Senate GOP Assumes Franken Beat Coleman

Republican leadership in the Senate has agreed to a plan for committee assignments that assumes Al Franken will emerge as the winner of the Minnesota Senate race.

The resolution reached on Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would give Democrats in the Senate a three-seat advantage on most committees in the upcoming Congress -- up from the one-seat advantage they held in the last session.

In the process of reaching this proposal, moreover, GOP leadership agreed to operate off the assumption that former Sen. Norm Coleman would lose his reelection bid. This concession may prove to be simply a symbolic victory for Franken, who has petitioned the Senate and sued his own governor to sign a certificate finalizing his election. As an aide to McConnell told the Huffington Post, the committee breakdowns are "provisional at this point ... the ratios can change."

Nevertheless, it shows that despite proclamations of support of Coleman's legal appeals of the election results, Republican officials in Washington aren't unaware of reality. Franken currently enjoys a 225-vote lead after Minnesota conducted a lengthy recount process. The state canvassing board declared this margin official, but the Minnesota Republican has appealed the results, citing, among other things, the possibility that some ballots where counted twice.

Comments

[RickCoMatic]

Let's lay a few cards on the table "Face-Up"! Shall we?
1. With this Country welcoming-in a new Administration and the state of the Union in critical condition; deliberately leaving a Senate seat vacant when the President needs that voice and vote is so obscenely irresponsible, grossly negligent and derelict of duty to Minnesota and this Nation, those who have done nothing when options and remedies are available seem guilty of violating their oaths to the people.
2. The recount is over. A winner of the election was declared.
3. Vengeance and Hate are the motivation for the Election Contest. Nothing real.
4. It's beginning to smell a lot like a GOP Conspiracy. It sure looks like a duck. It's waddling and quacking; too! How long before we begin the investigation?

[gvahut]

The Senate rules can be changed by majority vote. So why not change the number of votes to overcome a filibuster to 55 votes and seat Franken if Republicans won't go along? Just a limited "nuclear option."

[Martampa]

Even Florida was this bad.

[Carolab]

Any Minnesotan's in the house?

http://allianceminnesota.org/page/speakout/FECAct1

[RickCoMatic]

Minnesota should be ashamed of the way this is all going-down! Instead of doing anything to have the VACANT Senate seat filled; Minnesota behaves like a hostage with a gun to its head and does absolutely nothing to support the incoming Administration with a VOTE instead of a vacancy!
While Minnesota screws-around leaving a Senate Seat VACANT; the GOP is making it difficult for the Obama changes to get through the Senate. The resolution of the matter regarding the EMPTY Senate seat is SIMPLE. Send Al Franken to be seated. Contest the decision in the Senate. The Senate will review all pertinent issues relevant to the election contest and revoke Franken's Election Certificate should there be just cause to do so. Leaving the Seat VACANT during this MOST IMPORTANT TIME in modern history is a flagrant, grossly negligent, incomprehensible inaction, demonstrating not just the highest degree of political irresponsibility but also tacit contempt of Legislation in place which was made Law to address precisely what's being contested. The GOP's reasons for denying Senator-Elect Al Franken his seat in the Senate are scurrilously illegitimate. Sadly, a few with their most flimsy of excuses, contesting the vote, are undeniably motivated by only vengeance and hate. Of this, the populace is well aware and should not tolerate nor allow to continue.

[kaukerc]

The GOP knows that once he gets in, it will be nearly impossible to get him out. As long as they can continue to make him look illegitimate, they will have accomplished their goal.

[taricaziz]

Klobuchar should get to vote twice, herself and proxy for AL.

[nick1936]

If Reid had any balls he would seat Franken NOW

[murphys]

Does anyone else note the irony of GOP members threatening to filibuster and how just a few short years ago they wanted to do away with that "anachronistic device."

[Indie2008]

"He's good enough... He's smart enough, and doggonit, he deserves it"!

[weatherwaxx]

Is there ever going to be a Franken story where somebody doesn't quote that? It was funny the first hundred times or so.

[Gould123]

It is time for this to end! Burris took his seat, time for Frankllin to take his!

[midwestdoc]

For somebody who's into 'fax' you sure have trouble with 'facts'. The 400 non-counted absentees were NOT 'agreed' to be improper. After Coleman turned down Franken's offer to count all 1350, Coleman started unilaterally vetoing ballots, as was allowed by a peculiar MN SC decision. Franken responded in kind. So far as I know, not one of those ballots was excluded by agreement. For either side to get some of these ballots counted does not require 'changing their mind' since they were excluded unilaterally by the other side.

As for Coleman's list of 600+, election judges have gone over about 100 so far and found exactly one which seems likely to have been excluded improperly. Is 1% 'most or all' by your definition?

[BassMent]

You got that right, doc.

The disinformation on the MN recount has reached mythological status. This was the cleanest, most thorough and most transparent recount effort in modern history. Both parties had the opportunity to hand-check every ballot and officially log their opinions of each and every one. There's no evidence that any ballots were double-counted. It's all nonsense at this point, and Coleman is just coming off as a sore loser (like the GOP senator who blocked the hearing on Obama's Treasury nominee today... it's all just sour grapes, and it's so childish you don't know whether to laugh or cry).

[jesthefaxman]

Given that an election contest is now in progress, that would seem dis positive, but Franken's lawyer says "another portion of state law" requires the certificate to be issued. I don't know what that provision might be.

Meanwhile, in a separate action which I assume has been venued before the three-judge contest panel, 60 voters from around the state are claiming that their absentee ballots were wrongly rejected and asking that they be opened and counted. The lawsuit is supported, and presumably organized, by the Franken campaign.

My understanding is that the counties identified around 1,350 "fifth pile" ballots that they thought had been mistakenly rejected and should now be counted. The Coleman and Franken campaigns agreed that around 400 of them were, indeed, defective and the counties were right to reject them. The remaining 950 or so have been counted. So these 60 are either some of the 400, about whom Franken has now changed his mind, or else they are ballots that were not included by counties in the original "fifth pile" process.

I think the latter supposition is more likely. Coleman has identified more than 600 absentee ballots, some of which were clearly proper and should have been counted, but for some reason were not put in the "fifth pile" by the relevant county. My guess is that Franken knows that most or all of these votes are ultimately going to be counted, so he is now looking for additional votes of his own.

[Grunty1]

The precedent that frivilous court cases can hold back an elected official would be a disaster in the making, especially with how little Republicans value democracy.

Do you know why not all the "fifth pile" ballots were counted? Because Coleman wanted to cherry pick the ones from Republican districts and keep the rest of them out of the count entirely.

[rizvisa1]

About 600 additional votes that Coleman wants to be added, some of the counties already went through rejected absentee ballots. Officials from Ramsey, Scott, Goodhue/Anoka, Stearns, Minnetonka, Pipestone counties are saying the remaining rejected ballots were properly rejected after they went on their own to recheck after Coleman court appeal. Spot check by Dakota country showed same result. Mower county found one more additional vote that they now said is a valid absentee vote. So I dont know why you think that 600 absentee votes that Coleman wants to be counted are mostly wrongly rejected votes.

[joethevoter]

your statements show you have not been watching the process which was on live on the uptake. The RNC is now blocking Franken's seating so that they will be on vote short, even if coleman wins his challenge for double votes which is doubtful since he has no evidence of his assertions there is still not enough votes to overcome the lead. Also, he is simultaneously arguing to exclude votes that were deemed to be improperly rejected by the local boards and to include votes that were excluded appropriately because they violated 4 of the requirements to be legal (these all coincidentally come from heavily leaning republican areas). The candidates were allowed to go thru the 12000 rejected absentee ballots and make a case for which ballots were rejected improperly but they needed to be submitted by a deadline, which coleman missed, and give reasons why they should be looked at again which coleman didn't do with the extra 600. Franken's team which was much better prepared did the same but came up with reasons for an extra 60 or so ballots. The numbers for coleman just aren't there and it is doubtful that the same supreme court which ruled against Coleman (heavily republican court btw), will reverse itself.

[cobraxus]

Coleman and the RNC are not suing Al Franken.Their legal action is against the election board itself and asking the Supreme Court to reverse its previous decisions.

[claudiam]

He did - MN has an excellent voting/review record and Coleman needs to stop whining and get over it.
claudiatucsonaz

[rizvisa1]

My hope is that Senator Feingold, Senator Sanders and Franken would team up and force some spine in that w.i.m.p Harry Reid. He is the most pathetic leader on either side.

[Changeizgood]

Yeah Bernie Sanders makes my patriotic heart beat. He is a great man for the Independents.
Unlike "Joe Slithermann" the turn coat of the Millenium.

[willman81]

Right on!!