Democrats were furious this Wednesday when US Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced on the Senate floor for reading a letter authored by Coretta Scott King that criticised Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions’ civil rights record. What happened? Click read more to find out!

In the contents of the letter in 1986, Coretta Scott King said that Sessions had used, “the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge”. The reading of this letter came after strict criticism, used by Democrats on Jeff Sessions, that the nominee was racist and would advise those in power to make decisions against certain groups of the United States.

Even so, nominee Jeff Sessions is expected to be confirmed early Thursday morning due to the fact that the Senate is highly Republican-led now that the election is over. Many Democrats have spoken with anger against Trump’s nominees, primarily Betsy DeVos. She, as the new Secretary of Education, has been very controversial due to her dislike of common core education and public education as a whole.

Back to Warrren! The scuffle over her silencing comes with two facts. One: She is a woman. Women have had much controversy over their individual rights, and this certainly affected many. Two: She is a potential presidential candidate for 2020, and she is backed heavily by former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In response the to silencing, Democrat Senators Tom Udall, Sherrod Brown, and Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor and read the letter, a time each, themselves as a way to protest what happened to the Democratic senator. Before the original incident happened, Senator Elizabeth Warren had been given multiple warnings to stop talking, but the requests were not followed.

In the end, Republicans said that Warren violated Senate rule 19 which states that one must not, “directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

Was the silencing justified? Let us know in the comments section!

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