Lead Franken Lawyer Discusses What's Next, Takes Question On Cost-Shifting
On a conference call with reporters just now, lead Franken attorney Marc Elias celebrated the imminent closing arguments tomorrow. "This is truly not only a historic recount and election contest in its size and the long period of time that it's gone on, but also in its thoroughness," said Elias. "And the people of Minnesota and all the people of the United States can take a great deal of confidence and pride in the process that has gone on for the last nearly five months."
I asked about the intriguing possibility raised to me by Professor David Schultz of Hamline University -- that the Franken camp could potentially use the loser-pays provision of the election-contest law to stop any appeal from Coleman, by forcing his campaign committee to come up with millions of dollars to be placed in escrow to cover Franken's attorney's fees before any appeals continue.
"You know I've gotten a number of questions over the course of the last five weeks about the cost-shifting provision of the law," said Elias. "And in honesty I'll give you the same answer now I've given before, which is I have not spent really any time looking at it. I will now have a chance, now that the evidence is closed, to now look to the next step in this, which would be what happens post-decision by the court. But I will take a look at that and probably be in a better position to answer that in the next few days."
Josh
Elana
Matt
Eric
I think it may be over. I simply cannot believe that the Republican machine will be willing to pay another 1 to 3 million dollars for the few more weeks of windmill tilting it will buy them.
Coleman has no money of his own, I expect he needs Republican money just to keep his own appeal going, that's before we even get to the 1 to 3 million dollar escrow payment.
An appeal could easily be rejected by the Minnesota Supreme Court. An appeal may only buy Republicans another few days of a Franken-less Senate. Is that worth 3 million dollars?
Most Republicans privately admit that Franken is destined to win. This means that the majority of any new money given to Coleman will probably go into a court mandated escrow. Meaning, the majority of any new money given to Coleman now will very likely end up going to Al Franken! Ouch!
Put the credit card idiocy on top of all this, (he now only takes checks?) and it seems incredibly unlikely that Coleman will be able to raise enough money to pay his own lawyers, let alone that truly massive sum needed to fulfill the escrow requirement.
Could it finally be over?
March 12, 2009 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Elias is damn good. Whatever his decision, I'm pretty confident it will be for the best. Though, my gut is screaming "take Coleman out at the knees!!!!"
March 12, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
This should be a lesson to all politicos out there. 240 votes. I am doing analysis on my precinct of 1020 voters, and found a discrepancy of 36 votes. In just one precinct.
It is leading to an investigation whether this is part of the problem of some electronic voting machines and the entire House District where if 48 precincts had this discrepancy would be the difference.
I thought the real story was the original flip flop. Where did that take place in MN? Basically Coleman and Franken flipped about 400 votes when they were hand counted.
Every vote is valuable.
March 12, 2009 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we succeed in Minnesota and can convince Specter that being a Democrat is in his best political interests, the Senate is ours, and we can get about saving the nation from the wreck and ruin the Republicans have inflicted on it.
March 13, 2009 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's probably not going to matter much since an appeal to the MN-SC will take only a few days. But it would be a nice twist of the knife to have all those Republican contributions paying for Franken's lawyers. Perhaps if they'd publicized that earlier, people would have been less willing to donate to Coleman's lost cause.
March 13, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
If I was on the franken team, the minute the trial court issues it's decision, I would give ex parte notice for an order issuing the certificate and an order from the court to the governor and to the sec of state to sign the cert. That would trim ten days off the notice of appeal time and get franken to the senate ten days sooner. A notice of appeal is a stupid one liner anyway. Once coleman files the notice of appeal jurisdiction goes to the supremes and they can expedite the situation. Just move the freaking ball at this point. The country's situation is too critical for this stupid dog and pony show.
March 13, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seeing as though two members of the MN-SC sat on the canvassing board review, I'd guess they'd recuse themselves from a Coleman appeal to that body - The remaining members of the court have a decidedly moderate/independent-to-progressive lean to them, which doesn't bode too well for Team Coleman.
As for Mitch McConnell's burp that Coleman should take it to the SCOTUS yelling "Bush v. Gore" the whole way just sounds incresingly implausible considering that Coleman doesn't have the cash on hand to not only pay for his own ride but to also probably cover Al's ticket too.
I think this is the end of the road for Coleman and he'll concede once the current contest ends in the next few days...Just a hunch. He's got some hiding to do (the RentGate, SuitCase, UtilityBill, and TexasCash dogs are barking at his door) and the longer he stays in the public eye, the bigger his chances of being publicly humiliated by a federal prosecutor's charges while he's busy tapdancing around in the public spotlight. Republicans prefer to be arrested in the shadows, not while walking up the steps of SCOTUS - Norm might be an idiot, but he's no dummy. He's got to start thinking about laying low and enjoying whatever life he may still have in front of him.
March 13, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink