Sen. Mitch McConnell’s attempt to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren has instead created a martyr out of the Massachusetts Democrat.
Liberal groups rallied around her, vowing to redouble their resistance to Republicans, while her colleagues took up her cause, repeatedly reading on the floor the same words that got Ms. Warren into trouble in the first place — words taken from a 1986 statement by Coretta Scott King, widow of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
The King letter, which amounted to a withering attack against Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, also became an instant hit, getting far more attention in the wake of the dust-up on the Senate floor.
“If Mitch McConnell wanted to further activate an already-activated Democratic activist wing, boy did he ever do that last night,” Rep. James A. Himes, Connecticut Democrat, said on CNN’s “New Day.”
The fight erupted as the Senate was debating the nomination of Mr. Sessions to be attorney general. He was confirmed on a 52-47 vote Wednesday night.
Ms. Warren, however, may emerge as the bigger winner out of the battle.
Although she was blocked from speaking on the Senate floor — the punishment for her transgression against Senate rules prohibiting speaking ill of a fellow senator — she made the rounds of television news networks, garnering a far larger audience for her case against Mr. Sessions.
“The facts may hurt, but we’re not in the United States Senate to ignore facts,” she told MSNBC.
Mr. McConnell made his move against Ms. Warren Tuesday evening as the attacks against Mr. Sessions continued on the floor.
First, the presiding officer warned Ms. Warren that she had strayed into inappropriate territory by quoting the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who had attacked Mr. Sessions. When Ms. Warren went on to read the attack from King, Mr. McConnell demanded that she be punished.
“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,” he said.
That quickly became a rallying cry for liberal advocates backing Ms. Warren. Groups were raising funds by selling T-shirts emblazoned with the line.
It also caught the eye of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who praised Ms. Warren for resisting the Republicans. “So must we all,” Mrs. Clinton said on Twitter.
Though Ms. Warren waved off talk of a presidential bid at this point, analysts said, she boosted her prospects.
The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, said the “stunt” seemed designed to boost her brand ahead of a book Ms. Warren agreed to write. News of the book deal was announced earlier Tuesday.
“It appears that Elizabeth’s Warren biggest priority is promoting Elizabeth Warren, and last night’s political stunt was about Warren turning a discussion about the nominee for attorney general into a discussion about Warren,” the RNC said in a briefing memo.
Democrats hinted that sexism may have been behind the silencing vote, saying Republicans had maligned other senators in the past without punishment.
“What they did to Sen. Warren was selective enforcement,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat. He called it a “shocking double standard.”
After male Democratic senators went to the floor and read the same letter without retribution on Wednesday morning, liberal groups said it was “unbelievably hypocritical and sexist.”
“Republicans were more worried about protecting the feelings of a man who would rip up federal laws protecting the most vulnerable among us than they were in listening to the voices of women,” said Kait Sweeney, press secretary for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
King, in a letter at the time of Mr. Sessions’ earlier nomination, accused him of “a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.”
“Mr. Sessions has 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,” she wrote in a letter that has been revived since Mr. Sessions’ attorney general nomination.
Mr. Sessions is a sitting senator, and under the chamber’s rules no senator may question the conduct of another.
As Republicans demanded that senators come to the chamber to vote on the punishment, Ms. Warren remained defiant. “Why don’t you just let me finish?” she said.
After the voting, senators couldn’t even agree on what it was that Ms. Warren said to draw her punishment. Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said the offending remark was actually the Kennedy quote, which called Mr. Sessions a “disgrace.”
But the parliamentarian argued that it was the King quote that sparked the punishment.
The parliamentarian also said that truth was no defense against the punishment, so even if King’s words were correct, it was still disallowed under the rules.
“The rule does not permit truth to be a defense,” the parliamentarian said through the presiding officer.
Mr. McConnell on Wednesday did not address the brouhaha, but he did seem to hint at his motivation in a floor speech, saying he had become fed up with attacks against Mr. Sessions from Democrats who had worked with the man for years without raising the kinds of accusations they were lodging against him.
“It’s been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks,” Mr. McConnell said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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