Meet the Senator from Alabama who preceded Jeff Sessions [View all]

[ucrdem]

and voted against Sessions' 1986 appointment by then-president Reagan to federal district court judge -- Howell Heflin, Democratic senator from Alabama, 1979 to 1997:



from Heflin's March 30, 2005 NYT obit:

WASHINGTON, March 29 - Former Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama, a conservative Democrat who supported civil rights legislation and was sometimes described as the conscience of the Senate, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Sheffield, Ala., near his home in Tuscumbia. He was 83.

(snip)

But in 1986, Mr. Heflin voted against a lawyer from his home state who had been nominated by President Ronald Reagan to be a federal district judge. Several civil rights groups opposed the lawyer, Jeff Sessions, on the ground that he had shown insensitivity to blacks while serving as the United States attorney in Mobile, Ala.

The Judiciary Committee blocked the nomination. Mr. Heflin said he did not know whether Mr. Sessions would be "a fair and impartial judge." But the tables eventually turned. In 1996, Mr. Sessions, a Republican, won the Senate seat being vacated by Mr. Heflin, and he now serves on the Judiciary Committee.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/politics/howell-heflin-former-alabama-senator-dies-at-83.html

More here:

https://medium.com/@nmeyersohn/alabama-senator-who-voted-against-jeff-sessions-in-1986-once-said-he-probably-would-have-voted-for-a9ec6817d500

This also turned up:

In 1993 Heflin gave a memorable speech on the Senate floor in support of Senator Carol Moseley Braun's successful effort to deny renewal of a Confederate Flag design patent for the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Heflin spoke of his pride and love for his Confederate ancestors, his respect for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and his conflict in breaking with them over this issue.

But, he said, "we live in a nation that daily is trying to heal the scars that have occurred in the past. We're trying to heal problems that still show negative and ugly aspects in our world that we live in today, and perhaps racism is one of the great scars and one of the most serious illnesses that we suffer from still today."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howell_Heflin

So Doug Jones might have a fighting chance of winning Heflin's old seat after all. Keeping fingers crossed!