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Groups Intensify Push to Defeat Sessions Nomination
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Common Cause and a collection of our allies are delivering petitions signed by nearly 600,000 Americans to Senate offices today, urging the defeat of Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination to serve as attorney general.
Sessions “represents a very serious threat to the Voting Rights Act and to the ability of millions of Americans to cast their ballots on Election Day,” said Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn. “The right to vote is a touchstone of our democracy and we want the senators we are contacting today to be fully aware that their constituents are watching closely to see where they come down on this vote.”
The deliveries today are being made to state offices for Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, John McCain, R-AZ, Jeff Flake, R-AZ, Tom Carper, D-DE, Chris Coons, D-DE, Bill Nelson, D-FL, Joe Donnelly D-IN, Claire McCaskill D-MO, Jon Tester D-MT, Dean Heller R-NV, Thom Tillis R-NC, Bob Casey, D-PA, and Joe Manchin, D-WV. Due to a winter storm, petitions will be delivered tomorrow in the Lewiston and Augusta offices of Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME.
All of the targeted senators are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which announced plans today to vote on the Sessions nomination on Jan. 31. If it clears the committee, the nomination will go to the Senate floor.
Sessions is one of just a handful of Cabinet-level nominees to be opposed by Common Cause during the organization’s 46-year history. Other organizations involved in gathering the signatures being delivered today include MoveOn.org, the NAACP, People Demanding Action, NARAL, People for the American Way and Daily Kos.
On Capitol Hill today, there are more hearings for other Trump Cabinet nominees and at least two of them are facing more questions on ethics issues.
Rep. Tom Price, R-GA, Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is being quizzed about reports that his financial disclosure statement understated the value of stock he purchased last year in an Australian firm. Staffers on the Senate Finance Committee have submitted a report charging that Price also took improper or undocumented deductions on his tax returns for 2013-16.
Price has announced that he’ll submit amended returns to correct the errors. He is disputing charges by committee Democrats that he was actively trading health care stocks while he was promoting legislation that could affect the companies.
In the Senate Budget Committee, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-SC, Trump’s nominee to serve as budget director, is fielding more questions about his failure to withhold taxes for a woman hired as a nanny for his children.
President Trump met privately on Monday with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders and according to multiple reports repeated his false claim that widespread voter fraud robbed him of a popular vote victory in the November election. Final vote totals show Democrat Hillary Clinton won 2.8 million more popular votes than Trump but that Trump carried states with 304 electoral votes, 34 more than needed.
Trump persists in the voter fraud claim despite findings by numerous studies before and after the election that of a total of more than 128 million ballots only a handful were illegally cast.
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