As the recount between Al Franken and Norm Coleman in the MN-SEN race moved along, Franken's lead attorney Marc Elias claimed that his candidate was winning and that the numbers would eventually prove him right. The pundits and talking heads laughed at him initially; I hoped that he wasn't just bluffing and they really had gotten as organized as I'd heard. As the numbers began to swing towards Franken taking the lead, it became apparent that the Franken campaign had done a brilliant job preparing for the recount.
This weekend, Netroots MN had a panel entitled Clicks to Votes: Integration on the Franken for Senate Campaign. I attended to learn anything more I could about what I think was an extraordinarily tech-savvy campaign. I wasn't disappointed because in addition I learned more details about how well-organized the campaign was.
The panelists were Dan Cramer of Grassroots Solutions and JD Schlough. JD was in charge of all online activities (he's now a principal at Well & Lighthouse LLC). Dan came on board the campaign as a consultant in September.
Fresh soup tonight. I won't forget to serve it to you hot. Woo.
Dave Mindeman reads Miss Hairdo so you don't have to.
Liberal in the Land of Conservative: Marty Seifert answers questions about the Laura Brod smears.
Aaron Brown has some news about the company trying to build the biggest boondoggle on the Iron Range. They're changing their name. Aaron also has some not helpful news about Tom Bakk helping promote this boondoggle.
As of 11:15 AM CDT, Minnesota will have two U.S. Senators and America will have a hundred. C-SPAN2 will have video after the fact; The Uptake will have live coverage -- we're working on collecting the embed code so you can watch the proceedings.
Al Franken stood in front of his house in Minneapolis alongside his wife Franni and declared victory for a second time.
"I'm thrilled and honored and humbled by the enormity of this responsibility," said Senator-Elect Franken. "Earlier today I received a very gracious call from former Senator Norm Coleman. We talked about how it's been a very hard fought race. I said that it couldn't have been closer. He told me this will be the best job that I've ever had."
Al speculated that he'd be flying to Washington, DC early next week to be sworn in. This will probably actually happen as MN Governor Tim Pawlenty stated between the Norm and Al press conferences that he will sign the election certificate later tonight.
Almost eight months after election day, the U.S. Senate race is finally coming to a close. Saying that the Minnesota Supreme Court was "the only court who fully considered" his case, Norm Coleman has conceded and is recognizing his Democratic opponent, Al Franken, as the winner and Senator-elect.
Norm met the press with his daughter at his side. No signs of Laurie or his son.
The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled: DFLer Al Franken beat Norm Coleman last year fair and square, and is eligible for an election certificate that will allow him to be seated in the United States Senate.
Unfortunately, the decision does not explicitly order Gov. Tim Pawlenty to issue that certificate, so here's to hoping he won't see fit to play more dirty partisan games with Minnesota's second Senate seat.
A09-697
In the Matter of the Contest of the General Election held on November 4, 2008, for the purpose of electing a United States Senator from the State of Minnesota, Cullen Sheehan and Norm Coleman, contestants, Appellants vs. Al Franken, contestee, Respondent. Ramsey County.
1. Appellants did not establish that, by requiring proof that statutory absentee voting standards were satisfied before counting a rejected absentee ballot, the trial court's decision constituted a post-election change in standards that violates substantive due process.
2. Appellants did not prove that either the trial court or local election officials violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.
3. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded additional evidence.
4. Inspection of ballots under Minn. Stat. ยง 209.06 (2008) is available only on a showing that the requesting party cannot properly be prepared for trial without an inspection. Because appellants made no such showing here, the trial court did not err in denying inspection.
5. The trial court did not err when it included in the final election tally the election day returns of a precinct in which some ballots were lost before the manual recount.
Affirmed. Per Curiam.
Took no part, Chief Justice Eric J. Magnuson and Justice G. Barry Anderson.
Update: Norm Coleman is scheduled to speak at his home in St. Paul at 3 PM. Al Franken is scheduled to speak at his home in Minneapolis at 3:30 PM. Does this mean a concession is coming from Coleman?
Does it also mean reporters are going to be driving at extremely dangerous speeds on I-94 westbound at 3:25?
Update 2: Franken has moved his appearance to 4:15. Rumors that it was to prevent multiple fatalities on 94 westbound could not be confirmed or refuted.
Update 3: According to a legal eagle of a reader, "per curiam" is a political move on the court's part. It is designed to shield the court, but does not necessarily mean that the decision was unanimous. It does, however, mean that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court will be extremely difficult for Team Coleman, since there are no dissenting opinions to use.
Minnesota's lame-duck Governor and 2012 Presidential candidate wannabe Tim Pawlenty had a big weekend. He spent the weekend making appearances to further his presidential ambitions. First up was a fundraiser in Little Rock, Arkansas. Next was a CNN interview.
We can pull two important points from the interview. First he claims he'll sign the election certificate if the MN Supreme Court issues it. Second, he criticized the climate change bill that just passed the House. This criticism is a bit of a flip-flop.
I'll begin with Arkansas. If only he would work this hard to accomplish anything for MN ... it all began during the flight down:
I know that we've all been throwing the bones, checking the tea leaves and consulting fortune tellers to try and figure out when the Minnesota Supreme Court will get around to ruling on Norm Coleman's appeal of Al Franken's victory in the MN-SEN recount. We've had enough of the waiting already.
But here's something interesting.
An attorney I know told me that the MNSC isn't supposed to consider any other cases except the MN-SEN case. This attorney suggested I check out the MNSC website. Look at what I found.
OPINIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT
FILED THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2009
NOTICE - MEDIA RELEASE TIME IS 10:00 A.M.
They released rulings on Bahr v. Boise Cascade and Oganov v. American Family Insurance as well as a dozen or so orders.
If they're ruling on other things, is this because they're done with the MN-SEN ruling? Is this because they're going to issue something today, Friday the 26th? Gosh I hope so. Then TwoPuttTommy and I will have an supercalifragilisticexpialidocious time guest hosting the Mark Heaney Show on AM950 later today (6-7pm ... nudge nudge, wink wink).
If not ... them Justices got some explainin' to do. I'm seriously going out of my mind waiting. Already.
I went to the Al Franken fundraiser tonight at Solera. It was special because a friend of mine, Carla, organized this fundraiser. Her first for Al. I'm proud to say I helped get her involved in politics. Congrats, Carla.
Anyhoo, that's not why I'm writing this post. I didn't notice something about a certain press release about Norm Coleman. No, not that. I did notice that Norm got $1 million from the NRSC in May. It's this bit:
The DSCC hasn't handled Minnesota Senate funds in the same way, so its report shows only about $5,000 in payments for the race.
(St. Paul Pioneer Press)
Whoa! $5K!?! I thought getting a 60th Senator in the Democratic caucus was important. WTF?
Just to be fair, they did send some cash Al's way.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised $282,500 in May for the Minnesota fight.The DSCC doesn't have as many big-dollar donations earmarked for Minnesota - the largest single contribution is $15,000 from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's political action committee - but they include contributions from some bold-faced Hollywood names.
C'mon, DSCC. Howz bout sending a wee bit more scratch Al's way?
While we all waited in breatheless anticipation last Thursday ... or at least with as much breathless anticipation as we could muster, the Minnesota Supreme Court failed to issue a ruling in the MN Senate race.
But something more telling may have happened. Did the rats abandon the sinking ship?
LeRoy Coleman (no relation), who served as Coleman's Senate communications director, has now joined the Republican National Committee as director of media affairs. And two weeks ago another top Coleman staffer, campaign manager Cullen Sheehan, became an RNC regional director.
The fact that Sheehan signed up for a new job is pretty telling, even though he'll still be helping out with the Coleman camp. The reason is that Sheehan is the official co-plaintiff, along with Coleman, in the actual ongoing election lawsuit.
(Talking Points Memo)
PIM has now heard from two sources on different sides of the Minnesota U.S. Senate race recount scene that the final Minnesota Supreme Court ruling is expected to arrive tomorrow, Thursday, June 18th.
...
At this point we now believe it is "highly likely" to happen; in fact, based on our sources we'd be surprised if it doesn't. While earlier estimates of 30 days of deliberation got floated, we also heard from someone close to the justices that they would like to move things along quickly, so it's more plausible that things are getting tied up today.
We also heard there's some confidence that the three-judge panel ruling was pretty solid and won't get eviscerated by the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Emphasis added on that last part. Norm Coleman's only real hope was that the Supremes would find something hopelessly wrong with the three-judge panel's ruling and toss it, turning the case on its head. If that doesn't happen, this thing actually could be over in the next 24 hours.
I have been trying to find a definitive statement of Tim Pawlenty talking about what he is going to do when the MN Supreme Court rules on the Franken Coleman recount. In a recent interview, Governor Pawlenty seems to have made a commitment.
When the Minnesota Supreme Court finally rules and if they direct me to sign that certificate. I am going to follow the direction of the court.
(CBS Washington Unplugged)
Note that there is a direction step involved, which means an extra legal step.
Lest we forget some of the great work that's been going on to help nudge Norm Coleman toward his inevitable admission of defeat, The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America's "Dollar a Day" campaign has now raised nearly $140,000 (!) to help progressive congressional candidates defeat Republicans in 2010. If that war chest keeps growing, that's a pretty powerful incentive for Coleman and DC Republicans to end this saga when the state court rules.
The negative effects of dragging this thing on are increasing -- now that the NRSC either has to cut bait or send Coleman stacks of cash that could otherwise be used to defend vulnerable seats in Missouri, New Hampshire, and elsewhere, the fact that each day Coleman's challenges continues brings in more money for progressive candidates across the country hurts even more. $140,000 is nothing to sneeze at, folks.
It's getting noticed inside the beltway where the party committee bigwigs spend their time. You can still find a link to the "Dollar a Day" campaign in the sidebar to the right.
Seems that Senate Republicans are slowly stepping back from the "World War III" scenario they cited earlier this year, and admitting that Norm Coleman doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of coming out of this legal challenge on top. From CQ (login req'd):
Federal Appeal Is 'Entirely' Coleman's Decision, Cornyn Says of Minn. Race
By Kathleen Hunter, CQ Staff
The head of the Senate GOP's campaign committee said Wednesday that he would not press Republican Norm Coleman to mount an appeal in the federal court system if the Minnesota Supreme Court rules that Democrat Al Franken won their Senate race.
"I think it's entirely up to him," said John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Frankly, I've been amazed that Sen. Coleman's been willing to persevere as long as he has, and I'm proud of him for doing that. I think we will support him until he decides to hang it up one way or another."
Cornyn said Wednesday that he was "not in the position to predict what Sen. Coleman will do because he's undecided" but that the NRSC would continue to support Coleman as long as he wishes to continue his legal challenge.
"His hope is that he's the winner in the Minnesota Supreme Court . . . so I don't know what happens after that," Cornyn said. The court heard oral arguments in the case June 1.
Cornyn, a former Texas supreme court justice, previously said that he hoped Coleman would take his case to the federal court system if Minnesota's high court ruled against him. Cornyn suggested that the case raises an equal protection issue that could be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The argument is that Minnesota's ballot counting process is flawed.
In March, Cornyn expressed concern that Coleman would "run out of gas too soon," saying that his case raises "an important constitutional issue." Earlier in the year, Cornyn said returning Coleman to office was a top GOP priority.
That's the same John Cornyn who threatened "World War III" if the Democratic majority tried to seat Franken before Coleman had a chance to ply his wares before federal judges.
Cornyn's statements don't seem quite as strident now, do they?
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC show and said he will sign the election certificate if the MN Supreme Court instructs him to. He has a habit of lying so I'll believe it when the ink has dried.
Mitchell: I know you've said you'll abide by the Supreme Court decision on the Franken Coleman race, do you expect that that will by all accounts lead to Al Franken being the next Senator from Minnesota? Isn't it time to get this resolved?
Pawlenty: Yea, we're anxious to get it resolved but I can't sign the certificate until the State court process is complete, we don't know who the winner is, but as soon as that process is complete and they give direction as to signing the certificate, I'm going to sign it, there's not going to be any undue delay or tactics like that so we'll follow the direction of the court.
(Crooks and Liars)
Here's how it usually plays out. At the beginning of legislative sessions he talks about bipartisanship, cooperation and doing what's best for the state. By April he's refusing to negotiate. By May he's vetoing bills left and right.
So he's said he'll sign it. What will he do when Al Franken wins?
