Franken Wins Again
From the Star Tribune:
After a trial spanning nearly three months, Norm Coleman’s attempt to reverse Al Franken’s lead in the recount of the U.S. Senate election was soundly rejected today by a three-judge panel that dismissed the Republican’s lawsuit.
The judges swept away Coleman’s argument that the election and its aftermath were fraught with systemic errors that made the results invalid.
Apparently Coleman has more fruitless appeals to make, so the seating of Al Franken can continue to be delayed.
It’s worth remarking a bit on the incredible solidarity the Minnesota GOP is showing with their colleagues’ broader interest in obstructing the inevitable here. Representatives John Kline, Erik Paulsen, and Michele Bachmann, along with Governor Tim Pawlenty, are all seeing their quest to get Minnesota’s fair share of pork and other parochial interests undermined by the fact that their state only has one Senator. Normally, I would expect politicians in that kind of situation to put the interests of themselves and their state ahead of the interests of their political party. In general, the level of party discipline that the Republicans have been able to muster in 2009 (thus far) is really impressive and goes against a lot of conventional wisdom about how the American political system operates. I hope some smart political scientists are doing some thinking about this.
33 Responses to “Franken Wins Again”
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April 13th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I think they’re a bunch of wankers who can’t abide a particular aspect of the outcome of the last election. (Hint: it’s not that Stuart Smalley came out ahead.)
April 13th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
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April 13th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Hey, RG, glad to hear you like the site. Say, you don’t happen to know where I can get buy gold for Runescape, do you? I’ve been looking everywhere.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Not remotely a lawyer, but I reviewed the relevant statutes in MN some time ago and I see no reason why the MN Supreme Court (or for that matter, the US Supreme Court) would entertain an appeal. They aren’t bound to do so by law, they already had one order that addressed every relevant issue, and Coleman was required by law to complain about the things he’s bringing up now within 7 days of the end of the election. Unless I’m totally naive it looks like almost every political commentator is discounting the real chance that Franken could be seated in a week or two. Something that would be a minor game changer in the Senate right now.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
The big reason for the holdup is just that McConnell would rather pay constant legal fees than put the 59th Democratic butt in a Senate seat, right? It’s hard to argue with the strategic calculus there.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Because it looks grim for the whole state full of Republicans when an incumbent Senator loses to a comedy writer and radio host.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Agreeing with Matt’s larger point that the Repugs across the board have shown remarkable solidarity at time when you would expect splintering into factions and internal dissension… It is almost stunning to watch them march in lock-step as they head toward the cliff, cheerfully babbling about cutting taxes and shrinking government all the way to the end.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:03 am
@DTM – I don’t see how there’s any Federal jurisdiction here at all for this to go to district court… it’s a matter that’s been decided under MN law under the direction of an order from the MN Supreme Court. Appeals would have to go straight back to the MN Supreme Court or the US Supreme Court, right?
April 14th, 2009 at 12:04 am
i don’t think there’s anything complcated about republican soidarity. for quite a while now, the republican party has attracted, promoted, and enshrined authoritarian personalities. groupthink is the only think they know.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:14 am
how he’s GIVING them taxation without representation. Sorry, folks.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:14 am
I’m sure all the Tea Party-goers are going to descend on Coleman’s home to protest how he’s denying them taxation without representation.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Staininst solidarity will pay off, come the revolution. They know too that Karl it taking names, keeping files. One little slip up any time and they know Karl “will fuck them like they have never been fucked before”. More immediately Rush could call them out at any moment. Oh sure, they will kiss the ring if they transgress but why risk it.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:25 am
AP headline: ‘Minn. court declares Franken leading vote-getter’
SAY IT! SAY HE WON!! WHY WON’T YOU JUST FUCKING SAY IT?!!!?
April 14th, 2009 at 12:33 am
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR COLEMAN!!!
April 14th, 2009 at 12:38 am
I think what’s happening in today’s Republican party is akin to Giffen goods in economics. Under ordinary circumstances when the price of one good goes up its consumption declines and consumption of substitutes increases. But in certain circumstances the opposite occurs. The classic economic example of this is the Irish potato famine. As the price of potatoes went up relative to other food items, people had no money left for other foods, which were still more expensive, that could be used as a substitute. So, potato consumption went up.
Politically, under ordinary circumstance as demand for a particular set of ideological positions declines those positions are dropped or deemphasized by the political party that holds them for others that have a broader appeal and coherent message is fashioned from the new ones.
However, its seems that the demand for the conservative ideal that form the nucleus of the Republican party have dropped so rapidly that the process of ideological repositioning has been short circuited, and instead of ejecting old ideals, the people who advance new ideas are being ejected. Thus creating a kind of vicious circle of diminishing appeal and radicalization.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:42 am
At what point will it become obvious that folks like our hero service-members who need constituent services to get the VA to deal with their care issues, etc, are being screwed by Coleman’s delay after delay tactics.
MN Republican’s may not care about the ‘pork’ we’re missing out on, but surely there are Iraq war vets out there who are suffering because Amy Klobuchar’s staff (who I’m sure are doing all the can) just cannot realistically do 2X the constituent services for much longer without Vets loosing benefits and maybe loosing more than that.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:47 am
AP headline: ‘Astronomers declare round earth leading theory’
- – - – -
Other outlets aren’t so frackin’ coy.
Politico: ‘3 judge panel declares Franken winner’
USA Today: ‘Court says Franken winner by 312 votes; Coleman vows appeal’
Minneapolis Star Tribune: ‘Judges rule Franken winner; Coleman to appeal’
UPI: ‘Court: Franken defeats Coleman’
FOX9: ‘Franken Declared Winner’
And the NYT?
NYT: ‘In Minnesota, Another Blow to Coleman’
Frack you too.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:57 am
No one should still be surprised by this: from the moment they called the election for Obama, the Republican strategy has been all-out opposition to any measure he or the Democratic Congress attempt to enact to deal with the mess Bush left behind. Witness the near unanimity of the Republicans in Congress, the repeated attempts by Republican governors to block the stimulus spending, and this death struggle with Franklin, all taking place amid ever-increasingly hysterical rhetoric from the GOP media voices from Fox News to Limbaugh to Beck. None of these are isolated incidents: they represent the last stand of the GOP under the banner of Reaganism. Whatever ‘moderate’ Republicans say, their actions speak to their fundamental agreement with this strategy.
Obviously it’s too early to tell how Colemann and the other Republicans in Minnesota will react to this, but I suspect they will adhere to the Republican gameplan and fight this all the way to the Supreme Court, in the hopes that Kennedy agrees with Bush v. Gore’s holding that close elections where the Democrats are leading must be overturned on equal-protection grounds.
If they don’t, maybe it’s the first sign that Republicans realize how much their nihilistic stance has damaged them, even in the short time since the election. But I’m not holding my breath.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:59 am
End italics. Sorry about that.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:04 am
One interesting factor however is that ironically, this may benefit Franken. He is in some cases missing many of the significant votes that theoretically could come back to bit him in the rear in 2014. But instead, he literally can claim to have been against the huge stimulus bill etc.. Essentially, it allows him to choose when and where to ride with the decisions being made now, and will provide him political cover that I bet many wish they had.
Now that is a very cynical view, and if anything, Al Franken likely wishes he were able to take part in these discussions and debates and have a part in a historical congressional term.
But then again, he is the winner, and is in an odd position of literally having the longest grace period between a legislative victory and actually having to prove something to the voters. And because this is a Senate seat (unlike a Rep seat), he will likely still have a good 4.5 years to work on actual progressive legislation. I would be more concerned if he literally was going to face re-election in 2010, and essentially would miss out on his 1 years of not having to campaign.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Matt’s wonder at “the level of party discipline that the Republicans have been able to muster in 2009″ which he calls “really impressive” is misplaced, when you consider two devastating facts. First, there is no coherent substantive vision of what the Republican Party stands for, in the wake of their removal from national power. In the absence of substance, disputing process (e.g. a close election) is a substitute for thinking. It’s also an unconscious way of refighting 2008 and trying to get a different result. Second, the extremist sloganeering by broadcast bullies like Limbaugh and Beck has frightened into silence virtually all rational thinkers in the Republican elite, so the only outlet for their energy is trying to obstruct Democrats’ consolidation of power and their recasting of the purposes of government. It is one thing to muster party unity in the cause of constructive change. It is quite another to apply it to obstruction. The latter is only going to deepen the Republican Party’s association with negative, disruptive events. Until a rational thinker and speaker who has constructive ideas emerges among Republicans, they are merely sound and fury, transfixing broadcast reporters and bloggers but very few other Americans outside their dogmatic base.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:05 am
I think it is a pretty clear case that the 59th seat for Democrats is going to impose a huge marginal cost on the Republicans, and so they are opposing it with all hands on deck.
On another note, the party discipline right now is impressive simply because it might pay off in a year or two. If the economic stimulus does not work and the economy does not start recovering, the Republicans are going to come out of this looking awfully attractive compared to their position right now, which is miserable. They are going to essentially pull another Carter-Reagan if Mr Obama proves inefficacious.
At this point, there is nothing to be gained by internal fighting. The patronage positions are already gone; and frankly, it is not like fighting against the national GOP is going to keep an endangered GOPer in his seat. We saw what happened with the last New England GOP Congressman, who was extremely moderate, in the 2008 election; he serves as a warning that parading one’s independence is no cure for lousy party fortunes.
I think the conservatives will have to stake this one out. Whenever I hear people getting depressed by this political development or another, I remind them of the Afrikaner Voortrekkers; right now if the Republicans can manage the same, perhaps even their own Battle of the Blood River, they are on the road to recovery.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:23 am
Whenever I hear people getting depressed by this political development or another, I remind them of the Afrikaner Voortrekkers
Well, that’s quite the analogy. Now I can’t get Nick Broomfield’s documentary on Eugene Terre’Blanche out of my head, and Miley plummets to new depths of ridiculousness.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:50 am
This is not hard to fathom. The court battle seems hopeless, but less groundless than it is hopeless (I said *seems*). And it’s going on against the backdrop of some general feeling among some people that the Dems getting close to 60 is really bad. I can imagine how seating the rightful winner could fade in importance, and that the number of people in MN really outraged by this wouldn’t rise much above the number of people who actually voted for Franken.
All that said, it makes me laugh to think of any politician whatsoever thinking to themselves, “Franken is really left wing. But we need that pork. Let’s let them seat him, for the sake of pork.” I really doubt that Franken will be brining home the bacon in the first few weeks of his late-coming first term, and I doubt many politicians crave the *pork that the other party gets* for their state, just because it’s pork.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Re: And will the U.S. Senate then accept Franken, possibly over the objection of much of the Republican caucus?
I don’t think the GOP can fillibuster the seating of a senator, so even if every Republican in the Senate votes No on seating Fraken, seated he will still be (I am assuming that the Democrats all vote to seat him of course)
Re: the repeated attempts by Republican governors to block the stimulus spending,
To be fair, only three or four governors have played that game. Some, like Crist and Schwartzeneggar, couldn’t wait to get their hands on that cash.
Re: in the hopes that Kennedy agrees with Bush v. Gore’s holding that close elections where the Democrats are leading must be overturned on equal-protection grounds.
???
When was Gore leading in Florida? I followed that nailbiter as closely as anyone (and was just as appalled by the results) but Gore was never ahead.
Re: the Republicans are going to come out of this looking awfully attractive compared to their position right now
How? They haven’t got a single positive idea. Cutting the estate and capital gains tax? Like that will be a winner if the economy is still in the tank in two years? At least Gingrich and Co. had proposals that were appealing to the voters in 1994, even though they promptly dropped most of them once they had taken Congress. The GOP’s chances of taking back Congress in 2010 are about equal to mine of being enthroned as the next King of England.
April 14th, 2009 at 7:38 am
You forget the 11th Commandment, as issued by St. Ronald:
“Thou shalt not attack fellow Republicans”
April 14th, 2009 at 8:25 am
In general, the level of party discipline that the Republicans have been able to muster in 2009 (thus far) is really impressive and goes against a lot of conventional wisdom about how the American political system operates. I hope some smart political scientists are doing some thinking about this.
That’s because they’re fascists.
You’re welcome. Please make the check out to Scythia Jones, Smart Political Consulting LLC.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Brining it would make it ham.
It is very common for a state’s congressional delegation to ignore party differences and work together to get pork.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Al @ 35: You’re definitely wrong about Social Security. My own rep, Allen Boyd, a Democrat, was out in front, pushing hard for Social Security privatization. And there were definitely others. Democrats simply have never had the sort of party discipline that Republicans do.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Al’s also wrong about Bolton. Landrieu, Pryor, and (Ben) Nelson all voted for cloture on his nomination.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I think Republicans have to (and are) thinking of their current respite from power as their own Groote Trek; they just have to stick through together, and that’s what they are doing.
April 14th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
they just have to stick through together
I believe this was the British strategy for advancing on the German lines during the trench warfare of WWI, as well.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Well, in my office of political scientists at the political science dept. of a Big10 university, we were talking about this a few weeks ago, and agreed that it was probably explained by the increasing density of the decreasingly-wide GOP congressional delegations’ ideal-point distributions. As they’ve become more and more homogeneous (by losing moderate-district elections) it should get easier and easier to maintain party loyalty.
But as for modeling this behavior goes, yeah, I’m sure you’re going to see a lot of it in the coming years.