. He said that violated Rule 19 of the standing rules of the U.S. Senate.
Democrats denounced the action as selective enforcement of the rule by Republicans and said it was aimed at quashing dissent.
“What we do here is debate: debate fiercely and forcefully, but respectfully,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday. “(Warren) was engaging in that tradition of forceful but respectful debate when she was cut off.”
“Every member on the other side of the aisle ought to realize that what they did to Senator Warren was selective enforcement,” Schumer said. “It was the most selective enforcement of a rarely used procedure to interrupt her ... to silence her. ... And it was the only violation of the spirit of mutual respect and comity in this body that occurred last night.”
Democrats also noted that the Senate rule was not invoked when male senators, including former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of Vermont, read the same letter from Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor.
Some Democratic female senators took to Twitter to defend Warren, using the slogan #ShePersisted, which quickly went viral.
As of midday Wednesday, there were 1.5 million tweets mentioning Warren that had been sent after 7 p.m. Tuesday, Twitter spokesman Nicholas Pacilio told USA TODAY.
The phrase was taken from McConnell, who said that Warren was warned that she was violating the Senate rule and “nevertheless, she persisted.”
“By silencing Elizabeth Warren, the GOP gave women around the world a rallying cry,” tweeted Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.
Cornyn said there was no doubt that Warren’s criticism of Sessions “crossed the line.”
“A senator can’t evade that rule by somehow claiming ‘well, these weren’t my words. I was reading what somebody else said,’ ” Cornyn said. “So I would hope that maybe we’ve all been chastened a little bit and maybe we’ve all learned a little bit of a lesson here.”
Despite the extreme rancor in recent days, some of the more moderate senators said they remain hopeful that greater bipartisanship will return after the contentious confirmation votes are over and the Senate goes back to legislating.
“As we get through the confirmation process, I think and I hope there will be an opportunity to get beyond those polarizing political issue and get back to passing legislation,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he thought the debate underscored just how high passions are running in the Senate, especially after Republicans had to bring in Vice President Pence on Tuesday to break a tie to confirm Betsy DeVos as education secretary.
“It reflects the building pressure on senators from activists and advocates on both sides,” Coons said.
Republicans are under pressure from conservative groups to quickly approve President Trump’s nominees while Democrats are being pushed by liberal groups to oppose them all.
“I just think both sides ought to ratchet it down,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R- Ohio.
Worth Hester, assistant director of the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, said the vitriolic atmosphere over the confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet picks could have created an atmosphere where McConnell felt he needed to step in to try to restore order.
Sanders said McConnell’s action set a dangerous precedent.
“By silencing Elizabeth Warren, the GOP gave women around the world a rallying cry.” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.