While we were screaming into the void about the confirmation of Betsy DeVos, the Senate began confirmation hearings\u00a0for Jeff Sessions, the pick for Attorney General.<\/p>\n
Sessions\u2019 past record on civil rights has provoked widespread protest over his nomination. But this is not a new conversation. In 1986, similar concerns kept Sessions from the federal bench.<\/p>\n
Among the voices opposing his appointment 3 decades ago\u2013civil rights activist Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King, Jr. She addressed a scathing letter to Senator Strom Thurmond<\/a> and the Senate Judiciary Committee, outlining her concerns about Sessions\u2019\u00a0history of African American voter suppression. The collective opposition\u00a0was enough to keep him from the position at the time.<\/p>\n Echoes of that letter, and that history, have haunted Sessions throughout the recent\u00a0hearings. Probably not enough to block his confirmation\u2013because, Exhibit A, Betsy DeVos. But the inevitability of his placement has not stopped present-day critics from voicing their concerns.<\/p>\n