Today's Update In Minnesota Lawsuits
Oral arguments ended a short while ago on Al Franken's motion to dismiss Norm Coleman's lawsuit contesting the Minnesota Senate race, with Franken lawyer David Burman arguing to the special three-judge panel that they do not have the constitutional authority to deal with most of Coleman's claims -- they instead would belong to the Senate -- while Coleman's lawyer James Langdon predictably said the court does have the authority.
Burman lambasted the Coleman team for the general non-specificity of their arguments, saying it created too many openings. "If you allow them to go off on this fishing expedition will they find something? Probably," Burman said, explaining that an election involving 2.9 million ballots is bound to contain a few new quirks somewhere, even after the long process we've already seen. "At some point, Minnesota has to say it has done the best job human beings can reasonably do."
The most fascinating part, though, was Langdon's statement the Coleman campaign has examined the remaining 11,000 rejected absentee ballot envelopes, and they now believe 4,500-5,000 should be included -- up from their previous number of 654.
"No one knows what's in them," said Langdon. "No one's opened them."
At this point, though, we should really treat with great skepticism any claim that a selective sample of ballots, no matter how large or small, is unknown in terms of the content. As we've learned, the campaigns have had many opportunities to either know for certain what is in a ballot, or at least get an idea of the probabilities, without ever having to open a single envelope.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Any kind of selective re-examination of ballots really will lead to an Equal Protection case. I don't see the court opening itself up to that. It's got to be all or none, and it's most likely going to be none.
January 21, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it just me, or is this taking on the appearance of a shell game?
January 21, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coleman's team knows exactly how those rejected absentee ballots voted - that much you can count on.
January 21, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fresh off the AP -
Cornyn is a busy boy isn't he?
January 21, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The people of MInnesota are satisfied that Franken won and is their new senator. The recount was fair and transparent. The officials were respected and honest. Common sense was not violated, Minnesotans themselves would certainly have noticed. The Dems should go ahead and seat Franken and Retards should go ahead and shut up.
January 22, 2009 1:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Doesn't anyone in the Senate ever read the Constitution? Article I, Section 5, begins: "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members . . ."
The Senate clearly has the authority to JUDGE THE RETURNS in Minnesota's Senatorial election.
Do you suppose those alleged "original-intent constructionist" judges that Bush and Reagan stacked the courts with are going to honor that unequivocal original intent, in this case?
If Reid had ANY spine, he'd have seated Franken right after the recount was concluded. And dusted off all those speeches made by Coleman and all the rest of the Thugs about the importance of adhering to ORIGINAL INTENT of the Founders, then throw their own words back at them.
Neither Coleman nor the 43% who voted for him will EVER accept that Al won the election, so let's get it over with.
But I have to hand it to the Thugs--what a contrast to the jellyfish Democrats who capitulated so totally in 2000, despite the FACT that Gore had 540,000 more votes than Bush.
After the Supreme Court steal, there was scarcely a whimper from the Dem leaders, who even turned their backs on the impassioned pleas from the Congressional Black Caucus to protest the blatant voter suppression, the overt violations of the federal voting rights law.
January 22, 2009 1:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
And what was Al Gore supposed to have done after the highest court in the land made its ruling? Please tell me.
January 22, 2009 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
link isn't working
January 22, 2009 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
...and now Coleman has already taken on another gig with the Jewish Republican Coalition (as a Jew, it's painful for me to even type that).
So even Norm knows that the jig (and his gig) is up! Yet he's still wasting time and money (the public's as well as his own) on a bid that even he has given up on! That, plus he is denying his state full representation in the US Senate.
Classy to the end, eh Norm?!? Oh, if Paul Wellstone had just taken a bus that day.......
January 22, 2009 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink