Kevin Johnson

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions moved a step closer to the securing his position as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer Wednesday, when the Senate Judiciary Committee approved his nomination on a strict party-line vote.

The 11-9 decision, following bitter opposition voiced by the senator’s Democratic colleagues, moves the nomination to full Senate consideration, where Sessions is expected to win approval as the 84th attorney general of the United States.

Sessions is poised to take over the sprawling Justice Department whose interim leadership was upended earlier this week when President Trump abruptly fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to defend his controversial refugee ban in federal court.

A strong supporter of Trump and the lawmaker who helped shape the new administration’s hard-line immigration policy, Sessions’ tenure will be immediately confronted with multiple court challenges to the president’s executive order, which suspends immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.

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In recent days, Democrats have voiced deep concerns about Sessions’ independence from the White House and a president who drew on Sessions’ counsel and support throughout a bitter primary and general election campaign season that featured anti-immigration rhetoric at virtually every stop.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., on Wednesday offered a scathing critique of the nominee, saying that he was "alarmed'' about Sessions' deep links to the president and "his open hostility to bedrock civil rights laws.''

"Unless publicly boxed in, I am afraid Sen. Sessions' default position will be to protect the administration,'' Whitehouse told the panel.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., followed Whitehouse, raising questions about Sessions' record of involvement in civil rights cases while a U.S. attorney in Mobile, Ala. Franken said the nominee presented an inaccurate account of his involvement and support of such cases.

He later launched into an attack on fellow committee member, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who Franken said had improperly sought to discredit a witness against Sessions' record of supervising civil rights cases while a federal prosecutor more than 30 years ago.

"The fact of the matter is that Sen. Sessions misrepresented his record,'' Franken said. "Sen. Sessions would not have tolerated that kind of misrepresentation from a nominee to this committee and we shouldn't either."

The panel's vote, followed by shouts of "shame'' from a small group of protesters gathered in the committee room, came with the full support of the Republican majority who dismissed the Democratic opposition as product of the party's simmering anger at losing the general election to Trump.

"We know his heart,'' Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said of Sessions during the panel's deliberations over two days. "We know him to be a good and decent man.''

Among Sessions strongest supporters, the nation's larges police union, lauded the panel's action.

"Jeff Sessions is a man who can and has reached across the aisle to get things done for the rank-and-file officer as well as a man who will support those same officers, even when it is unpopular to do so,'' said Chuck Canterbury, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police. "The men and women serving in law enforcement will be proud to have Sen. Sessions as our top cop.''