Later Wednesday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) will become the first sitting
senator to testify against a fellow senator’s nomination for a Cabinet
post, when he makes the case against confirming Sen. Jeff Sessions
(R-Ala.) as attorney general. On Tuesday evening, he told The Washington
Post how he came to make the decision, which was swiftly criticized by
Republicans as a way to grab the spotlight.
Why did you decide to do this?
So many of the
issues that have been driving me since I was a city councilperson in
Newark deal in areas of justice, equal opportunity, civil rights, LGBT
rights. So many have to deal with this issue. I’m grateful for the
senators that were able to ask thorough questions, but this is one of
those times where on issues at the core of justice in America, issues
that have been a strike point as we’ve seen over the last few years,
issues at a time when America needs healing to address a lot of the
things that are causing such rifts in our country, the most important
law enforcement officer in the country, this is a position of profound
importance on issues that go to the core of what we are as a country. To
remain silent at this time, to me, is unacceptable. Even if it means
breaking norms on issues of this kind of gravity, I could not have sat
well with my own self to remain silent on issues that are the core of
our conceptions of justice.
I absolutely do worry about that, but you have to understand, when I go
home, I go home to an inner-city community where the ravages of the lot
of the challenges – equal justice under the law, the challenges with the
criminal justice system, the challenges that core people face in
getting a fair shake — where a lot of these issues have been a part of
my life for a long time. I know that a lot of the folks who — when it
comes to the justice system in America, people feel voiceless or that
their lives don’t matter. For m,e to be silent in this moment in
history, would be unacceptable to them and is unacceptable to me.
What about your work with Sessions in the past, on honors for civil rights activists?
I
don’t want to get ahead of myself, because I address this in my
remarks. It actually — in fact, some of the things that helped compel me
to testify in the first place have to do with the marchers at Selma.
But please understand, and I’m going to be short here, because I don’t
want to take away from my testimony tomorrow, but I am where I am today
directly because of leaders in the legal community who felt it was their
affirmative obligation to defend the civil rights of others. I don’t
say that just as somebody who is a generation born after the civil
rights movement — and we all stand on the shoulders of giants. But I am
where I am today directly because of activists in Alabama.
How do you mean?
I’ll
explain that [Wednesday]. Not just the activists in Alabama, but the
legal professionals who really saw an urgency in fighting for the rights
of all Americans. I am really proud to have worked with Jeff Sessions
on awarding that medal to those marchers. I am really grateful for the
collegial relationship that he and I have had, the frank conversation,
the decorum with which he had greeted me and I hope that he thinks I
have greeted him.
How has Sessions reacted to your decision?
I
met with him [Monday] with staff there, and that feeling of goodwill
was there and he knew I was going to testify. This is not in any way, to
me, an undermining of that collegiality that has continued and, as a
result of us talking yesterday, will continue. He expressed to me, as I
expressed to him, that should he become the attorney general, we have to
work together. I think that our paths — even though we disagreed a lot,
our past pattern of working together despite our vast differences — he
is a guy in an environment where we’ve had bipartisan progress on things
like criminal-justice reform. He’s been one of the few senators
fighting against what has been years of my work in cooperation with
people like Mike Lee and Chairman [Charles] Grassley.
Our differences don’t undermine the places where we find commonality or
the collegiality that we enjoy. I am a United States senator. He is up
for the most important law enforcement position in the country. Just
voting yay or nay on this is insufficient, given the grand import of
that position. This is a time where I think that silence is not just
unacceptable, but in many ways, if Jeff Sessions continues as a U.S.
attorney general in doing things that undermine reform, that undermine
civil rights, that undermine equality under the law, that undermine
voting rights, that undermine the advancement of gays and lesbians in
this country, that silence at this point in history, silence would be
tantamount to complicity to things that I fear he would do in that
office.
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