Elizabeth Warren has just been banned from speaking in the Senate. Her crime? Offending Republicans.
Yesterday, she tried to air allegations against Jeff Sessions, made in 1986 by Martin Luther King’s widow, that he used the law to prevent black voters from registering.
She got as far as “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” before Republicans went berserk.
The Senate has a rule that precludes members from impugning other Senators—a rule Republicans claim Warren broke by quoting Coretta Scott King’s criticism of Sessions. They immediately called a vote to silence her.
Warren is now banned from participating in the Senate until the end of the debate on Sessions as attorney general. In her own words, “I have become a nonperson during the discussion of Jeff Sessions”.
Her detractors argue that a rule is a rule. And so it is, unless it is unjustly and selectively enforced.
Just last week, Republican Senator David Perdue slammed Democrat Chuck Schumer for crying at a press conference about Trump’s travel ban, saying “minority leader’s tear-jerking performance over the past weekend belongs at the Screen Actors Guild awards, not in a serious discussion of what it takes to keep America safe”. He was not censured.
Another Republican attacked the “cancerous leadership” of Democratic former minority leader Harry Reid. Nothing. And when Ted Cruz directly accused his own party leader of lying, he didn’t even get a slap on the wrist.
But Warren reading the words of Martin Luther King’s widow? That’s enough to send Republicans diving for their smelling salts.
Of course, it backfired. By banning Warren from speaking, the hypersensitive Republicans elevated a Senate debate to front-page news.
Quashing speech you don’t like will often have that effect. Warren read the letter in full on the steps of the Senate, live-streaming it via Facebook to two million viewers, so the world could hear the words deemed too offensive for Republican Senators’ delicate ears. #LetLizSpeak is still trending on Twitter.
And now Coretta Scott King’s concerns about Sessions’ ability to be an arbiter of justice for all Americans, regardless of race, have been given a national platform.
Liberals are often accused of being fragile “snowflakes” for shutting down free speech and refusing to listen to voices that disagree with them.
But by silencing Elizabeth Warren, Senate Republican proved themselves to be the most fragile snowflakes of all.