Jeff Sessions Demanded Up-Or-Down Vote On Alito

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), now the Republican with the most power to delay President Obama's Supreme Court nominees, decried filibusters during the battle to confirm Justice Samuel Alito.

Sessions will take over for defector Arlen Specter as top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, a position that enables him to drag out debate on potential Supreme Court justices.

No one knows if Sessions plans to do so -- but when Democrats opposed the nomination of Justice Alito, the Republican declared that judges should face only a "majority vote" and that filibusters of court nominees were "very painful."

"Since the founding of the Republic, we have understood that there was a two-thirds supermajority for ratification and advice and consent on treaties and a majority vote for judges. That is what we have done. That is what we have always done. But there was a conscious decision on behalf of the leadership, unfortunately, of the Democratic Party in the last Congress to systematically filibuster some of the best nominees ever submitted to the Senate. It has been very painful." [Senate Floor Speech, 5/23/05]

Sessions also brings to his post some interesting baggage -- he was rejected to an appointment as a U.S. district judge two decades ago over charges of racism. The decisive vote: Arlen Specter.

Two decades ago, the Senate rejected his nomination as a U.S. district judge by President Ronald Reagan over allegations that his career as a lawyer and U.S. attorney in Alabama showed a pattern of being racially insensitive. Ironically, it was Specter who helped seal his defeat by joining with Democratic opposition.

Sessions' dismal record on race -- including a black former assistant U.S. attorney's testimony that Sessions once said he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers" -- was chronicled in a 2002 article in The New Republic.

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Comments

[AirForce Vet]

Session and individuals of like minds are relics of a bye gone time and place. People of this mentality are doomed by their own device. Various states in the south suffer economically and socially during prosperous times as well as during bad economic down turns. Many of these states have leaders and officials who languish for those things of a bye gone place and time. States such as Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas and others most often live in the past. Yes, I will admit that some of these states have come a long way, but some have a longer road to trod. I ask of any state, look back to your past and see your issues. Let the look back be a reminder of the pitfalls and understanding that, let the present guide you toward the future.

[danusgram]

I love the additional publicity that this gives the Republican party. This will go on to further expose them. They are in a quandry with this guy the posts against him and his future racist statements, and I say future because they will show up, is going to be fierce. Oh my this is going to be entertainment and further decline of a party that is going out into the public trying to be the average guy. They have no idea how average people live and going to a pizza place does not make it so.

[Opus007]

I have started referring to the G.O.P. as the GOOP-- Grand Old Obsolete Party. We have to walk around them, step over them or just plain ignore a party that has been reduced to bigots, racists, misogynists and religious zealots. They have the Taliban mindset about being mired in an outdated belief system while the rest of the nation has moved on. Electing our first black president is proof of that and it is a real burr under their racist saddle.

[obamagal]

Well said. Co-sign.

[Bianchi]

Sessions is revered as a GOD in Alabama ! Of course thats the deep RED south where the Southern Baptist control...­and aynone who isn't a Republican AND a Southern Baptist is considered a LESSER individual. He is vicious and GOP to the core...loo­k out President Obama...th­is man still holds the prejudices he lost his judicial appointment for 20 plus years ago...and this time...tha­t anti-black, and anti-democrat hatei s aimed right at you and your appointment!

[MsLiz]

Hello from a lesser Alabamian. I have no clue why Sessions is our senator, except that the average voter in Alabama believes what they were taught in Sunday and elementary school.

[Jaybot]

Nice photo, it's like a still from 'Deliverance'.

[loki]

yeah, but that , that was different. that was clintons fault ..

[RedKnuckles]

What's with the weird sore on the dude's cheek?

[SteadyOn]

Don't know, but wish he'd use a bandaid. I guess all that racism and hatred is just "boiling" up.....

[loki]

could be acne rosecea or some other skin problem, who really cares. It has nothing to do with the story or what he does. You two sound like 5th graders playing on your moms computer.

[keepemhonest]

OMG ... and THEIR worried about an imaginary Supreme Court Justice nominee?

[lmvd3]

Looks like a cyborg.

[henrypapillon]

That was different then!

[trinity]

Great, another idiot Senator from Alabama...­Is he still fighting the "War of Northern Aggression" too?

[cmj707]

Racism is a weapon wielded by the weak, it is a shame that someone of his ilk is serving in public office.

[tydicea]

Put there by people who think like him.

[somsoc]

Session's brief history:

bragged about his uncle being a K K K grand dra gon when he, Jeff, was in law school;
repeatedly referred to other attorneys that happened to be black as "boy";
told a civil rights attorney that happened to be white that he was "a disgrace to his ra ce" and at Jeff
Session's rejected Reagan nomination to the Federal bench, he called all of the above incidents
jokes; he is the joke.

His repeated election to the US Senate says a great deal about Alabama, none of it good.

[somsoc]

Session's brief history:

bragged about his uncle being a KKK grand dragon when he, Jeff, was in law school;
repeatedly referred to other attorneys that happened to be black as "boy";
told a civil rights attorney that happened to be white that he was "a disgrace to his race" and at Jeff
Session's rejected Reagan nomination to the Federal bench, he called all of the above incidents
jokes; he is the joke.

His repeated election to the US Senate says a great deal about Alabama, none of it good.

[IMissAmerica]

Jeff Sessions' drawl
Makes my skin crawl