Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Senate Rule 19

choi

(1) Matt Viser and Victoria McGrane, Senate Rebukes Warren over Sessions Speech; Must remain silent on nomination debate after reading a letter frim MLK's widow. Boston Globe, July 8, 2017 (front-page top report).

The first 1 1/4 paragraphs: "Senator Elizabeth Warren was ruled in violation of senate rules late Tuesday night [Feb 7] adter quoting from a decades-old letter written by Martin Luther King Jr's widow -- a rare rebuke that silenced Warren from further debate on the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general.  The striking 49-to-43 vote, which occurred along party lines

My comment: There is no need to read the rest.

(2) Elizabeth Warren said to 'Impugn' Jeff Sessions. Merriam-Webster.com, Feb 7, 2017.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/ ... f-sessions-20170208

Note:
(a) impute (vt; ultimately from Latin imputare, from in- + putare to consider)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/impute
(b) The page states,

"Rule XIX in fact does not use the word impugn but the word impute in section 2:

        1. [sic; should be '2' -- in the next posting, click 'Rule 19' to see for yourself] No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.

choi

(3) Derek Hawkins, The Silencing of Elizabeth Warren and an Old Senate Rule Prompted by a Fistfight. Washington Post, Feb 8, 2017 (blog).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/n ... ted-by-a-fistfight/

Quote:

(a) "The mechanism used to silence Warren is known as Rule 19

(b) "As vice president, Thomas Jefferson included 10 rules in his Manual of Parliamentary Practice that dictated how senators were to behave. * * * Those rules were published in 1801. The incident that paved the way for Rule 19 came more than a century later.

(c) "It was February 1902 and a feud was escalating between the two Democratic senators from South Carolina. Benjamin Tillman, the senior senator and something of a political boss in the state, had grown angry that John McLaurin, his protege, was allowing Senate Republicans to court him on some issues, including the annexation of the Philippines.

"Furious that McLaurin was colluding with the other side of the aisle, Tillman used a Feb. 22, 1902, speech on the Senate floor to harangue the younger senator. Gesturing toward McLaurin's empty chair, Tillman accused his counterpart of treachery and corruption, saying he had succumbed to 'improper influences,' according to a Senate history of the dispute.

When McLaurin caught wind of Tillman’s remarks, he rushed into the chamber and shouted that Tillman was telling a “willful, malicious and deliberate lie.”

"A fistfight erupted. As Senate historians recounted, 'The 54-year-old Tillman jumped from his place and physically attacked McLaurin, who was 41, with a series of stinging blows. Efforts to separate the two combatants resulted in misdirected punches landing on other members.'

"When the fight ended, the Senate voted to censure the two men. * * * Rule 19 (sections 2 and 3, to be precise) was adopted later that year.

Note:
(a) Thomas Jefferson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
(1743 – 1826 (83 y/o); president 1801-1809; vice president 1797-1801 -- under president John Adams)

He and Adams did not get along. But only in the second half of the nineteenth century, did the running mate materialize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_mate
(b) Jefferson's Manual
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson's_Manual
(A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801, is the first American book on parliamentary procedure)
(c) Thomas Jefferson, A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States. 1801 (reprinted by Government Printing Office in 1993).
https://www.senate.gov/artandhis ... s/pdf/SDoc103-8.pdf