Call Your Reps: Oppose the Sessions Confirmation

Happy Monday! Pull on your cowboy boots, and let's ride. Late last week, the Trump transition team chose Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as its nominee for Attorney General. Yikes.


What the Attorney General Does

The Attorney General is the government's lawyer and chief law-enforcement officer and head of the Justice Department. US criminal law is so vast and varied that each AG has to cherry-pick a bit, choosing laws to really focus on enforcing. It's a cabinet position that requires Senate confirmation.


How Confirmation Works

This guy is unconcerned, but we can't be. Teddy Kelley.

This guy is unconcerned, but we can't be. Teddy Kelley.

Thanks, ABC News, for the primer! (1)

  1. President-elect's team sends nomination to Judiciary Committee, which can hold its own hearings before deciding what to do with the nomination. Find out whether your senator is part of this committee. Hearings will likely begin in early January.
  2. Via a simple-majority vote, Judiciary Committee decides how to send nomination to the full Senate: "favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation." (It's also possible for the Judiciary Committee to sit on the nomination and sort of let it die.)
  3. Once nomination reaches the Senate, the Senate votes—via simple majority—whether to confirm the nomination. Confirmation cannot take place until after inauguration.

A couple of notes: only the Senate (not the House) votes to confirm cabinet nominees. When you call your House representative, you'll be asking her/him to voice opposition, but not to vote in opposition. Only your senators will vote on this nomination. If your senator is on the Judiciary Committee (see link above), be sure to mention that in your call.


Why Jeff Sessions is Problematic (In His Own Unfortunate Words)

You may have heard that the Senate denied Sessions confirmation for a federal judgeship after several people testified to his active racism. This happened in 1986, and many Sessions supporters are crying foul: people change, they say. Fair enough, so let's look at just a tiny slice of what he's said for himself since then.

  • On climate change: In a 2015 EPA hearing: “Carbon pollution is CO2, and that’s really not a pollutant; that’s a plant food, and it doesn’t harm anybody except that it might include temperature increases.” (2)
  • On immigration, where Sessions is not just considered "amnesty's worst enemy" but also opposes legal immigration: in an op-ed last year, he advocated "slowing the pace of new arrivals so that wages can rise, welfare rolls can shrink and the forces of assimilation can knit us all more closely together." ("Forces of assimilation," huh? Make sure those immigrants act like Americans. Wait, which Americans...?) (3)
  • On civil rights: the Voting Rights Act (which, yes, he voted to extend—the vote was unanimous) is a "piece of intrusive legislation." (4)
  • On Trump's boast about "grabbing" women you-know-the-rest-uggghhhh: "I don't characterize that as sexual assault. I think that's a stretch." (5)

And a bonus, from alt-right leader Richard Spencer this weekend: "What Jeff Sessions is not going to do, in terms of not prosecuting federal diversity and fair housing, I think is just as powerful as what he might do." (6) Some would call the civil-rights laws he's not going to enforce "sins of omission," Spencer, baby.

tl;dr: Perhaps events of the last few years have increased your awareness that our country's laws are not enforced fairly and equitably. Jeff-Sessions-as-AG promises to ratchet up that unfairness significantly.


Phone Call Scripts

Aren't you glad you put your reps' numbers in your phone last week?! Pretty soon they'll know us so well, they'll probably invite us to their birthday parties.

To your senators:
My name is ______, and I'm calling to ask Senator ______ to vote against confirming Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Based on his past comments about race, immigration and sexual assault, I'm concerned that Senator Sessions would not enforce US laws fairly. My zip code is _____.

To your congress(wo)man:
My name is ______, and I'm calling to ask Representative ______ to vocally oppose Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Based on his past comments about race, immigration and sexual assault, I'm concerned that Senator Sessions would not enforce US laws fairly. My zip code is _____.

And hey! Drop a comment below if you make the calls. Let's keep the momentum up!

Speak UpMichelle Bard