Jeff Sessions
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Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is the junior United States Senator from Alabama. He is a member of the Republican Party.
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Early life
Sessions was born in Selma, Alabama, the son of a country store owner. He spent most of his life in Hybart. In 1964 he became an Eagle Scout. In his adult life, he became a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. After attending school in nearby Camden, Sessions studied at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969. He received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Alabama in 1973.
Sessions became a practicing attorney first in Russellville, and then in Mobile where he now lives. He was also an army reservist in the 1970s, achieving the rank of captain.
Political career
Following a two-year stint as Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama (1975-1977), Sessions was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and confirmed by the Senate to serve as the United States Attorney for Alabama's Southern District, a position he held for 12 years. Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship by Reagan in 1986, but the Senate did not approve his appointment, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama, whom Sessions would eventually succeed. Sessions was elected Alabama Attorney General in 1995, stepping down midway through his four-year term after his election to the Senate.
In 1996 he was elected to the Senate, succeeding Democrat Howell Heflin. He was only the second freshman Republican Senator from Alabama since Reconstruction. He was easily reelected in 2002 becoming the first (or second, if one counts his colleague Richard Shelby, who switched from Democrat to Republican in 1994) Republican reelected to the Senate from Alabama.
Sessions is one of the most conservative members of either house of Congress, backing conservative Republican stances on foreign affairs, taxes, and social policy. He opposes abortion, and is wary of immigration. Sessions serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and is its only member to have unsuccessfully faced the Committee before becoming a senator. Sessions was a strong supporter of the "nuclear option," a tactic favored by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to stop filibusters of judicial nominees. When 14 senators led by Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska struck a deal to avert the option, Sessions was one of the agreement's most severe critics.
Sessions has been active in particular as an advocate for the armed services. On September 25, 2005, he spoke at a rally attended by 400 people in Washington, D.C. in favor of the war in Iraq. It was held in opposition to an anti-war protest held the day before that attracted 300,000 people. Sessions spoke of the anti-war protestors, saying "I frankly don't know what they represent, other than to blame America first."
On October 5, 2005, he voted against a bill restricting treatment of terrorist suspects.
Controversy
Sessions drew considerable controversy after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. He suggested to a colleague a way to rejuvenate his bill to repeal the estate tax, which had lost momentum: "[Arizona Sen.] Jon Kyl and I were talking about the estate tax. If we knew anybody that owned a business that lost life in the storm, that would be something we could push back with."[1]
Sessions again raised eyebrows by being a devoted opponent of Senator John McCain's anti-torture amendment. As one of only nine senators to oppose the amendment, he now supports Vice President Dick Cheney's proposal to exempt the CIA from the torture ban.
Prior to being nominated to federal court, Sessions had unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers (including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King, Jr) on a scant case of election fraud. Sessions had spent hours interrogating black voters in predominately black counties, which produced only 14 allededly tampered ballots out of the more than 1.7 million cast in the 1984 election. The three men were acquitted in four hours. Civil rights groups accused Sessions of aggressively looking for voter fraud in black communities while overlooking any violations among whites.
During his nomination to federal court, it was revealed that Sessions had once labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) "un-American," "Communist-inspired," and that they "forced civil rights down the throats of people." At his confirmation hearings, Sessions claimed that the groups could be un-American when "they involve themselves in un-American positions" in foreign policy. [2]
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