Here’s the latest:

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, questioned Mr. Sessions about his links to groups and people who have taken xenophobic views. Here’s a quick primer, from a recent Times profile.

Mr. Sessions’s views have made him a target of critics who say he works too closely with people who have racist, xenophobic views. Several of the groups he has worked alongside were founded or nurtured by the activist John Tanton, who has described the anti-immigration fight in racial terms. “For European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority,” Mr. Tanton once warned a friend. In 2015, Mr. Sessions received the annual Keeper of the Flame award from the Center for Security Policy, a Washington think tank that promotes anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. Its founder, Frank Gaffney, has argued, among other things, that Mr. Obama is secretly a Muslim and that the crescent in the new logo of the Missile Defense Agency is a veiled sign that the United States has submitted to Islamic law. Mr. Sessions has for years heard claims that his views are rooted in a fear of foreigners. He has steadfastly denied it. “It is not xenophobic but our patriotic duty to defend the integrity of our borders and the rule of law,” he said in 2014.

Mr. Blumenthal asked: “How can Americans have confidence that you’re going to enforce anti-discrimination laws if you’ve accepted awards from these kinds of groups and associated with these kinds of individuals and won’t return the awards?”

Mr. Sessions said he does not necessarily share the views of every political donor or organization he has received an award from.

A change in tone on marijuana

Mr. Sessions came of age in the Justice Department at the height of the crack epidemic. He has described himself as a lieutenant in the war on drugs, said he was “heartbroken” when President Obama compared marijuana to alcohol, and criticized the administration for not enforcing drug laws in states like Colorado that have legalized marijuana. He said in 2015:

It’s still a federal offense to deal in marijuana in the United States, and so even though a state doesn’t have that law, the federal government does. They said, ‘Well, if you don’t enforce it, we won’t enforce it.’ Another relaxation of federal law.

Flash forward to Tuesday. Mr. Sessions sidestepped questions about whether he would put the weight of the Justice Department behind drug prosecution in those states. Doing so would set up a huge fight over states’ rights and federal drug policy. “I know it won’t be an easy decision,” he said.

No vitriol

Senate Democrats do not have the votes, by themselves, to prevent Mr. Sessions from becoming attorney general, and they have spared their colleague any vitriol, doing little to undermine his confirmation. Mr. Sessions was prepared to face renewed questions about race and comments he was accused of making in the 1980s regarding the N.A.A.C.P., the American Civil Liberties Union and “un-American” views. Liberal activists have repeatedly disrupted the hearing, screaming “K.K.K.” or “racist.” But the questioning from Democrats has mostly focused on his Senate record and whether he would enforce laws that he disagreed with. He has said he would.