Coleman Lawyer: It's The Dems' Fault That Minnesota Has One Senator
In a press conference just now, Coleman lawyer Ben Ginsberg made an interesting declaration: The fact that the Minnesota Senate seat is now empty, depriving the state of full representation, is the Democrats' fault.
Ginsberg was lambasting the Franken campaign's lawsuit to force the state to issue Franken a certificate of election -- which will be argued at the state Supreme Court tomorrow -- as an undemocratic attempt seize the seat, charging that the Franken team know they will lose when all the votes are counted.
When asked by a reporter about the problem of Minnesotans being under-represented Ginsberg explained that there is a constitutional solution to this impasse: Having the Senate declare the seat officially vacant, empowering the governor to make an appointment to the seat. "They don't want to do that because the governor is a Republican," Ginsberg said.
It should be pointed out that Minnesota law currently empowers the governor to make an appointment to a vacant Senate seat, with no special election until the next cycle -- that is, November 2010.
Another funny moment today from the Coleman team: Many people immediately suspect that they have cherry-picked their pool of 4,797 rejected absentee ballots that they'll be arguing for. And there is quite a bit of evidence for that.
But it turns out that one person on the list is Noah Kunin, a reporter for the Minnesota news site The Uptake, which has been actively cataloguing this whole train wreck of an election. Kunin reports that he was not contacted by the GOP -- he only just found out today when he himself checked the list on the Coleman campaign's Web site, and it turned out his name was misspelled in the Coleman list, though Kunin said his name is spelled properly in his town's database and this was not the reason he was rejected.
Kunin is not disclosing whom he voted for. But it should be noted that the state GOP doesn't like The Uptake, and has been routinely attacking the site and calling them a biased, pro-Franken liberal outlet. Again, Kunin was not screened by the Coleman camp -- chances are they didn't even realize who he was when they put him on the list, but if they had known then they might not have selected him.
(Special thanks to the Uptake for carrying Ginsberg's presser.)
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
It is all Al's fault. If Al Franken had heeded Coleman's calls to concede in the first place, none of this would be necessary. After all, if Coleman was in the same position, he would have conceded.
Right, Norm?
Norm?
February 4, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
February 4, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
(crickets)
February 4, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
i say open the coleman/franken vetoed ballots, and be done with it.
i'm not sure which way to root in that set of ballots. from what i've seen, it would not surprise me if it's found that franken's team was much better at gaming the stupid system setup by the mnsc.
February 4, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Any idea how many of the 4800 challenges did the Coleman Camp get through today, and how many were rejected and how many held over for the judges to look at further?
February 4, 2009 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the earlier story it looks like Norm was 0-4 today.
Only 4,593 to go. Sigh.
February 4, 2009 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is the court seriously going to allow them to try each rejected ballot one-by-one in open court, with witnesses for each side, cross examination, etc...
At a rate of 4 per day, that will take the full 6 years of the Senate Term.
February 4, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that's what the Republicans have in mind. Seems to me this is all about delay and keeping the Dems as far from 60 votes as possible.
February 4, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't see that happening. They have be cognizant that they can't let this drag on forever and they've all got better things to do. At some point Coleman is going to have to come up with more than shadow puppets. Either that or the MN-SC says "enough" and directs the state to issue the certificate which effectively eliminates the whole reason for this charade.
February 4, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is NORM's seat. The Dems should have realized that after Paul Wellstone's umm, accident.
February 4, 2009 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
At this rate, it doesn't look like Minnesota is going to have a junior senator. Since they're not using their electoral power, maybe DC can borrow there voting rights and have a DC senate candidate stand in for them until Minnesota gets its house in order.
February 4, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
This bullshit is precisely why lawyers have such a rotten reputation.
February 4, 2009 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose not ONE reporter at the press conference knows that Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution states that the Senate itself is the judge of the ELECTIONS AND RETURNS of its members. I don't see how Amendment XVII affects that provision at all.
Therefore, the Senate could settle this decisively by judging the returns from the recount as conclusive, and seating Al Franken.
But they won't. I wonder why Pres. Obama didn't pick Coleman instead of Judd for Commerce---six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. Then Norm would have a way out and I think he'd jump at it. Oh, I forgot, there's that little matter of the Texas money . . . but then, Judd's hooked up with Abramoff.
"Change we can believe in," anyone? And would you like to buy a valuable bridge in Brooklyn?
February 4, 2009 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, and you think the R's wouldn't play that to their political advantage?
Why not Coleman for Commerce? Because he's not good enough, he's not smart enough, and, doggonit, people don't like him!
And... what change were you expecting anyway? Lollypops raining down from heaven?
February 5, 2009 8:27 AM | Reply | Permalink