A Democratic senator read Coretta Scott King's letter aloud in the Senate after Elizabeth Warren was silenced

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February 8, 2017 4:42 PM

Tom Udall finished reading Coretta Scott King's letter on the Senate floor after Elizabeth Warren was silenced.

Tom Udall Senate floor

Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, read a letter from Coretta Scott King aloud on the Senate floor on Wednesday morning after Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was stopped in the middle of doing so on Tuesday night.

"I entered Coretta Scott King's letter about #Sessions into the Senate record and read it from the floor — her words should not be silenced," Udall tweeted on Wednesday morning.

Both Warren and Udall were speaking out against the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican, as attorney general.

King's letter was written in 1986 in opposition to Sessions' appointment as a federal judge in Alabama. In the letter, King criticized Sessions' record on voting rights, saying the Voting Rights Act "was, and still is, vitally important to the future of democracy in the United States."

"The irony of Mr. Sessions' nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods," King continued.

As Warren read the letter on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked Senate Rule 19, which forbids senators from suggesting another senator is guilty of "any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator."

"When Mr. Sessions served as US Attorney, his record on voting rights — the backbone of our democracy — was subject to serious question," Udall tweeted.

Sessions was likely to be confirmed as attorney general on Wednesday afternoon, though Democrats have expressed strong opposition.