Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was merely maintaining "decorum and a certain level of civility" on Capitol Hill when he shut down Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for slamming Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions, former Rep. Pete Hoekstra tells Newsmax TV.
"The rules of the Senate I think are very similar to the rules of the House. If you impugn the motives of one of your colleagues in a derogatory way, then your words can be taken down," Hoekstra said Wednesday to Newsmax's John Bachman on "America Talks Live."
"In the House, when your words are taken down, you are prohibited from speaking on the floor for the rest of that legislative day and that's what they did with Elizabeth Warren last night when she went after Jeff Sessions in the way that she did.
"It maintains decorum and a certain level of civility if you can describe that as what's going on in the Senate today. But that is the objective of it."
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The Senate voted along party lines Tuesday night to silence Warren from breaking a Senate rule that prohibits any senator from impugning another senator during debate over the nomination of Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions as attorney general.
Democrats objected, taking to the Senate floor — while supporters took to Twitter, saying Warren had been only quoting from Coretta Scott King, widow of civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who in 1986 protested against confirmation hearings for Sessions, who was up for a federal judge's seat.
Tuesday's Senate vote effectively silences Warren from Senate debate on Sessions' nomination for attorney general.
Sessions, President Donald Trump's pick, is set for confirmation this week, despite opponents' concerns about racially charged statements he'd made in the past.
Hoekstra says that despite the reprimand of Warren, civility in both houses seems to be a thing of the past.
"Clearly, discourse in any semblance of being productive in the U.S. Senate and in Congress in general is just deteriorating and going away. It's really sad," he told Bachman.
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