Matt Yglesias

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.

Burris Changes His Tune on Blago Contacts

It seems to me that Roland Burris never should have accepted Ron Blagojevic’s offer to have him become a pawn in the corrupt governor’s insane gambits. And he certainly shouldn’t have done this:

Senator Roland W. Burris of Illinois acknowledged in documents made public Saturday that the brother of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich sought campaign fund-raising help from him in the weeks and months before his appointment to succeed Barack Obama as the state’s junior senator.

Mr. Burris said he provided no money to Governor Blagojevich’s campaign in response to the brother’s request.

The disclosure was different from Mr. Burris’s earlier descriptions, including one under oath, of his conversations with those closest to the former governor. It raised new questions about events that preceded Mr. Burris’s unusual appointment in late December and prompted some Republican lawmakers in Illinois to immediately demand an inquiry into whether Mr. Burris committed perjury.

The good news, though, is that Blago is on his way out one way or another. But meanwhile the equally corrupt Norm Coleman, despite having been beaten at the ballot box, is getting solid support from Republicans across the country in his effort to mount endless legal challenges and keep Al Franken out of the Senate.

A Job for Norm

Norm Coleman’s still fighting for the Minnesota Senate seat he already lost, but he’s also taken new employment as a consultant to the Republican Jewish Committee. The RJC is extremely good at getting the press to write stories every four years about Jewish voters turning against the Democrats. It’s not so good at actually getting Jewish voters to turn against the Democrats, who regularly get 75-80 percent of the Jewish vote.