Jeff Sessions

Early life and early career

Sessions was born in Selma, Alabama, on December 24, 1946, the son of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions Jr. and the former Abbie Powe. Sessions, his father, and his grandfather were named after Jefferson Davis, a U.S. senator and president of the Confederate States of America, and P. G. T. Beauregard, a veteran of the Mexican–American War and a Confederate general who oversaw the Battle of Fort Sumter that commenced the American Civil War. His father owned a general store in Hybart, Alabama, and later owned a farm equipment dealership. In 1964, Sessions became an Eagle Scout, and later, he earned the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award for his many years of service.

After attending Wilcox County High School in nearby Camden, Sessions studied at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1969. He was active in the Young Republicans, the marching band and was student body president. Sessions attended the University of Alabama School of Law and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1973.

Sessions entered the private practice of law in Russellville and later in Mobile. He also served in the Army Reserve in the 1970s with the rank of captain.

U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama (1981–1993)

Sessions served as an assistant United States attorney in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama beginning in 1975. In 1981, President Reagan nominated him to be the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The Senate confirmed him and he held that position for twelve years. In 1993, Sessions resigned his post after Democrat Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States.

Sessions's office filed civil rights charges in the 1981 killing of Michael Donald, a young African American man who was murdered in Mobile, Alabama, by a pair of Ku Klux Klan members. Sessions's office did not prosecute the case, as homicide is prosecuted by the state government, but both men were arrested and convicted.

In 1985, Sessions prosecuted three African American community organizers in the Black Belt of Alabama, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s former aide Albert Turner, for voter fraud, alleging tampering with 14 absentee ballots. The prosecution stirred charges of selective prosecution of black voter registration. The defendants, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted of all charges by a jury after three hours of deliberation. Historian Wayne Flynt told The Washington Post he regarded concerns about tactics employed in the 1984 election and by Turner in particular as legitimate, but also noted Sessions had no history of advocating for black voter rights before 1984. Interviewed in 2009, Sessions said he remained convinced that he did the right thing, but admitted he "failed to make the case".

Failed nomination for federal trial court judgeship (1986)

In 1986, Reagan nominated Sessions to be a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. Sessions's judicial nomination was recommended and actively backed by Republican Alabama senator Jeremiah Denton. A substantial majority of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which rates nominees to the federal bench, rated Sessions "qualified", with a minority voting that Sessions was "not qualified". His nomination was opposed by the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and People for the American Way.

At Sessions's confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, four Department of Justice lawyers who had worked with Sessions testified that he made racially offensive remarks. One of those lawyers, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had referred to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as "un-American" and "Communist-inspired" (Sessions said he was referring to their support of the Sandinistas) and that they did more harm than good by trying to force civil rights "down the throats of people". Hebert, a civil rights lawyer, said that he did not consider Sessions a racist, and that Sessions "has a tendency sometimes to just say something, and I believe these comments were along that vein." Hebert also said that Sessions had called a white civil rights attorney "maybe" a "disgrace to his race". Sessions said he did not recall making that remark and he did not believe it.

Thomas Figures, a black assistant U.S. attorney, testified that Sessions said he thought the Ku Klux Klan was "OK until I found out they smoked pot". Sessions later said that the comment was not serious, but did apologize for it, saying that he considered the Klan to be "a force for hatred and bigotry". Barry Kowalski, a prosecutor in the civil rights division, also heard the remark and testified that prosecutors working such a gruesome case sometimes "resort to operating room humor and that is what I considered it to be". Another DOJ lawyer, Albert Glenn, said, "It never occurred to me that there was any seriousness to it." Figures testified that on one occasion, when the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division sent the office instructions to investigate a case that Sessions had tried to close, Figures and Sessions "had a very spirited discussion regarding how the Hodge case should then be handled; in the course of that argument, Mr. Sessions threw the file on a table, and remarked, 'I wish I could decline on all of them'", by which Figures said Sessions meant civil rights cases generally. Kowalski, however, testified that he believed "[Sessions] was eager to see that justice was done in the area of criminal civil rights prosecutions."

Alabama attorney general (1995–1997)

Sessions was elected attorney general of Alabama in November 1994, unseating incumbent Democrat Jimmy Evans with 57% of the vote. The harsh criticism he had received from Senator Ted Kennedy, who called him a "throw-back to a shameful era" and a "disgrace", was considered to have won him the support of Alabama conservatives.

As attorney general, Sessions defended the state in a litigation that challenged the funding system for Alabama's public schools. The litigation resulted in the creation of a new funding system after "Judge Eugene W. Reese found the state's education funding unconstitutional and ordered lawmakers to come up with a system to remedy inequities between rich and poor schools."

As attorney general in 1995, Sessions defended a newly passed state law denying access to meeting space and student group funding for Gay-Straight Alliances at the state's public universities, stating that "an organization that professes to be comprised of homosexuals and/or lesbians may not receive state funding or use state-supported facilities to foster or promote those illegal, sexually deviant activities defined in the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws." The U.S. District court ruled against the state law as a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in Gay Lesbian Bisexual Alliance v. Sessions, 917 F. Supp. 1548 (1996).

U.S. Senate (1997–2017)

In 1996, Sessions won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, after a runoff, and then defeated Democrat Roger Bedford 53%–46% in the November general election. He succeeded Democrat Howell Heflin, who had retired after 18 years in the Senate, making his victory a Republican pickup in the Senate.

In the February 1999 impeachment trial, Sessions voted to convict President Bill Clinton on both articles of impeachment, for perjury and obstruction of justice. However Clinton was acquitted on both charges by the Senate.

Following the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999, Sessions took part in the Senate's Subcommittee that investigated the massacre. Sessions blamed violent video games, movies and music, especially that of Marilyn Manson, and parts of culture for the actions of the two shooters.

In 2002, Sessions won reelection by defeating Democratic state auditor Susan Parker. In 2008, Sessions defeated Democratic state senator Vivian Davis Figures (sister-in-law of Thomas Figures, the assistant U.S. attorney who testified at Sessions's judicial confirmation hearing) to win a third term. Sessions received 63% of the vote to Figures's 37%. Sessions successfully sought a fourth term in 2014. In 2014, Sessions was uncontested in the Republican primary and was only opposed in the general election by write-in Democratic candidate Victor Sanchez Williams.

Sessions was only the second freshman Republican senator from Alabama since Reconstruction and gave Alabama two Republican senators, a first since Reconstruction. In 2002, he became the first Republican reelected to the Senate from Alabama since Reconstruction (given that his colleague Richard Shelby, who won reelection as a Republican in 1998, had previously run as a Democrat, switching parties in 1994).

Sessions was the ranking Republican member on the Senate Budget Committee, a former ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee. He also served on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Campaign donors

According to OpenSecrets, between 1995 and 2016, Sessions's largest donors came from the legal, health, real estate, and insurance industries. From 1995 to 2016, the corporations employing donors who gave the most to his campaign were the Southern Company utility firm, the Balch & Bingham law firm, the Drummond Company coal mining firm, Collazo Enterprises, and Vulcan Materials.

Committee assignments

Committee on Armed Services

Subcommittee on Airland

Subcommittee on Seapower

Subcommittee on Strategic Forces (Chairman)

Committee on the Budget

Committee on Environment and Public Works

Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety

Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy

Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure

Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife

Committee on the Judiciary

Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts

Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs

Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Refugees (Chairman)

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security

International Narcotics Control Caucus

2016 presidential election

Sessions was an early supporter of the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, and was a major policy adviser to the Trump campaign, especially in regard to immigration and national security. He was on the short list to become Trump's running mate and was widely seen as a potential Cabinet secretary in a Trump administration.

Sessions donned a "Make America Great Again" cap at a Trump rally in August 2015, and Stephen Miller, Sessions's long-time communications director, joined the Trump campaign. On February 28, 2016, Sessions officially endorsed Trump for president. Sessions' endorsement further legitimized Trump's campaign, as he was the first and only sitting U.S. Senator to endorse him during the primary. Sessions' and Rudy Giuliani's appearance was a staple at Trump campaign rallies. Uncorroborated Russian communications intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies discuss Ambassador Sergey Kislyak meeting privately with Sessions at the Mayflower Hotel during a Trump campaign event in April 2016.

During the transition, Sessions played a large role in appointments and policy preparation relative to space, NASA and related facilities in Alabama, while Peter Thiel advocated for private spaceflight.

Attorney General of the United States (2017–2018)

Nomination and confirmation

President-elect Trump announced on November 18, 2016, that he would nominate Sessions to be Attorney General of the United States. Trump would later state in an August 22, 2018, interview with Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt that the only reason he nominated Sessions was because Sessions was an original supporter during his presidential campaign. The nomination engendered support and opposition from various groups and individuals. He was introduced by Senator Susan Collins from Maine who said, "He's a decent individual with a strong commitment to the rule of law. He's a leader of integrity. I think the attacks against him are not well founded and are unfair." More than 1,400 law school professors wrote a letter urging the Senate to reject the nomination. A group of black pastors rallied in support of Sessions in advance of his confirmation hearing; his nomination was supported by Gerald A. Reynolds, an African American former chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Six NAACP activists, including NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, were arrested at a January 2017 sit-in protesting the nomination.

On January 10, 2017, the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on his nomination began and were interrupted by protesters. The committee approved his nomination February 1 on an 11–9 party-line vote. The nomination then went to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. The vote on Sessions was delayed until after the vote on Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos, because his confirmation – and subsequent resignation from the Senate – would create a temporary vacancy, which otherwise would have jeopardized DeVos's narrow confirmation. On February 7, 2017, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell stopped Senator Elizabeth Warren from reading statements opposing Sessions's nomination as federal judge that had been made by Ted Kennedy and Coretta Scott King. Warren was then officially rebuked per Senate Rule XIX on a party-line vote for "impugning a fellow senator's character". In silencing Warren, McConnell uttered the phrase "Nevertheless, she persisted"; the phrase was later adopted by the feminist movement in referring to women's persistence in breaking barriers. A few hours later Senator Jeff Merkley read without interruption the same letter by King that Warren had attempted to read.

On February 8, 2017, Sessions was confirmed as attorney general by a vote of 52 to 47. The next day, he was sworn in into his new post.

Tenure

On March 10, 2017, Sessions oversaw the firing of 46 United States attorneys. His acting deputy, Dana Boente, and Deputy Attorney General nominee Rod Rosenstein remained in place after Trump declined their resignations.

On April 10, 2017, Sessions disbanded the National Commission on Forensic Science and ended the department's review of forensic accuracy in closed cases.

Sessions imposed a hiring freeze on most of the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division and U.S. attorneys' offices, and placed a total hiring freeze on the Department's Fraud Section. On April 24, 2017, Sessions traveled to an ethics lawyers' conference to assure them the department would continue prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, regardless of Trump's comments that the law is a "horrible law" and that "the world is laughing at us".

On May 9, 2017, Sessions delivered a memo to the president recommending that Trump fire FBI director James Comey, attaching a memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein which called the Director's behavior indefensible. Trump fired Comey that day. In March 2017, Sessions had recused himself from investigations into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. Comey was leading the investigations prior to his dismissal.

On June 5, 2017, Sessions issued a memo prohibiting the DOJ from directing or requiring settlement payments to non-governmental third parties that were "neither victims nor parties to the lawsuits," thus ending the Obama administration's practices. Sessions said that "[w]hen the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people – not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power." Such settlement funding had been made available for the cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Over $2 billion of the Volkswagen emissions scandal settlement funds were diverted to California only, to build electric vehicle battery chargers despite the emissions impacting VW owners in all 50 states. The Regulatory Transparency Project investigated how such payments were unconstitutional.

In a November 2017 overview of his tenure in the Washington Post, Sessions was described as having made "dramatic and controversial changes [which] reflect his nationalist ideology and hard-line views".

Resignation

On November 7, 2018 (the day after the 2018 midterm elections), Sessions resigned as attorney general at the president's request.

U.S. Senate campaign (2020)

In October 2019, Sessions began exploring a potential candidacy for his old Senate seat in the 2020 election. On November 7, 2019, Sessions, the night before the deadline to file in the hyper-competitive Republican race, announced his candidacy. The winner of the Republican primary would challenge incumbent Democrat Doug Jones.

With no candidate acquiring more than 50% of the vote in the Republican primary, Sessions advanced to the run-off originally to be held on March 31, but delayed until July 14 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sessions faced the former head football coach at Auburn University, Tommy Tuberville. During the primary, Alabama's senior senator Richard Shelby asked Trump to stay out of the race. However, after the first-round primary Trump endorsed Tuberville. Throughout the campaign, Sessions had called himself an ally and supporter of Trump. However, on April 3 the Trump campaign sent a letter to Sessions, objecting and condemning the connections that Sessions has made between him and Trump during the Senate race.

Throughout the campaign Sessions repeatedly defended attacks from the President on Twitter. On May 22, 2020, President Trump tweeted "3 years ago, after Jeff Sessions recused himself, the Fraudulent Mueller Scam began. Alabama, do not trust Jeff Sessions. He let our Country down ..." Sessions responded the next day by tweeting: "Mr. President, Alabama can and does trust me, as do conservatives across the country. Perhaps you've forgotten. They trusted me when I stepped out and put that trust on the line for you." The President responded directly by continuing to deride Sessions, while further encouraging him to drop out of the race entirely.

Sessions lost the Alabama Senate primary to Tommy Tuberville on July 14, 2020. A Washington Post headline read, "Sessions loses runoff in Alabama as Trump helps end career of key supporter he came to despise".

Political positions

During his tenure, Sessions was considered one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate.

Immigration

Sessions was an opponent of legal and illegal immigration during his time in Congress. He opposed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 and the bi-partisan Gang of Eight's Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. He said that a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants undermines the rule of law, that the inflow of guest workers and immigrants depresses wages and raises unemployment for United States citizens, and that current immigration policy expands an underclass dependent on the welfare state. In a May 2006 floor speech, he said, "Fundamentally, almost no one coming from the Dominican Republic to the United States is coming because they have a skill that would benefit us and that would indicate their likely success in our society." He is a supporter of E-Verify, the federal database that allows businesses to electronically verify the immigration status of potential new hires, and has advocated for expanded construction of a Southern border fence. In 2013, Sessions said an opt-out provision in immigration legislation before Congress would allow Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to avoid building a border fence. PolitiFact called Sessions' statement false, stating that the provision would allow Napolitano to determine where the fence was built, not to opt out of building it entirely.

Sessions's Senate website expressed his view that there is a "clear nexus between immigration and terrorism" and that "Plainly, there is no way to vet these refugees" who would immigrate to the U.S. from Syria in 2016 or who came to the U.S. after September 11, 2001, and were alleged to be involved in terrorism. The news release said that "the absence of derogatory information in our systems about an individual does not mean that admitting that individual carries no risk." Sessions has expressed the view that the children of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries are "susceptible to the toxic radicalization of terrorist organizations" on the basis of the Orlando and San Bernardino attacks. Sessions supported establishing safe zones as an alternative to immigration from war-torn countries.

Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon talked about Sessions as the leader of the movement for slowing down both legal and illegal immigration before Donald Trump came to the scene, considering his work to kill immigration reform as akin "to the civil rights movement of 1960". Sessions and his communications director Stephen Miller developed what Miller describes as "nation-state populism" as a response to globalization and immigration.

Foreign and military policy

In 2005, Sessions spoke at a rally in Washington, D.C. in favor of the War in Iraq organized in opposition to an anti-war protest held the day before. Sessions said of the anti-war protesters: "The group who spoke here the other day did not represent the American ideals of freedom, liberty and spreading that around the world. I frankly don't know what they represent, other than to blame America first." The same year, he opposed legislation by Senator John McCain prohibiting the U.S. military from engaging in torture; the amendment passed 90–9.

Sessions opposed the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the 2011 military intervention in Libya, and arming the Syrian rebels. As Attorney General, he reportedly advised President Trump against increasing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

In the 109th Congress, Sessions introduced legislation to increase the death gratuity benefit for families of service members from $12,420 to $100,000. The bill also increased the level of coverage under the Servicemen's Group Life Insurance from $250,000 to $400,000. Sessions's legislation was accepted in the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2005.

In June 2014, Sessions was one of three senators to vote against additional funding for the VA medical system. He opposed the bill due to cost concerns and indicated that Congress should instead focus on "reforms and solutions that improve the quality of service and the effectiveness that is delivered".

In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, Sessions signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging President Barack Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.

Crime and security

In 1996, Sessions promoted state legislation in Alabama that sought to punish a second drug trafficking conviction, including for dealing marijuana, with a mandatory minimum death sentence. Sessions's views on drugs and crime have since softened.

Sessions supported the reduction (but not the elimination) of the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powdered cocaine, ultimately passed into law with the Fair Sentencing Act 2010.

On October 5, 2005, Sessions was one of nine senators who voted against a Senate amendment to a House bill that prohibited cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment of individuals in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government.

In November 2010, Sessions was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee when the committee voted unanimously in favor of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), and sent the bill to the full Senate for consideration. The proposed law would allow the attorney general to ask a court to issue a restraining order on Internet domain names that host copyright-infringing material.

In October 2015, Sessions opposed Chairman Chuck Grassley's (R-IA) Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, a bipartisan bill which sought to reduce mandatory minimum sentences for some nonviolent crimes. The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary approved the bill by a vote of 15–5. According to The New York Times, Sessions, Tom Cotton, and David Perdue "stalled the bill in the Senate and sapped momentum from a simultaneous House effort". Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), a co-sponsor of the bill, has said Sessions was its top opponent.

Sessions has been a strong supporter of civil forfeiture, the government practice of seizing property when it has allegedly been involved in a crime. Sessions opposes "any reform" of civil forfeiture legislation.

From March 2018 until the end of his service as attorney general, Sessions sat on the Federal Commission on School Safety.

Economic issues

Sessions voted for the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, and said he would vote to make them permanent if given the chance. He is a signer of Americans for Tax Reform's Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

Sessions was one of 25 senators to vote against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (the bank bailout), arguing that it "undermines our heritage of law and order, and is an affront to the principle of separation of powers".

Sessions opposed the $837 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, calling it "the largest spending bill in the history of the republic". In late 2011 he also expressed skepticism about the $447 billion jobs bill proposed by President Obama, and disputed the notion that the bill would be paid for without adding to the national debt.

Higher education and research

In 2013, Sessions sent a letter to National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) enquiring why the foundation funded projects that he deemed frivolous. He also criticized the foundation for distributing books related to Islam to hundreds of U.S. libraries, saying "Using taxpayer dollars to fund education program grant questions that are very indefinite or in an effort to seemingly use Federal funds on behalf of just one religion, does not on its face appear to be the appropriate means to establish confidence in the American people that NEH expenditures are wise."

Social issues

Sessions voted against the Matthew Shepard Act, which added acts of bias-motivated violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate-crimes law, commenting that it "has been said to cheapen the civil rights movement". Sessions "believes that a marriage is union between a man and a woman, and has routinely criticized the U.S. Supreme Court and activist lower courts when they try to judicially redefine marriage". Sessions voted in favor of advancing the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 and 2006, a U.S. constitutional amendment which would have permanently restricted federal recognition of marriages to those between a man and a woman. Sessions voted against the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.

Sessions has also said regarding the appointment of a gay Supreme Court justice, "I do not think that a person who acknowledges that they have gay tendencies is disqualified, per se, for the job" but "that would be a big concern that the American people might feel – might feel uneasy about that."

Sessions is against legalizing marijuana for either recreational or medicinal use. "I'm a big fan of the DEA," he said during a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions was "heartbroken" and found "it beyond comprehension" when President Obama said that cannabis is not as dangerous as alcohol. In April 2016, he said that it was important to foster "knowledge that this drug is dangerous, you cannot play with it, it is not funny, it's not something to laugh about ... and to send that message with clarity that good people don't smoke marijuana." In March 2017, prepared remarks for a speech of his called cannabis "only slightly less awful" than heroin, and he argued that "lives [were] at stake" in legalizing the drug.

Sessions believes "that sanctity of life begins at conception".

Sessions was one of 34 senators to vote against the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, which was vetoed by President Bush and would have provided funding for human embryonic stem cell research.

Health care reform

In 2006, Sessions coauthored legislation amending the Ryan White CARE Act to increase the share of HIV/AIDS funding going to rural states, including Alabama.

Sessions opposed President Barack Obama's health reform legislation; he voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December 2009, and he voted against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Following Senator Ted Cruz's 21-hour speech opposing the Affordable Care Act in 2013, Sessions joined Cruz and 17 other senators in a failed vote against cloture on a comprehensive government funding bill that would have continued funding healthcare reform.

Energy and environment

Sessions rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. He has voted in favor of legislation that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. He has voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Sessions is a proponent of nuclear power.

Judicial nominations

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sessions defended unsuccessful circuit court nominee Charles W. Pickering against allegations of racism, saying he was "a leader for racial harmony". Sessions rejected criticisms of successful circuit court nominee Dennis Shedd's record, saying he "should have been commended for the rulings he has made". In 2003, Sessions viewed criticisms of Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr.'s ultimately successful circuit court appointment as being due to his faith, stating that "Are we not saying that good Catholics need not apply?"

Sessions was a supporter of the "nuclear option", a tactic considered by then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in the spring of 2005 to change longstanding Senate rules to stop Democratic filibusters (or, "talking a bill to death") of some of George W. Bush's nominees to the federal courts. When the "Gang of 14" group of moderate senators reached an agreement to allow filibusters under "extraordinary circumstances", Sessions accepted the agreement but argued that "a return to the tradition of up-or-down votes on all judicial nominees would ... strengthen the Senate."

While serving as the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee in the 110th Congress, Sessions was the senior Republican who questioned Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's nominee to succeed retiring Justice David Souter. Sessions focused on Sotomayor's views on empathy as a quality for a judge, arguing that "empathy for one party is always prejudice against another." Sessions also questioned the nominee about her views on the use of foreign law in deciding cases, as well as her role in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF). On July 28, 2009, Sessions joined five Republican colleagues in voting against Sotomayor's nomination in the Judiciary Committee. The committee approved Sotomayor by a vote of 13–6. Sessions also voted against Sotomayor when her nomination came before the full Senate. He was one of 31 senators (all Republicans) to do so, while 68 voted to confirm the nominee.

Sessions also served as the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee during the nomination process for Elena Kagan, President Obama's nominee to succeed retired Justice John Paul Stevens. Sessions based his opposition on the nominee's lack of experience, her background as a political operative (Kagan had said that she worked in the Clinton White House not as a lawyer but as a policy adviser), and her record on guns, abortion, and gay rights. Sessions pointed out that Kagan "has a very thin record legally, never tried a case, never argued before a jury, only had her first appearance in the appellate courts a year ago".

Legislation

In 1999, Sessions cosponsored the bill to award Rosa Parks the Congressional Gold Medal.

On December 11, 2013, Sessions cosponsored the Victims of Child Abuse Act Reauthorization Act of 2013, a bill that would reauthorize the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990 and would authorize funding through 2018 to help child abuse victims. Sessions argued that "there is no higher duty than protecting our nation's children, and this bill is an important step to ensure the most vulnerable children receive the care and support they deserve."

Personal life

Sessions and his wife Mary have three children and as of March 30, 2020, ten grandchildren. The family attends a United Methodist church. Specifically, Jeff and Mary Sessions are members of the Ashland Place United Methodist Church in Mobile; Jeff Sessions has taught Sunday school there.

Electoral history