Sen. Al Franken signaled Wednesday that he is likely to vote against Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, saying after the second day of hearings on Capitol Hill that Jeff Sessions had yet to allay his concerns.
Franken, one of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee that is overseeing Sessions’ nomination, said he could not tell whether the panel would approve the controversial Alabama senator. Democrats have targeted his record on race and asked whether he would be strong enough to stand up to the President should he cross any legal lines.
“I have a lot of skepticism about his ability to be the kind of attorney general who protects all Americans,” Franken told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront.” “I don’t think that he is necessarily the right choice to protect the rights of Americans.”
Franken specifically voiced concerns over Sessions’ thoughts on the Voting Rights Act, which granted the federal government the power to intervene in a set of Southern states should their laws seem to disadvantage racial minorities. Much of the law was gutted by the Supreme Court in a 2013 decision.
“I worry about him with the Voting Rights Act,” Franken said. “He didn’t seem to think there was enough of a problem there to restore the Voting Rights Act.”
