Here’s the big question: With Al Franken the certain, though not yet certified, winner of the Minnesota Senate race, and with Box Turtle John Cornyn threatening to huff and puff if Al’s allowed to be seated with his fellow Senators on Tuesday, will Harry Reid be as tough-minded against Norm Coleman as he is against Roland Burris?
Probably not, as The Politico (via Jed L) indicates:
Since he has not been certified a winner in the race, Coleman may have to give up his privileges as a senator, including his desk on the floor, his personal office and his right to vote on legislation, according to Democratic aides familiar with the rules.
Some of his staff members could continue to get paid for up to 60 days if they do not find new employment, but each eligible aide would need to return every two weeks and sign an affidavit to certify he or she has not found new work. Coleman still would be able to enter the Senate chambers and meet with his colleagues on the floor, since former members are granted floor privileges so long as they are not registered lobbyists.
It is possible, however, that all of Coleman’s privileges may remain intact should the two parties reach an accommodation, and aides signaled that talks were occurring on the matter through Friday.
“We are still reviewing the situation,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "Norm Coleman should respect the conclusions of the Minnesota State Canvassing Board."
Heh. I suspect Norm Coleman doesn’t respect anything that doesn’t involve folding money or a two-by-four to the face. Harry Reid is going to have to gut up and just say no to him. Oh, and Reid should seat Franken, too –because after all, Al’s won; it’s all over bar the (futile) lawsuits — and make John Cornyn follow through on his threatened F-You to the citizens of Minnesota.
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Harry Reid won’t be able to resist the opportunity to earn precious Villager approval by not only allowing Coleman to wander onto the Senate floor; he’ll be allowed to vote on whether to seat Burris as well. Harry huffs and puffs about everything, writing stern letters hither and yon — but he only stands his ground against Democrats.
See Dodd, Chris; FISA hold.
It’s almost too bad Harry Reid didn’t spend some time earning valuable political capital in the liberal blogosphere. We’d probably love to have his back. But: Nevada is new territory for Democrats to win in; a primary challenge in 2010 is just what a newly invigorated, union-rich, Obama-friendly Democratic party needs.
Harry Reid needs to realize that the race optics of seating either Coleman or Franken while denying Roland Burris his rightful seat are horrible, especially when leading the charge is a man whose religion not long ago preached the inferiority of African-Americans and whose theology still revolves around the mark of dark-hued skin.
The bizarre sense of decorum that rules the senate is almost embarrassing to watch. The Kabuki of the privileged elite, Harry dances it like the best of them. His inability to seize the moment and deliver some change his constituents could believe in is yet another nail in the coffin that is is legacy as a politician.
Caving time and again as leader of the opposition when the D’s were the minority, then failing entirely to lead when he became majority leader — his has been a truly dismal performance, and will, unfortunately, be allowed to continue. It was bad enough when it led to Iraq, FISA, etc. and now our economy may be at stakes as Harry gets set to deliver yet another commanding performance as spineless wimp.
No kidding.
The unofficial results from election night had Coleman ahead of Franken by 215 votes. Coleman then called on Franken to concede for the “good of Minnesota”.
Coleman is now behind Franken by a larger margin, isn’t it time for Coleman to concede? It’s what he expected his opponent to do.
Of course not. Instead, Norm’s got one or two legal actions left, which the Minnesota Soops will shoot down. He can’t go quietly, not with the Dems getting closer to the magic number of 60.
I know. I’m convinced the objective at this point is to keep as many Democrats as possible from the Senate, so the obstructionist Republican children can ruin the beginning of Obama’s presidency. Norm’s final act as a loyal GOP servant is most likely to drag the MN election out as far beyond January 20th as possible, and then he’ll get his wingnut welfare rewards.
2 x 4s! 2 x 4s! Getcher 2 x 4s ratcheer!
Who checks the updated list of registered lobbyists every time a former Senator attempts to leave the cloakroom for the Senate floor? Is there someone with an up-to-date list, ready to stop Trent Lott in his tracks? I imagine not. Perhaps it’s on the honor system.
hahahahaha
Exactly!
I half hope he seats Coleman and gives him flowers and candy on the floor while C-Span cameras get the whole thing.
I want to see the country explode on Reid, and that would trigger it.
Could Harry possibly be that tone-deaf?
VERY interesting article:
The trouble for Democrats is that it looks increasingly likely that there will be no resolution to the contested Minnesota Senate race by next Tuesday. If that happens, Democrats may have two uncredentialed Senators on their hands. Democrat Al Franken has all but declared victory in the Minnesota recount. Couple that with fellow Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar’s (D) call for the Senate to seat Franken based upon the tally of the recount, before any legal challenges are completed, and Franken may very well show up in the Capitol on Tuesday alongside Burris.
But Republicans have been preparing for just that eventuality, and Sen. Reid has handed them the strategy to block Franken with his position on Burris. National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) says that Senate Rule 2 applies to Franken just as equally as it does to Burris.
http://news.aol.com/political-…..l-franken/
The Republicans still act like they’re in the majority and the Democrats are letting them. Strange times we live in.
WHAM!
They may not be in the majority, but make no mistake – they are very much in charge.
Burris won’t get seated but Coleman might and Harry thought that none of the African Americans who I assume some of them won office couldn’t win office. Never mind how Joe campaigned for McCain told lies about Obama and got off scott free.
Is this crisis enough to knock Reid out?
I don’t think Coleman’s gonna go quietly
That senate seat may be in limbo for a long time
I’m sure Coleman’s lawyers are preparing motions to present to the courts
Yup. I see it that way too.
I’m beginning to wonder if Norm may be rethinking the whole challenge strategy.
See, here’s the deal: It was thought that, had the fifth-pile ballots been cast in the same percentages as were the rest of the ballots, Al Franken would have picked up around 30 more votes to give him a lead of about 80. Instead, he picked up 175 — and now leads Coleman by 225 votes.
That’s a big enough margin that even the local FOX News affiliate has been grudgingly forced to face reality tonight. It’ll definitely make it harder for Cornyn to justify his hissy fit, that’s for sure.
I am wondering just how corrupt Reid is. I’ve lost the ability to see his behavior in any other way. I have had too many WtF moments.
Yeah, unless they do a Supreme Court challenge, like in 2000, regardless of the people’s will. But it seems like a solid margin in a state race as opposed to nationally.
Lookit this:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/m…..09.article
And all the time Blago wanted subpoenas for the Obama team, it’s beginning to look like Reid was more in it than anybody!
He needs to be sacked.
The big Nevada win was all about the realization that the bottom really, really was falling out of the Excess of the casino vacation (and the workers realized it and were/are very scared. And in Nevada too it was about the housing market crash end to what had been an unrelenting influx of Californians and other outsiders to Nevada that ended, big-time pre-November. Nevada now is no longer the fastest growing state in the Nation. I don’t think Harry Reid had a thing to do with how anybody there voted.
You’d definitely think that they would. But it’s been over three hours since the state canvassing board finished the count, and there hasn’t been a peep from the Coleman camp. I think they expected that they’d only have to deal with an 80-vote Franken lead, since that was what The UpTake (the go-to site for following this event) was projecting, based on how the recount had gone thus far — and then were gobsmacked when Franken’s lead got deep into triple-digit territory. It’s a LOT harder to challenge a 225-vote lead than it is to challenge an 80-vote lead.
What’s going to be interesting is how the meltdown affects the 2010 census. I suspect that a lot of states that thought they would gain a CD might not after all.
Stirling Newberry is upstairs at the Mothership!
Lomberg Lies on Global Warming to Make Money
Thanks again, PW.
DIGG!!
SCOTUS, iirc, won’t hear cases on state procedures unless it has some connection to US Constitution.
The pod people are writing snotty LTTEs about the box discovered after the fact which contained 100 ballots, all of which went to Franken. The entire bunch of them were on a paper tape which was dated 2 Nov, 2008. So that is going to be something they will hang their hat on forever.
Message to Coleman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJBxGsCJD3I
397 hrs 7 19 min
We might need to write LTEs back.
Is done. I can’t resist.
But if Cronyn threatens to hold his breath until he gets his way, Reid will have to cave in – who can stand up to that kind of pressure?
Can I crib from yours? All that’s coming to mind is “We won. Get over it!”
nice
I used that same line as a closer after a few choice Scalia snarkisms, pointed out how the Republicans have no place accusing anyone of electoral hi-jinks, and claimed the only people who thought that was an issue was Mistress Malkin (couldn’t resist) and the RW Bloggers. A 150 words make it hard to get in what you want to say! The Editorial Staff of our major Daily has taken a Rightward shift lately and is primarily printing incendiary RW letters, perhaps to create controversy or maybe to show this college town what frightful troglodytes walk among us!
Coleman is in a very weak position. All he really can do now is monkeywrench, delay, misrepresent the recount process, and try to make Franken look bad.
Reid will probably sit Coleman to make sure Republicans are happy, but he won’t seat Burris! Never! Reid helping his own party? NEVER!!!!
How on earth could Coleman be seated?
Is this part of that “even when Republicans lose, they win” rule?
The unwritten constitution
According to the Constitution, every two years we have a completely new Congress. Any holdovers in membership are purely incidental.
But the reality is that the Congress has less turnover than the late-unlamented Soviet Politburo. So of course its membership has gotten used to carrying over the internal power structure from Congress to Congress, and to otherwise think of those elections every two years as pesky formalities interrupting what is, by rights, their continuing membership in this elite club.
A government of laws and not of men? Hmmm… Sounds like a nice idea. Maybe we should try it some time.
actually, if it requires backbone reid will no doubt pass.