Minnesota Court Orders Coleman To Pay Franken Over $94,000
In an order issued just a short while ago, the Minnesota election court has now commanded Norm Coleman to pay Al Franken $94,783.15 in itemized costs from the trial.
The Franken legal team had originally asked for $161,000, but the court rejected some of the claims as either not being sufficiently documented or not justified under the loser-pays provision of the election contest law. Bear in mind that even the $161,000 claim would only have made a small dent in the millions that have been spent in this process.
This was previously the subject of much back and forth in legal filings between the two parties, with Team Coleman arguing that no costs should be awarded until after the appeals are done. With this order now hanging over them, it will now be one more thing to litigate or otherwise sort through.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!
(revival, anyone?)
June 10, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
FOR HILLARY!!
June 10, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL
June 11, 2009 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
This really is inconsequential. This was a decision of the election court. If the election court decision is overturned by the Minnesota Supreme Court, this award of costs gets overturned as well. We should have a decision of the Minneosota Supreme Court by the end of next week and I believe it will finally end this matter. It won't direct Pawlenty to sign a certificate but he will do so anyway (and Coleman will announce before that that he will not appeal to federal courts)
June 10, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can somebody now order Al sworn in? The process in Minnesota is a joke. That this has strung itself out to June is appalling. Some court should order him sworn in whether or not the idiot Governor signs the necessary papers. The people have spoken.
June 10, 2009 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree. It is not a joke, it has been a very meticulous process, following the letter of the law as it is written in Minnesota. The time and money are very annoying, but I want to live in a country that is governed by the rule of law, not what whoever is in power thinks should happen. Or are you forgetting Florida in 2000?
Now Norm Coleman, he's a joke. A very sick one, who is not afraid of showing his hypocrisy and venality to the entire country.
June 10, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
If only Al Gore would have fought as hard as Norm Coleman. I personally would have voted for Franken had I voted in Minnesota but I do not begrudge Coleman anything, he may be flailing away but the MSC could have stepped in at any time and unambiguously stopped it and they chose not to, so the blame for the endless nature of this lies squarely with them, not with Coleman.
June 10, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem with your logic is: Gore undoubtedly won (considering the will of the majority of voters and the effect of those butterfly ballots) and most likely won (if a thorough recount had been completed under the terms of the FL supreme court). So he gave up on a battle that was by rights his victory, and in doing so betrayed all of us who voted for him, and democracy itself.
Coleman, on the other hand, obviously lost (after the recount), and had as his only chance the prospect that his legal team could sell a set of obviously crooked arguments.
It's not a difference between how hard you fight that this should be measured on. It's a difference between fighting for what you, and more importantly the American voters, have rightfully won, and fighting to steal something you've lost from your opponent, and more importantly the majority of voters in the contest.
Gore was a case of the failure of the good, because he didn't fight hard enough. Coleman is a case of the failure of the evil, and his deceitful struggle to pervert the election only makes it more thoroughly so.
June 10, 2009 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
How exactly was Gore supposed to keep on fighting after the Supreme Court stopped the vote counting? Take up arms against them? Preach revolution? He made some mistakes, but he took it as far as he could.
Now Kerry, he gave up in 2004 in Ohio. I don't know if he could have won, and I am not saying that there were illegalities in that election (actually, there definitely were, a few people went to jail for a while because of their actions then) but there were enough discrepancies that it should have been looked at. But I understand why he did not do more, having another close Presidential election thrown to the courts like that may have been worse than 4 more years of Bush.
June 10, 2009 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Having another presidential election thrown to the courts is exactly what should have happened, so as to reinforce the contemptible illegitimacy of that little fuck, INCLUDING in re: the outcome of the second (2004) campaign. Fuck Bush. His illegitimacy should be echoed immediately every time his criminality is invoked. Illegitimate and unelected, BOTH times.
June 11, 2009 7:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I must admit, this approach had its appeal for awhile. Notice that the GOPers hardly draw breath without trying to undermine President Obama in a similar manner, and he won in a landslide. It might have worked on Bush in 2001 if it weren't for that unfortunate incident in New York City (and the Pentagon, lest anyone forget).
Still, once the focus of our response to that unfortunate incident started to shift from al Qaida and Afghanistan to Saddam Hussein and Iraq, Democrats, who had control of the Senate, and were only a few seats shy of control of the House, should have turned on Bush with great swiftness. In retrospect, it probably wouldn't have made things worse in the 2002 elections.
This is politics, not a friendly game of canasta. Too many Democrats still don't understand that.
June 11, 2009 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Instead of meekly acquiescing to the Supreme Court, he should have at least called them out for what they did. They obviously would not have changed their minds but Gore should have excoriated them for making an unsigned opinion and usurping the Florida Supreme Court and for taking so long to make a decision that is was impossible to go back to Florida and do what they recommended,and they knew it. At the very least he should have filed for a stay to the state certification to give him an opportunity to try and go back to Florida and remedy the problem the Supreme Court identified, namely that differing standards were used in the recount. The decision came out I believe on December 12, that still left well over a month until Jan 20. He did nothing but fold his tent and go home.
June 11, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
All true, but irrelevant. No one cares about good and evil, this is politics...
June 11, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, it's been very meticulous. I do hope, though, that MN will work out a way that keeps Coleman-types from holding up the seating of a senator for 6 months on pretty thin grounds. I'd feel differently if Coleman's arguments had had any legs to speak of.
June 10, 2009 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Meticulous! You can say that again!
There's really no excuse at all for the length of this process. The people of Minnesota have been without representation in Washington for 6 months because this meticulous process has taken far longer than is reasonable. They need to speed it up and make sure they are meticulous but efficient and resolve such contests in a way that doesn't take this absurd length of time.
June 10, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is taking exactly as long as you can expect it to take, no matter what state you're in, when you don't have either a U.S. Supreme Court stepping in and killing the process or news media that are serving the interests of one party by helping to paint the other as sore losers. Also, we didn't have faux 'ordinary citizens' harassing the election officials during the recount.
Thinking that it's gone on too long and wanting it to be over is understandable, but that has no bearing whatsoever on legal avenues for ending it. Corporations are able to drag out lawsuits well past the point where those bringing the suits are still alive to see the outcome. Corporations have the money to do that and the law allows them.
Your complaint is with Coleman, not with Minnesota or the judges.
June 10, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
But why did they have to schedule the Supreme Court hearing so late? Couldn't they have done this a month ago?
June 11, 2009 1:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is simply not correct. The process should not be held hostage and does not have to be held hostage to legal maneuvers that have no hope of success for one thing. The seating of the winner of the election should not be delayed this long either for the technicality of the Governor signing some stupid certification. The process itself is flawed by being so susceptible to abuse.
June 11, 2009 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am curious to know who Lok52 thinks was 'in power' in Dec. 2000 when the US Supreme Court ordered that any recount of votes ordered by the Florida Supreme Court be halted while Bush was still ahead 500 votes in Florida, making him president. Who was in power? The people? Five Republican appointees on the US Supreme Court? President Clinton?
There was no sparing legal bills then or now, and the finest US law was followed in 2000 as it apparently is now in MN.
However, there are some who feel our judicial system is ripe with political chicanery and in big cases can act like an old fashioned mob protection racket for some politicians, the public be damned.
June 10, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I simply have a hard time understanding how it just so happened that 5 Republican appointees to the Supreme Court, all really big on states' rights, suddenly decided to take a case from the Florida Supreme Court and reverse it, just coincidentally stopping the count and giving the election to the Republican candidate.
So I tend to think the Supreme Court was in charge, and they made their decision based on who they wanted, rather then according to the law. I am not a lawyer, and I could be wrong. But I certainly have not had a problem following the Coleman-Franken proceedings, while the explanations of Bush v. Gore seem rather obtuse.
And I live in a rather small town. I know for a fact that there are judges that take care of the good old boys and screw everyone else. The idea that one or two of them have made it to the US Supreme Court isn't that outlandish.
June 10, 2009 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
At least five 'made it' to the Supreme Court in 2000. Of course the reason the organized crime party, the GOP, doesn't like like Sotomayor is she isn't going to be one of the 'good ole boys'.
June 10, 2009 11:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lok52 nailed it. But on the other hand, THIS is just exactly how the Supreme Court decides pretty much all of its cases. The insouciance with which the SCOTUS overturns its own previous decisions confounded me in law school, but studying for the bar exam, when the focused courses sort of TELL you the law rather than making you figure it out for yourself qua regular law school) showed me the light.
Whether they call themselves "originalists" or "modernists" or WHATEVER, SCOTUS justices decide cases the way they want to and make up the reasons after the fact.
Of course, if they have no strong feelings about the case at hand, they can "follow precedent" but as there is no one to overturn THEM, it's amazing how quickly they shed the need to do so.
June 11, 2009 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
The differences between Florida and Minnesota are many and huge. In 2000 Minnesota already had its universal paper ballot, with rules in statute regarding counting with scanners, and recounting by hand. The characteristics of a legal ballot, in person or absentee, were also described in statute law.
In contrast, Florida allowed each county to decide on the style of ballot and the means for counting these. They were no Florida Statutes that outlined the rules for a recount. Nor were there state wide laws that would have described legal ballots, absentee or in person. In addition, in 2000 Minnesota had registration at the polls, which allows for the easy correction in all registration errors or false removals because a particular name resembles a felon's name.
As a result, Florida had five ballot styles, each with different error rates, requiring different sorts of rules for recounting -- and they had no rules, they more or less made them up with judges and election officials as they went along.
I am afraid any serious comparison between Florida 2000 and Minnesota 2008 fails to recognize some of the rules of comparitive analysis.
June 10, 2009 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where would you draw the line ? What if this due process drags on for another 6 months ? If due process is not tempered with some common sense, one ends up with a legal process so tortured that justice is no longer visible to the voting populace. Whether you like it or not, legal processes must not only be fair, but must also appear fair to people of common sense. All that Coleman's lawyers have demonstrated is that it's possible to hijack and distort the legal process by using existing law. The fact that Coleman has the enthusiastic backing of the national party says to me that republicans will be happy to see this fight unsettled a year from now, but at some point the state deserves its second senator.
June 11, 2009 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
what could be better!
Its a twofer
Dollars spent helping a Dem taken from a Republican pocket. About time. Expect a flurry of expensive legal manouevers from the FrankenCamp.
June 10, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if Coleman will ever pay.
June 10, 2009 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Makes one feel glad about being a Minnesotan. Ha!!
June 10, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michele Bachman?
Sorry.
That was just mean. And awfully nervy for someone from Connecticut.
June 10, 2009 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
definitely, when you've got Joementum
out in Cali, we have the terminator, and assorted republican cretins
we all have our shame, I do believe
June 10, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
As one who lives in Utah (a transplant from Ohio), all I can say is "you got that right!"
Here in the Beehive State, the big questions involve whether Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett are conservative enough. Ugh!
June 10, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
yeah, but Ahnold occasionally has his bright spots. (yup, I'm completely ignoring the money, um, problems you guys are going through--I'm talking about his recent support for gay marriage and long-term climate change stuff)
June 10, 2009 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lotta good his support for gay marriage did.
He's irrelevant.
Republicans don't like him (again, as in Utah, not conservative enough) and don't follow him at ALL or we would not have this budget crisis.
Democrats work with him somewhat, but as he never really puts any capital behind his "liberal" positions, and as he has no influence with Republicans, he's sort of a neutered politcal figure.
Looks good cutting a ribbon, if you watch him on TV. In person, he's got that unnatural orange color that comes from camera-ready make up.
June 11, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Franken will probably have to sue him to get the money.
June 11, 2009 6:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lawyers aint cheap. And both sides are funded by political parties. These attorneys need at least a couple hundred dollars an hour to meet costs.
Goin after a hundred grand is not an easy task. It takes a lot of time.
What the ruling really does is put the face of the repubs in Minnesota, in the mud. It is a publicists dream for the Democrats.
June 11, 2009 6:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I still believe Franken should be able to sue and win a case for lost wages (he should be getting taxpayer money as senator) due to these frivolous suits brought by Coleman... and I, as a taxpayer would support the allegation... even though I would never have voted for him myself...
June 10, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Been having a bad day...
This brightened it.
June 10, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can the Minnesota supreme court just decide this circus already? I mean, for fuck sake, do they want a senator or not???
June 10, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
He'll never get the money, but just hearing Coleman (and his Republican Senate committee pals) slapped around is worth every penny!
June 11, 2009 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
In the early days of Air America, with the Bush/Cheney bulldozer going full steam, I listened to Al Franken almost every day and he, with a little help from Josh and Steve Earle, kept me from thinking I was crazy. I soon realized that Franken was deeply committed to democracy and justice and that he knew how to do his homework.
The right will have a field day with old clips of Al's adsurdist humor but Minnesota is lucky to have him and the whole nation will be better off having him in the Senate.
June 11, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I miss him on the radio, too.
There are so many times lately, what with the Republican Gang of Four (Newt, Rove, O'Lielly and Lameball) that I hear him in my head, "You're a LIAAHHH!"
June 11, 2009 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink