Elizabeth Warren’s actions and their consequences led to some humorous headlines, such as “Senate votes to shut up Elizabeth Warren.”
The Senate voted 49-43 last night to uphold a ruling that Warren violated Senate rules prohibiting impugning another senator when she delivered a lengthy speech against the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for the position of Attorney General. The controversy stemmed from her remarks in reference to a 1986 letter written by Coretta Scott King (Martin Luther King Jr’s late wife), when the chamber was debating whether to confirm Sessions to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench.
After those remarks, the Senate voted to shut Warren up. She defended her decision, stating “This is about Coretta Scott King’s letter and that’s all this is about. She wrote a powerful letter about an important moment in history that directly involved Jeff Sessions and is directly relevant to the question of whether Jeff Sessions ought to be the attorney general of the United States — and Mitch McConnell didn’t want me to read that letter.”
According to Fox Business:
Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., however, said Senator Warren is using the King named to play the race card and stir up emotions.
“In that letter [Coretta Scott King] would be referring to some of [Sen. Jeff Sessions] comments,” King told the FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto. “However, she would agree today that he of course ended some [school segregation and] he worked to prosecute members of the KKK.”
King added: “It’s almost like a bait and switch, stir up the emotions, in the name of King — and my name is Alveda King — [and] play the race card, which she was attempting to do.”
Nevertheless King said the issue hasn’t divided the family.
“We are taking a look at many things that Mrs. Coretta Scott King said, Martin Luther King Jr., my daddy A.D. King,” she said. “But our family—we are peacemakers, we bring people together…we do not divide people.”
It’s now, of course, impossible to ask Mrs. King herself what her opinion of Sessions is today, but people’s opinions change all the time. For example, Warren hounded Betsy DeVos for her support of school choice — a policy she defended in 2003 in her book The Two Income Trap.
Source: Allen West
