senator elizabeth warren has been particularly vocal in her criticism of many of the Cabinet selections Donald Trump has nominated. One of her biggest targets has been fellow senator Jeff Sessions, who has been tapped to be the country's next attorney general. The GOP clearly had enough of the verbal abuse, though, and voted using a little-known rule to silence the remainder of her speech on the Senate floor.
An unprecedented move
The vote against the Massachusetts senator took place on Tuesday night. It result took place along party lines, with the GOP carrying the vote 49-43.
With it, Warren was effectively silenced to speak for the remainder of the 30-hour debate session Senate Democrats intended to hold to argue against the confirmation of Sessions as attorney general.
Senate rules prevent people within the institution from questioning the conduct of a fellow senator, a tenet the GOP found Warren to be in violation of. By silencing the senator, the GOP further hindered an already problematic relationship down the aisle between the two main political parties of the United States. Despite their best efforts, Democrats were struggling to block Cabinet confirmations; and there was no real need to silence Warren, a figure the Democrats are sure to rally around for the indefinite future.
Sparking the vote
Oddly enough, there are mixed messages coming out about what the Massachusetts senator said that caused the GOP to make the unprecedented move. Warren, for one, claimed she was quoting Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. The civil rights icon had actually opposed the nomination of Sessions to be a federal judge back in the 1980s.
Democrats were appalled that this important voice was being silenced in the hall of government.
On the other hand, a Texas Republican claimed that Warren was silenced because she invoked the late senator Edward Kennedy, who once called Sessions a "disgrace." The disagreement between Democrats and the GOP about the cause of the vote in the first place just demonstrates a polarized crack in the Senate growing larger.
