SESSIONS, Jefferson Beauregard III (Jeff), (1946 - )

In the coming days, Congress will decide if a states rights segregationist from Alabama will be the next Attorney General of the United States.  

Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions III has a long history of working to fortify the commitment to white supremacy in his state, and if Donald Trump gets his way, Sessions will bring his racist reading of the law to the national stage.  

If you have not seen this piece on Sessions' role in maintaining separate and unequal schools in Alabama, please take a moment to read it in order to understand why the Sessions appointment must be stopped.  

During the early 90s, Sessions, as State Attorney General of Alabama, led an effort to overturn a state court decision aimed to establish more equity in public school funding. 

. . . .Attorney General Sessions led the battle against the decision. He argued that Judge Reese had overreached. It was a familiar war cry on the segregationist right: An activist court was usurping the power of the state’s duly elected officials to solve the problem on their own. For the next two years, Mr. Sessions sought to discredit Judge Reese and overturn his ruling. In one of the twists of austerity budgeting in the mid-1990s, Mr. Sessions had laid off 70 lawyers in the attorney general’s office, and had to find outside counsel to handle the case. Lawyers working on contract for the office were to be paid no more than $85 per hour, but for the challenge to the equity case, the fee cap was lifted. . . .

Sessions' work on behalf in educational inequity earned him high marks among Alabama Republicans.  And even though Sessions' side lost the case when the Alabama Supreme Court sustained Judge Reese's ruling for more equitable funding, Sessions took his seat in the U. S. Senate, where he has raged against racial and social equality ever since.

I believe that stopping this appointment is much more important than stopping the DeVos nomination; DeVos or anyone else that Trump picks will be a puppet of the Walton Foundation, while Sessions will have at his disposal the legal assets of the federal government to promote injustice in every American institution.

Over 1,100 law school professors agree that Sessions has to be stopped:

A group of more than 1,100 law school professors from across the country is sending a letter to Congress on Tuesday urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general.

The letter, signed by professors from 170 law schools in 48 states, is also scheduled to run as a full-page newspaper ad aimed at members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be holding confirmation hearings for Sessions on Jan. 10-11.

“We are convinced that Jeff Sessions will not fairly enforce our nation’s laws and promote justice and equality in the United States,” states the letter, signed by prominent legal scholars including Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, Geoffrey R. Stone of the University of Chicago Law School, Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School and Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California at Irvine School of Law. . . .

As Long As They're Segregated, Jeff Sessions Loves the Disabled

Jeff Sessions, Alabama's Chief Segregationist

Before Jeff Sessions became a United States senator, he was Attorney General for the State of Alabama.  His chief accomplishment was to lead a battle against equal funding between white and black school districts in the state.  

Good preparation, no doubt, for his role as chief prosecutor and enforcer of segregation and social injustice at the federal level. 

From NYTimes:

. . . .Nearly 30 of Alabama’s poorest school districts, with support from disability rights groups, civil rights organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit against the state. The most vocal critics of school reform, including the far-right activist Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, warned that it would bring “socialism” to Alabama.

After nearly three years of litigation, Judge Eugene W. Reese of the Alabama Circuit Court found the inequitable funding unconstitutional and ordered the state to come up with a system to remedy the inequity.

Attorney General Sessions led the battle against the decision. He argued that Judge Reese had overreached. It was a familiar war cry on the segregationist right: An activist court was usurping the power of the state’s duly elected officials to solve the problem on their own. For the next two years, Mr. Sessions sought to discredit Judge Reese and overturn his ruling. In one of the twists of austerity budgeting in the mid-1990s, Mr. Sessions had laid off 70 lawyers in the attorney general’s office, and had to find outside counsel to handle the case. Lawyers working on contract for the office were to be paid no more than $85 per hour, but for the challenge to the equity case, the fee cap was lifted.

Mr. Sessions was lauded by fellow Republicans for his efforts. They saw funding inequities as part of the natural order of things, not as a problem to be remedied. And any remedy would entail either the redistribution of funds from wealthier to poorer districts or an increase in taxes. Both positions ran against the small-government, privatization dogma that Mr. Sessions promoted. . . . .