Sessions just hours away from helming Justice Department

Sen. Jeff Sessions is on the verge of achieving the ultimate personal vindication when the Senate confirms his nomination to be attorney general as expected Wednesday night, and many law enforcement groups can't wait for his installation.

Sessions' unexpected ascension to the nation's top law enforcement post comes after Senate Democrats tried to revive allegations of racial insensitivity and lack of support for voting rights laws that sunk his nomination to a federal judgeship back in the 1980s.

Then a rising star in his Alabama's legal community, Sessions responded ten years later by winning a Senate seat and a place on the same Judiciary Committee that had rejected his appointment to the federal bench. Sessions took a seat on the panel, serving alongside his accusers, then-Sens. Joe Biden, D-Del., the late Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Over the years, Sessions managed to work with several Democrats on the committee to reduce prison sentences for crack-cocaine possession, a top priority for the black community. In 2003, he teamed up with Kennedy to pass a bill that tightened penalties for prison rape.

The work across the aisle with his colleagues didn't prevent Senate Democrats and civil rights groups from resurrecting the charges of racism and lack of support for civil rights laws over the past two months in an attempt to try to sink Sessions' chances of becomingPresident Trump's attorney general.