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MN-Sen: Recount Complete - Franken up 225

by: DavidNYC

Sat Jan 03, 2009 at 9:13 PM EST


Strib:

Norm Coleman's term as a U.S. senator ended at noon Washington time on Saturday, and by evening his hopes of winning a second term had been dealt an expected but serious setback as state officials counted previously rejected absentee ballots in St. Paul.

DFLer Al Franken held an unofficial lead of 225 votes over Coleman as this edition of the Star Tribune went to press, according to a newspaper tally of the officials' count of the absentee ballots. Franken had led unofficially by 49 votes going into the day and gained a net 176 votes from the new ballots.

With the recount complete, focus immediately shifted to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which continued to consider a request from the Coleman campaign to alter the process and add more absentee ballots to be reconsidered. But by early evening there was no word from the state's highest court as to when it would rule or hear arguments.

Coleman almost certainly can't win no matter how many legal challenges he files. At this point, here's the real question: Will Harry Reid fight as hard to seat Al Franken as he's fighting not to seat Roland Burris?
DavidNYC :: MN-Sen: Recount Complete - Franken up 225
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MN-Sen: Recount Complete - Franken up 225 | 58 comments
Difference Between Franken and Burris
Franken won an election outright, and Burris was appointed by a corrupt governor under investigation for possibly trying to sell the same seat Burris is now appointed to. Reid would look better if he was seen fighting for democracy than for Illinois corruption.

I really hope someone in the mainstream media picks up the GOP opposition to seat Franken for what it is: Republicans will try to block Franken because of who he is, what he represents (pure, unadulterated political incorrectness), rather than the process by which he was elected. Basically, the GOP is scared shitless of having someone like him amongst them.

How very true.
Franken won an election outright, and Burris was appointed by a corrupt governor under investigation for possibly trying to sell the same seat Burris is now appointed to. Reid would look better if he was seen fighting for democracy than for Illinois corruption.

Franken was elected by the people of Minnesota. Burris was selected by a Governor about to be indicted for illegal "pay-to-play" ploys. There's a big difference here.

C4O Democrats: A Place for All Democrats

[ Parent ]
While I am sure the GOP caucus has a great deal of disdain for Franken...
It seems to me that Cornyn and posse would still staunchly oppose seating any Democrat in a similar situation. If there's one thing you can say about the modern GOP, it's that they don't back down easily (if at all).
[ Parent ]
It Seems Like Such A Waste Of Time
For the Republicans to use that kind of energy to prevent seating a Senator. I know that Canadian Conservatives would rather use their energy for more important things.

Oh wait, they don't actually. My bad.

[ Parent ]
They have a lot of reasons to do it
Not the least of which is their desire to make Franken's victory as controversial as possible.
[ Parent ]
Confidence Rising!
I admit I was a little nervous with only a 49 vote lead and there was the whole Minnesota Supreme Court (appointed mostly by GOP Governors) out there (think Bush v. Gore). But now it's 225 votes, the campaign's agreed on the 933 absentee pile 5 ballots to count, and now it's down to this double counting absentee thing and Coleman trying to get 650 correctly rejected ballots (from GOP strongholds) added back in. Good luck Norm!

The United States Senate in the 111th Congress will have 59 Senators in the Democratic organizing caucus. We now have our 55 elected Senators including Fraken. Then we needed appointments for Obama (IL), Biden (DE), Clinton (NY), and Salazar (CO). Delaware and Colorado are set with relatively painless appointment processes. New York seems to be settling on Caroline Kennedy.

And that leaves us with Illinois. As for Burris - I wonder why he'd accept the appointment from the Governor given the situation. Blago should resign (impeachment forthcoming) and let Quinn pick someone. I guess I should be glad Blago didn't appoint a Republican!

KELL

Happy New Year - Senator Franken
I have been avidly watching this play out since the November election and Al Franken and his lawyers have been amazing. What a great way to start the New Year!!
Harry Reid should find his spine and make a provisional appointment immediately.  I don't think that requires more than a majority vote.  Let the Republicans stomp their feet and whine but let the Democrats stand up for their rights and show some guts for a change.
with the courts expedite Coleman's challenge?
I hope they will not let him tie this up for a year or more. I would think that courts would hear and rule on the case quickly, as the courts did during the 2000 Florida recount.
Yeah, they should...
Expedite this. It's completely unfair for Minnesota's Junior Senator to be denied his Senate seat simply because of erroneous court challenges. Perhaps the court really thinks Coleman's claims have validity, but even in that case they should still expedite so that Minnesota will soon have 2 Senators in office again.

C4O Democrats: A Place for All Democrats
[ Parent ]
Let's get down to business.
What committees shall we have Sen. Franken on?

Judiciary for the coming SCOTUS vacancies alone. I would have killed to see him interrogate Alito. Environment & Public Works so he can piss off Inhofe obv. Oh, and of course Foreign Relations.

Pissing off Inhofe (R-NOT OK)
is ALWAYS a good thing.

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway: http://www.washingtonmonthly.c...
[ Parent ]
Well
First the rules for committees.

http://www.senate.gov/artandhi...


Standing committees are permanent bodies with specific responsibilities spelled out in the Senate's official rules. For purposes of member assignment, Senate committees are divided, according to relative importance, into three categories: Class A, Class B, and Class C. Senators are limited to service on two Class A committees and one Class B committee. Assignment to Class C committees is made without reference to a member's service on any other panels.

Twelve of the sixteen current standing committees are Class A panels. They are Agriculture; Appropriations; Armed Services; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Energy and Natural Resources; Environment and Public Works; Finance; Foreign Relations; Governmental Affairs; Judiciary; and Labor and Human Resources. Somewhat less prestigious, but vital to the Senate's operations, are the four Class B standing committees. They are Budget; Rules and Administration; Small Business; and Veterans' Affairs. There are no Class C standing committees.

In addition you can only be on one "Super A" committee (Appropriations, Armed Services, Finance, Foreign Relations and Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation)

Franken has said he would like to keep the Minnesota tradition of having two senators on the Agriculture committee and also follow in Wellstone's footsteps and be on the Veterans Affairs Committee. Obama will be leaving the Vets committee open a seat and Salazar is doing the same for Ag.

There is a rule that two senators from the same party and state can't serve on the same committee but an exception can be granted and likely would be for Ag. Klobuchar also serves on Commerce, Environment and joint Economic which pretty much rules those out.

That leaves one more A committee and C committees. My guess is he'd want Foreign, Energy or HELP. Energy only has one opening a HELP and Foreign have too, the expanded amount of Dems in the Senate will probably add at least one extra opening on all of those.

Udall, Udall and and Begich all focused on energy and so that's probably out. Bennett and the NY replacement are both likely to want and get HELP seats and those seats are likely to also be coveted by just about every new Dem senator as they'll deal with healthcare reform, new education bill and a lot of other Democratic priorities. The only person who naturally looks right for Foreign is Merkley and maybe M Udall. So I wouldn't be suprised to see Franken land there.

Foreign Relations (super a), Agriculture(a), Veterans Affairs(b) and throw in Joint Committee on Library of Congress(c).

Sound good?

[ Parent ]
What's "HELP"?
Also, it's Senator Bennet.  Senator Bennett is a Republican from Utah.

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway: http://www.washingtonmonthly.c...
[ Parent ]
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions


Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
If the parties were reversed...
the Republican leadership would have the incumbent Democrat's office cleaned out by sun-up. A little backbone please Harry...
Time to stop
Norm Coleman is one of my favorite Senators in the Senate. By far in my top 5. I would hate to see him go. Not only will MN miss out on such a great Senator, but so will the nation. And to top it off losing to a freak like Franken?

But it is time for Coleman to conceed defeat and let Franken take his Senate seat. It is pointless to keep fighting this with nothing that really stands out being wrong in the process.

A cat can have kittens in an oven but that doesn't make them biscuits.

Out of curiousity, why is he you're favorite?


"[Rush Limbaugh] is a sorry excuse for a human being and a has-been hypocrite loser who was more lucid when he was a drug addict." Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL)
[ Parent ]
Seriously
I can understand your wanting there to be a republican Senator in a state like MN, but he's hardly a solid conservative.  He's the epitamy of a "career politician" with no real core values.  He just does whatever it takes to get elected.  Heck, the guy was a drugged out hippie decades ago.  Not to mention the possible criminal case in his future.  
[ Parent ]
Even with?
His barrage of ethical scandals unhatching?
[ Parent ]
ever watch Coleman vs. Galloway?
If not, it truly is a must-see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Start watching at 6:30 or so in the video, and watch until the end.  It's as good as it gets for the politically addicted.

[ Parent ]
I'm not a fan of Franken
but he's not a freak, he's a comedian, but still a smart guy. Coleman is corrupt and has no real beliefs.  

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus
[ Parent ]
Minnesota will not miss him
He barely won over 40 percent of the vote and would have gotten much less against a stronger Democratic candidate. If say, Tim Walz had been our candidate he'd have been lucky to scrape 35 percent.  
[ Parent ]
i'm sorry kyle
and i appreciate your passion for norm.  it's hard to find that even amongst MN republicans.  and i've met al a number of times and seen him speak and he's a very smart, prepared guy.  nothing freakish about him.
[ Parent ]
Norm has a bright future in snake oil sales

[ Parent ]
Dang!
Wow.  You lit that snake oil on fire there!

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway: http://www.washingtonmonthly.c...
[ Parent ]
We got Paul Wellstone's senate seat back
Whooohoooo!!!

So now someone needs to explain to the Republicans that they can't filibuster the duly elected Senators (maybe if Cornyn tries to go through with it, the Democrats should try to filibuster his seating [now that would be entertainnment :D]).

Your go-to source for great sarcasm

And it keeps the streak alive
Fours consecutive Jews have been elected to that Senate seat.

Boschwitz -> Wellstone -> Coleman -> Franken

Ya ya, I know Dean Barkley was appointed to it for about 3 months between Wellstone and Coleman.  The guy has never and will never win an election in MN.

[ Parent ]
Peculiar because
Minn. doesn't even have a very high Jewish population.  Same with Wisconsin with 2 Jewish senators and a low Jewish population overall.

"[Rush Limbaugh] is a sorry excuse for a human being and a has-been hypocrite loser who was more lucid when he was a drug addict." Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL)
[ Parent ]
Very much so
According to wikipedia Jews are roughly 1% of the population in Minnesota.

There are other such states with similar streaks of electing Jews, but they are in states you'd expect.  Schumer for example is also the fourth consecutive Jewish candidate to hold his Senate seat in New York.  He was preceded by D'Amato, Javitz and Lehman.

[ Parent ]
I thought D'Amato was Catholic

[ Parent ]
He was
actually all four Democrats to run agaisnt D'Amato; Holtzman in 1980, Green in 1986, Abrams in 1992, and Schumer in 1998 were all Jewish and D'Amato successfully milked the Catholic/Jewish divide to win over economic liberal Catholics in the NYC area and over by Buffalo to win the election.

Geraldine Ferraro helped a bit in 1992.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
Random fact about Wisconsin
Despite it's low Jewish population, it has a Jewish history; Golda Meir is from Milwaukee.


Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens
[ Parent ]
Jews are probably the most overrepresented group in congress
Really, in the United States, Jews can't make up more than 1-2% of the entire population. Yet they probably make up at least 10% of Congress. Now, this doesn't bother me, I'm Jewish on my dad's side, but you gotta admit, if Congress were truly representative, there would be more atheists in congress than Jews (just sayin' ;) )

Your go-to source for great sarcasm
[ Parent ]
2.5%
according to census estimates, but only 1.4% are really Jews, the rest are born to Jewish mothers and are thus Jews by birth...but that's a little questionable.

My cousins are born to a Jewish mother...raised Catholic.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
The Jewish population is even lower
If you listen to my dad, Real Jews™ are born in Brooklyn. I suppose there are a lot "Jews" in the world who are figuring that one out ;)

Your go-to source for great sarcasm
[ Parent ]
There's just one.
Pete Stark.  AND he's a religious atheist (non-theist Unitarian).  He's totally and completely entitled to his beliefs, but it is a smidgen disappointing that the best we get is someone who doesn't really represent the experiences of most Atheist Americans, a group who aren't often seen paling around with organized religion.
There are a couple of dozen members of congress who don't list their religious affiliation, most of whom are probably non-religious, but unfortunately, it's political suicide to say so.  I also imagine that there are at least a few others running who claim a faith but aren't actually practicing anymore.  Inevitably, there are at least a couple more non-theists in these two batches.
The point is that no one has the political courage to actually stand up and say so (save for Stark).
[ Parent ]
Well
unless you live in a district like Stark's, saying so probably means a one way ticket to unemployment.

Face it, we're a religious country.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
We are an ostensibly religious country
Most people identify with a religious heritage and use it as a get out of eternal darkness free card and don't practice or even know much about their religion.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
Exactly
Right now the "non-religious" srgment is about 15%, but it's steadily growing at a much faster rate than almost all religions in the U.S.  The number is probably a good deal higher in reality as the number will always be underestimated in polling samples from people unwilling to publicly say they don't believe in any God.

Most people I know who claim a religion never go to church nor do they know much of anything about their supposed religion.  They just claim it as their own because it's a family heritage.  

Among all the religious groups I'd guess Jews are the least observant.  More than half the Jews I've known don't even believe in God, they just claim Judaism as sort of a "badge of honor."

And if I had to guess I'd say the number of our elected officials in D.C. who are non-religious is probably at least 15%.  For obvious reasons they just claim a religion.  

Slowly but surely the U.S. (thankfully) seems to be going the way of Europe in religion losing relevance with large numbers of people.  

[ Parent ]
Bout time!


Check out the 2010 California races (http://2010californiaracetracker.wetpaint.com) and help us take back Red California! (http://www.takebackredcalifornia.org)
[ Parent ]
i've been fighting norm coleman since he ran for mayor in 1993
i can hardly believe we might finally have put a stake in his heart (metaphorically of course).

if the court moves quickly they can deal with whatever coleman's camp brings forward (double counted ballots? adding rejected absentee ballots?) fairly quickly, and we can wait a week to seat senator franken and avoid a big ugly deal.  if the courts drag their feet, then reid and the democrats seat him anyway.  no muss, no fuss.

Funny who he's lost to
Coleman's only two losses for office to my knowledge are the 1998 Governor's 3-way race to Jesse Ventura and now to Al Franken.  Only in Minnesota.
[ Parent ]
I guess
Norm doesn't like threeways.  Sorry.  I couldn't resist.
[ Parent ]
Eww
You made my insides sad.
[ Parent ]
If Republicans filibuster the duly elected Senator of Minnesota
then Democrats should revisit that good ol' "nuclear option" that the GOP liked to fantasize about four years or so ago. Should. I know that Harry wouldn't even make them actually filibuster, let alone do something that not even the self-proclaimed permanent majority didn't dare to do.
Is there a vote on any incoming senator?
I think the Republicans could only filibuster the seating and swearing-in of all senators elected on Nov 4th (incl. Sen. McConnell).

If they do, there are 63 senators left (64 when a replacement for Obama is seated). 3/5 of 63 are 37.8 senators to overrule a filibuster. Democrats would habe 38 (incl. Lieberman, without Obama).  

Also
I really can't see Snowe, Collins and Specter supporting a filibuster. Maybe not even Voinovich, Grassley and Lugar. Cornyn is blowing smoke. Once the result is certified the GOP ideologues can't do anything about it.
[ Parent ]
Fake victimhood
At the least, Republicans can make this part of the litany of fake victimhood, elections they claim were stolen but weren't that they use to overwhelm Gore 2000, Jennings 2006, Tilden in 1876, etc.  They steal.  They whine.  They use the whine to create restrictions that rig the electoral process.  Brilliant but anti-democratic to the core.  But then some Republicans don't believe in elections (they cost too much), the wrong people vote, they don't "know the issues", they don't subscribe to the right religious formulas, etc., etc., etc.
[ Parent ]
My favorite is still 1960
Sure, there were clear shenanigans going on in Chicago but rarely do they mention JFK would still have won the electoral college even without Illinois' electoral votes.

Besides, Nixon was doing much the same in Florida which is why he didn't contest the final outcome too much. Though even that is mostly a myth since there were lots of behind the scenes machinations very similar to what followed in 2000.

[ Parent ]
1960
Most us probably wouldn't be alive today had Nixon won in 1960.  The Cuban Missle Crisis with Nixon and Co. at the helm probably would have turned the world into a radioactive wasteland.
[ Parent ]
Actually
Nixon was paying for recounts in several states including Illinois and making no progress.  The evidence from his own recount was that Cook County Democrats performed an honest count in the Presidential race and cheated like crazy in the all important election for State's Attormey (a county level job) where the Republican incumbent was actively examining the Dailey machine for his own political purposes.
[ Parent ]
Coleman - Why you should concede.
I think it would be self destructive for Coleman to mount a court challenge.  A procedure question.  Would his challenge be heard by the same Minnesota Supreme Court that has already ruled against him 3-4 times? And since rules for seating Senators are matters settled by the Senate, if Coleman loses - where could he appeal?
Besides which his case loses on many counts:
1.  He would be trying to get the MSC to change rules that he had previously agreed to but now does not like the outcome. (Duplicate ballots and Absentee Ballots). And changing rules you previously agreed to is not allowed. Estoppel.
2. Franken's 225 vote leads means even if Coloeman wins, he loses.  Duplicates plus lost ballots only net 140 votes at the most.
3.  Looking at his 600+ ballots won't help as they were already checked twice and rejected.  The third time will NOT be the charm.
4. Counting the 400+ absentee ballots that both campaigns vetoed is the only item with any merit and will never net him the 80-100 votes he would need even if he won on the other two issues which he wont.
5.  He is already running low on funds and will have to pay ALL the costs of anymore recounting.
So I hope he spends the weekend weeping and gnashing his teeth and then concedes on Tuesday.
Happy Camper
He would also be the GOP frontrunner for governor in 2010
If Pawlenty calls it quits to run for president in 2012. Remember, Coleman only ran against Wellstone in 2002 after Rove talked him into it - he originally planned to run for governor again after the narrow loss to Ventura in 1998.
[ Parent ]
400 vetoed absentees.
If anything the 400 vetoed absentees would only pad Franken's margin even further.
[ Parent ]
Number 1
Reminds me of Hillary Clinton. Hmm....I wonder why?
[ Parent ]
I guess this means...
the Al Franken Decade has officially begun!
Well as we all know...
He's good enough, he's smart enough, and gosh darn it 225 voters more than his opponent in Minnesota like him.
[ Parent ]
the gop has been threatening to contest in court
but it looks increasingly likely to me that senator coleman might concede.  his 3 "legal" arguments are utterly flimsy and might be dismissed outright.
MN-Sen: Recount Complete - Franken up 225 | 58 comments

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