During my annual visit to the gym today I saw Jeff Sessions being grilled about his suitability for the job of Attorney General. I had never been previously aware of the guy and hadn’t seen him on TV before today so I don’t have an opinion as to his fitness for the job. My stupid political question for today is why would he want to switch from senator (making the law) to Attorney General (enforcing whatever laws the Senate happens to make).
Wikipedia says that he has been a senator for 20 years. Thus boredom is a potential explanation. But what else? What is so great about being Attorney General that a senator would want to quit?
[Also at the gym, I overheard a woman talking to her personal trainer about how she had recently ended a 35-year friendship with another woman. Why? It seems that the long-time friend had refused to support Hillary Clinton. “She just doesn’t see that Trump’s attitude will trickle down to everyone,” said the exerciser. I also met a guy with a remarkably lifelike portrait of a long-haired woman on his calf. It was at least as detailed as a Wall Street Journal hedcut. He’d gotten it before getting married down in Texas, 15 years earlier: “fortunately I still like my wife.” He moved up here just two months ago. Let’s hope that the difference in profitability for a plaintiff under Massachusetts family law compared to Texas family law doesn’t motivate his wife to make a trip down to the courthouse! (Papers referenced from the Causes of Divorce chapter show how changes in the prevailing law can make people more or less likely to sue for divorce.)]
This is about immigration. Sessions will actually prosecute people and companies for violating immigration law. Despite the laws being on the books, nobody has really been doing this for decades. Sessions has been one of the few making noise about this for years. Sessions also argues against the current scale of legal immigration.
It’s pretty tough to argue with: “Let’s actually enforce existing immigration law vigorously.” And Sessions is apparently squeaky clean as a person, so they’re going to scream “Racist!” at him for the next year or so.
What is so great about being Attorney General that a senator would want to quit?
Maybe Sen. Sessions doesn’t want to campaign anymore. On the other hand, US senators serve for six years and, since he’s had a lock on the seat for twenty years, campaigning is probably a breeze.
At 70 y/o, Sessions might be the oldest AG ever.
As one of one hundred senators he probably spends most of his time negotiating with other senators over legislation and dealing with constituent issues while at DOJ he will run a department with over 100,000 employees and and budget of 27 bil. He will be able to determine where to devote law enforcement efforts through his direct control of the FBI, DEA, ATF, the DOJ’s Criminal Division and local US Attorney offices. He will be able to determine where to focus enforcement efforts in various civil divisions that will be under him.
Jack,
You are scaring the crap outta me. OTOH, the existing criminal justice system is very broken.
Same answer as usual for any Washington politician–more glory. All courtiers want to be closer to the king.
Back in 1986, Coretta Scott King, wife of MLK Jr, wrote a letter opposing Jeff Sessions’ federal judge nomination. In the letter she claims that allowing Sessions to join the federal bench would cause irreparable damage to voter’s rights protection as Sessions had previously used fear mongering tactics to illicit votes from elderly black men. She goes on to articulate that as an attorney, Sessions was instrumental in several politically motivated, voting fraud prosecutions and is unfit to be a US judiciary. This same principle can be applied to the role of Attorney General where he can use the immigration laws to continue fear mongering amongst minorities. However, regardless of his inevitable appointment as AG, citizens must not forget that it is their duty to hold Sessions accountable and to speak up when they feel he exerting too much authority over the thousands of immigrations cases that will presented to his office. A reminder on your voice as a fundamental right can be found below through one of the greatest speeches on citizens and democracy from Sean Penn’s, Fair Game. Hopefully this will remind us all of our rightful duty as citizens.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/read-the-letter-coretta-scott-king-wrote-opposing-sessionss-1986-federal-nomination/?utm_term=.74409a53f1d6
https://www.feelingsuccess.com/fair-game-speech/