PrintJune 30, 2009
MN Supreme Court decides for Franken
Unless Norm Coleman decides to appeal to the US Supreme Court (and can raise the money), Al Franken will take a seat in the United States Senate, and give the Democrats a filibuster-proof 60 votes.
Manu Raju reports in Politico:
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously ruled Al Franken the winner of last November's Senate race, putting the former "Saturday Night Live" star on the brink of becoming a United States senator and Democrats on the cusp of holding a dominant supermajority in the Senate.
There looks to be a good case for SCOTUS intervention:
Coleman's team argued that scores of ballots were wrongfully rejected and violated the Constitution's equal protection argument since election officials used different standards for counting thousands of absentee ballots. It called for the case to be remanded to lower court so that more ballots could be opened. But Franken's team successfully convinced the court otherwise and argued that it's not unusual for ballots to be rejected for any number of reasons.
If the situation were reversed, and the Democrats needed to prevent the GOP from gaining a prize, does anyone doubt that the appeal would be amply funded, and would be used to prevent the huge political gain of the 60th Senate vote?
The Democrats play hardball, while the GOP plays slow pitch softball.
