Members of the Colorado Senate’s Democratic caucus on Wednesday released a video of them reading the decades-old letter that led to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s rebuke on the floor of the U.S. Senate the night before.

The letter, written in 1986 by Coretta Scott King, laid out her opposition to the confirmation of Jeff Sessions – subsequently he became Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions – to a federal judgeship, citing what she termed his “reprehensible conduct” discouraging African Americans from voting.

The U.S. Senate was considering President Donald Trump’s nomination of Sessions to be attorney general when GOP leaders invoked an arcane Senate rule to silence Warren on the grounds she was impugning a fellow senator.

“Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts,” King wrote. “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.”

Other Democratic senators read the entire letter from Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow on the Senate floor Wednesday without Republican objection.

In an effort to express solidarity with Sessions critics, the Colorado Democrats recorded the 90-second video and posted it online Wednesday evening. It features eight senators each reading a passage from the letter: Senate Minority Leader Lucia Guzman and fellow caucus members Angela Williams, John Kefalas, Daniel Kagan, Dominick Moreno, Andy Kerr, Steve Fenberg and Rhonda Fields.

About an hour earlier, the U.S. Senate had voted 52-47, with only one Democrat siding with the majority, to confirm Sessions as the country’s top law enforcement officer.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com