Skip to main content
Statement

MomsRising on the Selection of Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General

November 18, 2016
Maternal Health

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

Statement from Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, CEO and executive director of MomsRising.org, an online and on-the-ground organization of more than one million moms and their families, on President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General
“Donald Trump has named a person, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, who has a history of racist, misogynistic and bigoted behavior, to be the U.S. Attorney General, which is the chief law enforcement officer of the nation. Over his career, Sessions has called a white civil rights attorney a ‘disgrace to his race’ and prosecuted activists, including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr. for trying to register black voters. He once joked about the Ku Klux Klan, sayng he ‘used to think they were OK’ until he found out some of them were ‘pot smokers.’
 
“Senator Sessions’ voting record belies his antipathy toward women, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and people of color, and his disregard for our environment. He voted against: cracking down on sexual assault in the military; reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act; creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants; prohibiting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of people in custody; and the Matthew Shepard Act. He also voted for a law prohibiting gay marriage and to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
 
“In word and deed he has demonstrated that he would not represent the best interests of our families, our communities, our economy and our nation.
 
“The selection of Senator Sessions as Attorney General is a clear and unambiguous sign of how Donald Trump intends to lead and it should be terrifying to all Americans. Thirty years ago, the U.S. Senate concluded that Sessions was too racist to be a federal judge - and the U.S. Senate should not change their standards now.  We call on the U.S. Senate - Democrats and Republicans alike - to block Senator Sessions’ appointment to lead the Justice Department and ensure that the Justice Department will continue to serve all Americans, without bias."
 

# # # #

MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.