Legal News

Coming Soon to C-SPAN: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III

By Ashby Jones

His name is Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, though mostly everyone knows him as Jeff. And now, people will know him as the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions, the junior Senator from Alabama, was chosen to replace Arlen Specter, who last week defected to the Democrats. Click here and here for articles from the NYT and LAT.

Sessions probably isn’t the guy the White House wanted to see take the helm for the GOP, presumably preferring either Chuck Grassley (R-IA) or Orrin Hatch (R-UT), both of whom are considered more moderate than Sessions. (According to the NYT, Sessions said he had agreed that he would serve as the ranking member through 2010 and then relinquish the post to Grassley.) On Sessions’s ideological temperment, the LAT writes: “Sessions, 62, couldn’t be more different from Specter, as far as Republicans go. The latter is a moderate from Philadelphia who favors abortion rights and gun control. Sessions hails from the Bible Belt and has worked as a Sunday school teacher.”

So why does this matter? Well, a week ago it might not have — at least not as much — prior to Justice David Souter’s announcement that he was stepping down from the Supreme Court. Now, it’s Sessions who will presumably lead any fight against President Obama’s pick to replace Souter.

It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out. Sessions (Huntingdon College, Alabama Law) himself was blocked by the Judiciary Committee when he was nominated for a spot on the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1985.

The nomination of Sessions, a former United States attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, never reached the Senate floor after complaints that he had exhibited racial insensitivity - accusations he denied and attributed to distortions of his comments. "You have a little more sympathy than normal for the nominee having been a part of that process, and it gives you a commitment to fairness," Sessions has since said.

"I don't mind tough questioning of a nominee; I support that," Mr. Sessions said. "I think in the past, too often, that people have been inaccurate and unfair to the nominee, both sides."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 05, 2009 (boomark / email).