Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has expressed his hope that litigation in the Alaska Senate race — where Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s apparent victory as a write-in candidate is being challenged by the Tea Party-backed GOP nominee Joe Miller — ends soon and the state has full representation in the Senate. Hmm…
As Roll Call reports:
“We just have to be patient and wait for the judge to decide,” said Cornyn, a former judge. “I understand that could be as early as [Thursday], and I hope it doesn’t go on much longer because I think the people of Alaska deserve to have a Senator when we reconvene again in January, and not still have that up in the air.”
This does seem to us to be a bit of a change from Cornyn’s attitude the last time that a Senate race was put into limbo from litigation — the 2008 Minnesota Senate race, when incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman’s lawsuit against Democrat Al Franken’s upset victory in the recount led to the state having only senator for six months. Franken’s absence deprived the Democrats of a seat, making it that much harder for them to reach the 60-vote threshold on key cloture votes.
At the time, Cornyn publicly promised that Republicans would filibuster any attempt to seat Franken without an official certificate of election — which could only come at the conclusion of the lawsuit. And in March of 2009 he went so far as to suggest that the case could take “years” to resolve.
The NRSC under Cornyn’s leadership helped raise money for Coleman’s litigation, and Cornyn stood by Coleman’s efforts to appeal his defeat in the election contest trial up to the state Supreme Court.
I e-mailed the NRSC for comment. Spokesman Brian Walsh responded:
Eric - respectfully, you seem to be trying to manufacture a story that doesn’t exist here. In both cases, everyone on both sides, including Senator Cornyn, expressed their hope that the elections would resolved as soon as possible. That’s something that those on both sides, in both elections, would agree on. But there is a process and what Senator Cornyn also said in both cases, including the RollCall story you cite below, is that this is ultimately up to the courts, and the people who live and vote in those states, to decide.
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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