Dem rep blasts silencing of Warren: ‘Republicans have no shame’

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) says a Republican vote to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) shows the GOP has no shame.

“Republicans have no shame. Even during #BlackHistoryMonth they dishonor the words of Coretta Scott King. #LetLizSpeak,” she tweeted Wednesday morning.

Republicans have no shame. Even during #BlackHistoryMonth they dishonor the words of Coretta Scott King. #LetLizSpeak

— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) February 8, 2017

The Senate voted to bar Warren from speaking late Tuesday after she spoke forcefully against Sen. Jeff Sessions ‘s (R-Ala.) nomination to be President Trump’s attorney general.

{mosads}“The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said from the Senate floor. “I call the senator to order under the provisions of Rule 19.”

“Rule 19” stipulates that senators are not allowed to “directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

McConnell pointed to Warren quoting a letter from the late King as evidence that she had violated the rules.

The civil rights activist and wife of Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1986 that Sessions had “used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens” as U.S. attorney for Alabama. She first penned the letter during Sessions’s failed confirmation hearing for a federal judgeship.

The showdown between McConnell and Warren sparked quick backlash from Democrats, while also spawning the Twitter hashtag “LetLizSpeak.”

Warren said later Tuesday that the GOP’s efforts “can’t change the truth” that Sessions is unfit to be Trump’s attorney general.