Sen. Tom Udall on Wednesday was allowed to read Coretta Scott King’s letter critiquing Sen. Jeff Sessions, less than 24 hours after colleague Sen. Elizabeth Warren was banned from doing so.
Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, said he entered the letter — a harsh response to President Reagan’s nomination of Sessions as a federal judge 30-some years ago — because Warren’s words “should not be silenced.”
New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall begins reading Coretta Scott King's letter on the Senate floor https://t.co/T5uqoA85rO pic.twitter.com/sunkqrkLe6— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 8, 2017
After Udall finished reading the letter, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, also began reading the letter and was not stopped.
I entered Coretta Scott King’s letter abt #Sessions into the Senate record and read it from the floor—her words should not be silenced.
— Tom Udall (@SenatorTomUdall) February 8, 2017
Warren was blocked by Senate Republicans late Tuesday after reading passages from the 1986 King letter. Warren also cited remarks from Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who said then that confirming Sessions would be a “disgrace.”
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., interrupted Warren’s remarks to say they were out of order, and the Senate voted 49-43 that Warren “impugned the motives and conduct” of Sessions in violation of Senate rules. She was then locked out of the rest of the debate.
After being unable to read the rest of King’s letter, Warren took to Facebook Live outside the Senate floor to finish doing so.
“Tonight I wanted to read that letter, and Sen. Mitch McConnell and Republicans came to the floor to shut me down for reading that letter,” Warren said in the live stream. “So right now what I’d like to do outside the Senate, I just want to read the letter.”
As of Wednesday morning, the live stream had more than 6 million views, 134,000 shares and 75,000 comments.
The move by the GOP outraged social media users, and soon the hashtag #LetLizSpeak was trending on Twitter. Early Wednesday, users were also quoting McConnell’s words explaining why Warren was blocked — “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted” — with pictures of women in action.
Despite the debate over Sessions’ nomination, he is expected to be confirmed Wednesday night.
