MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines is standing by his silencing of Sen. Elizabeth Warren during the Washington debate about President Donald Trump’s pick as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
The Republican Daines on Wednesday defended his order to Warren to stop speaking and sit down while the Democrat from Massachusetts quoted a 1986 letter written by Coretta Scott King during the nomination process of Sen. Jeff Sessions as U.S. attorney general. King had said Sessions used his power as a federal prosecutor to “chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.”
Daines told Lee Newspapers of Montana that Warren violated a Senate rule intended at marking “boundaries around what is appropriate to say and what is not appropriate to say as it relates to personal attacks on standing U.S. senators.”
The rule includes referencing quotes, articles and other material, said Daines, who was presiding over the Senate as Warren spoke.
About 30 people protesting the silencing of Warren showed up Wednesday at Daines’ office in Missoula, where they read King’s letter out loud.
“Our message to Sen. Steve Daines is we are extremely disappointed in his ability to listen to his constituents, to have any dialogue with his constituents,” Erin Erickson of Missoula Rises told the Missoulian newspaper on Wednesday. “He’s essentially shutting us out, and to see him on the national stage shutting down a fellow senator is something we cannot ignore.”
The silencing of Warren Tuesday night was triggered by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, who invoked the Senate’s rarely used Rule 19 stating a senator cannot impugn the motives or conduct of another senator.
Warren asked for permission to continue reading the letter, saying she was “surprised that the words of Mrs. King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate.”
McConnell objected and Daines told Warren: “The senator will take her seat.”
Warren later went live on Facebook and read the letter outside the Senate chambers. The clip had more than 11 million views by Thursday morning.
Daines posted video clips of his interaction with Warren on the Senate floor on his Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Protesters argued that the silencing of Warren was not fair because several male Democratic senators read from the same letter by King on Wednesday without being interrupted.
“The rule is very selectively enforced in the Senate,” Caitlin Borgmann of the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana told the Missoulian. “If there’s any place free speech should be protected it is on the floors of Congress.”
Sessions was confirmed as attorney general Wednesday night with a 52-47 Senate vote.
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