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“CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS: THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION NOMINEES” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E62-E63 on Jan. 13, 2017.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS: THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION NOMINEES
______
speech of
HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, as a senior member of the House Committees on the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committee; Ranking Member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, and the Congressional Voting Rights Caucus, I rise today to express my views regarding the more troubling nominations made by the President-Elect to fill the important Cabinet posts at the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Energy.
Let me begin with the nomination of U.S. Senator Jefferson Beauregard
``Jeff' Sessions III of Alabama to be the next Attorney General of the United States.
Mr. Speaker, those of us who oppose the nomination of Senator Sessions to be Attorney General owe a responsibility to the public to be clear and forthright in stating the reasons they believe he should not be confirmed as the Attorney General of the United States.
Many of the senator's supporters, ranging from his Republican colleagues in the Senate to current and former staffers to home state friends and constituents, praise the senator for his modesty and courtesy and manners.
The four-term senator and former state and federal prosecutor is, we are told, learned in the law, a person of deep faith, a good man who loves his family, his state, and his country.
We can, as the lawyers say, stipulate that these assertions are true.
But that does not make him an appropriate and deserving candidate to be Attorney General of the United States.
And that is because the office of Attorney General and the Department of Justice he or she leads is different in a very fundamental way from every other Cabinet department.
Unlike the Secretary of Transportation or Commerce or Education, or even the Secretary of Defense or State, the Attorney General leads a department that is charged with administering the laws and enforcing the Constitutional guarantees and protections that directly affect every American, all 320 million of us.
To quote then-Senator Joseph Biden during the 2001 confirmation hearing of Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft:
This Cabinet position is the single most unique position of any Cabinet office.
For it's the only one where the nominee or the Cabinet officer has an equally strong and stronger, quite frankly, responsibility to the American people as he does to the person who nominates him.
At that same confirmation hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois observed that ``the attorney general, more than any other Cabinet officer, is entrusted with protecting the civil rights of Americans.''
The Attorney General is not the lawyer for the President; the Attorney General is the lawyer, and the Department of Justice the law firm, for the American people.
That is why I agree so strongly with then-Senator Biden when he said in 2001:
[F]or the office of attorney general, first, the question is whether the attorney general is willing to vigorously enforce all the laws in the Constitution, even though he might have philosophical disagreements.
[The second question is] whether he possesses the standing and temperament that will permit the vast majority of the American people to believe that you can and will protect and enforce their individual rights.
Put another way, the U.S. Attorney General and Justice Department is not only the instrument of justice but also the living symbol of the Constitution's promise of equal justice under law.
Mr. Speaker, the nation's greatest Attorney Generals conveyed this commitment to equal justice by their prior experience, their words and deed, and their character.
Think Herbert Brownell, Attorney General for Republican President Eisenhower, who overaw the integration of Little Rock's Central High School.
Think Robert Jackson, Attorney General for Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt, who led the prosecution team at the Nazi War Crimes trial in Nuremburg, Germany.
Think Robert F. Kennedy, for whom the Main Justice Building is named, bringing to bear the instruments of federal power to protect Mississippi Freedom Riders and to stare down Governor George Wallace in the successful effort to integrate the University of Alabama.
The nomination of Alabama Senator Sessions as Attorney General does not inspire the necessary confidence.
As a U.S. Senator from Alabama, the state from which the infamous Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder originated, Senator Sessions has failed to play a constructive role in repairing the damage to voting rights caused by that decision.
He was one of the leading opponents of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
He is one of the Senate's most hostile opponents of comprehensive immigration reform and was a principal architect of the draconian and incendiary immigration policy advocated by the President-Elect during the campaign.
And his record in support of efforts to bring needed reform to the nation's criminal justice system is virtually non-existent.
In 1986, ten years before Senator Sessions was elected to the Senate, he was rejected for a U.S. District Court judgeship in view of documented incidents that revealed his lack of commitment to civil and voting rights, and to equal justice.
And his Senate voting record and rhetoric has endeared him to white nationalist websites and organizations like Breitbart and Stormfront.
As a U.S. attorney, Senator Sessions was the first federal prosecutor in the country to bring charges against civil rights activists for voter fraud.
Senator Sessions charged the group with 29 counts of voter fraud, facing over 100 years in prison.
Senator Sessions has repeatedly denied the disproportionate impact of voting restrictions on minorities and has been a leader in the effort to undermine the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
Senator Sessions has spoken out against the Voting Rights Act, calling it ``a piece of intrusive legislation.''
Senator Sessions criticized Attorney General Eric Holder for challenging state election laws, claiming they are necessary to fight voter fraud.
However, evidence supports that voter fraud is almost nonexistent, with 31 confirmed cases out of more than 1 billion ballots cast.
As Attorney General of the state of Alabama, Senator Sessions fought to continue practices that harmed schools predominantly attended by African-American students.
Senator Sessions led the fight to uphold the state of Alabama's inequitable school funding mechanism after it had been deemed unconstitutional by the Alabama circuit court.
In the state of Alabama nearly a quarter of African-American students attend apartheid schools, meaning the school's white population is less than one percent.
Although Senator Sessions has publically taken credit for desegregation efforts in the state of Alabama, there is no evidence of his participation in the desegregation of Alabama schools or any school desegregation lawsuits filed by then Attorney General Sessions.
Mr. Speaker, the United States has been blessed to have been served as Attorney General by such illustrious figures as Robert Jackson, Robert Kennedy, Herbert Brownell, Ramsey Clark, Nicholas Katzenbach, Eric Holder, and Edward H. Levi.
Nothing would do more to reassure the American people that the President-Elect is committed to unifying the nation than the nomination and appointment of a person to be Attorney General who has a record of championing and protecting, rather than opposing and undermining, the precious right to vote; the constitutionally guaranteed right of privacy, criminal justice reform, and support for reform of the nation's immigration system so that it is fair and humane.
Regrettably, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama is not that person and he should not be confirmed by the Senate to be the nation's 84th Attorney General.
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