The rule used to silence Elizabeth Warren was born out of a Senate fistfight

Elizabeth Warren.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

By invoking an obscure Senate rule Tuesday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) effectively silenced Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as Warren was reading Coretta Scott King's 1986 letter against Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). McConnell alleged that Warren had "impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama," a violation of the rarely-used Rule 19 of the upper chamber. As a result, Warren was banned from speaking on the Senate floor as long as Sessions — President Donald Trump's attorney general pick — was the topic.

As it turns out, Rule 19 dates back to a different — and perhaps more violent — time in the Senate, The Washington Post reports. In 1902, a fistfight erupted between South Carolina's two Democratic senators after the senior senator, Benjamin Tillman, accused his protégé, John McLaurin, of working with Republicans on some issues. McLaurin had fallen victim to "improper influences," Tillman alleged, prompting McLaurin to storm into the chamber and accuse Tillman of a "willful, malicious, and deliberate lie."

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.