Law Professors, NAACP Want Sessions’ Nomination as AG Dumped by Frederick H. Lowe

Jan. 8, 2017

Law Professors, NAACP Want Sessions’ AG Nomination Dumped
Committee Hearing Set for This Week
By Frederick H. Lowe

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NAACP President Cornell William Brooks being arrested after sit-in in office of Sen. Jeff Sessions, protesting his possible appointment to the office of attorney general. PHOTO: Courtesy/NAACP

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NAACP reps sit in Sen. Jeff Sessions’ Mobile, Ala. office. President/CEO Cornell William Brooks is sitting in the front on the right. PHOTO: Courtesy/NAACP

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U. S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is under fire for his past racial actions and statements. Protestors are opposing his nomination to the office of Attorney General.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Some 1,330 law professors from 178 law schools in 49 states has petitioned Sen. Charles E. Grassley, (R., Iowa), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Dianne G. Feinstein, (D., Calif.), a senior Judiciary Committee member, to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (D., AL.) for U. S. Attorney General. Sessions is also a committee member.

A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sessions’ nomination was set for 9:30 a.m. January 10-11 in room 325 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The committee has 20 members–nine Democrats and 11 Republicans.

Opposition to Sessions, Alabama’s junior U.S. Senator, has been building since he was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump.The law professors took aim at Sessions’ nomination based on his racial history.

“In 1986, the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee, in a bipartisan vote, rejected  President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of then-U. S. Attorney Sessions for a federal judgeship, due to statements Sessions had made that reflected prejudice against African Americans. Nothing in Sessions’ public life since 1986 has convinced us that he is a different man than the 39-year-old attorney who was deemed too racially insensitive to be a federal district court judge,” the petition said.

NAACP Sit In

The petition follows the peaceful occupation on Tuesday in Sessions’ Mobile, Ala., office by members  of the  National NAACP based in Baltimore.

Cornell Brooks, the organization’s president and five others were handcuffed and arrested. Police charged them second-degree criminal trespass, a misdemeanor.

Brooks said in a newspaper interview the NAACP is determined to block Sessions’ confirmation because he will set back police community relations. Local branches of the NAACP also held press conferences outside of Sessions’ offices in Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery and Dothan.

Deval Patrick Blasts Sessions

Deval Patrick, former two-term Governor of Massachusetts who served from 2007 to 2015, said Sessions should be disqualified as Attorney General, the nation’s top law enforcement post. When Sessions was serving as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, he attempted to prosecute three Black civil rights workers for helping poor and uneducated Blacks to vote, Patrick told MassLive.com,  a local news station.

Patrick, who worked on the case as a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said a jury threw out the case after a few hours.

A Thumbs Down

In their petition, the law professors mentioned Sessions’ prosecution of the civil rights workers and other concerns. “Some of us have concerns about his consistent promotion of the myth of voter-impersonation fraud,” the petition said. “As law faculty who work every day to better understand the law and teach it to our students, we are convinced that Jeff Sessions will not fairly enforce our nation’s laws and promote justice and equality in the United States. We urge you to reject his nomination.”