thanx again for the update pw

I don’t know if this is answered yet but doesn’t coleman owe some expenses to franken?

have those been determined?

does franken still get those if this appeal fails?

OT: Breaking per MSNBC – Pawlenty to not seek third term

The last amount I heard (end of lower court proceedings) was $94k. If the MNSC rules in favor of Franken the expenses for the appeal would be added to the previous amount. If Franken were to lose I would imagine all would be forfeited.

that probably means he’s going to stall signing

Is it April FIrst yet? Harry Reid told me this would be over by April First.

If the Minn Supremes rule in Franken’s favor, can they compel Pawlenty to sign the certificate?

Or, can Minnesota voters launch a class action lawsuit against Pawlenty?

I am not a lawyer but it seems that if they order him to sign and he refuses they could find him in contempt. What that means I don’t know that there would be sanctions. However I would think that the senate could say enough of this crap and seat him.

Well TPaw just announced that he’s not running for another term as Governor, so now he’s got no accountability to MN citizens at all anymore. He’s free (and forced, and oh so willing) to be an agent of the republican party, Grover Nordquist, and the christianist right.

It is some slight consolation that the jerk will be gone in less than two years. Good frickin’ ridance.

I think the $94,000 is for the witness tampering Coleman’s side did, not the actual amount for the election contest. Unless I’m completely off base.

Pawlenty knows he can’t win relection, having been elected the first two times by small margins. And now he has to appease his no-taxes buddies by slashing so much from the budget Minnesota will start to seem like California. As for not signing the certificate, Pawlenty’s only punishment, I believe, would be the threat of impeachment. Which can’t happen before August.

Bottom line, though, is Harry Reid could announce that Pawlenty’s a jackass and seat Franken at any time. That certificate thing is nonsense that Reid latched onto to try and keep Burris out.

That won’t happen because that would require a spine transplant for Harry Reid.

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Phoenix Woman and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

What this is boilin’ down to is a test of the Minnesota Supreme Court and how far the frightened children of the DFL party have allowed the fascists to corrupt one of the last remaining truely domocratic states in the US.

If the MN Supreme Court doesn’t rule unanimously and doesn’t issue a writ of mandamus then they are in it with the crypto-Nazis and Pawlenty will stall until the SCOTUS refuses to hear the case.

Pawlenty will not sign the election certificate, even if ordered to by the Minnesota Supreme Court. He’ll file a Federal appeal of any court action designed to force him to sign, while complaining about ’activist judges.’ In 2011, Pawlenty will be given a job as a Heritage Foundation lobbyist and Fox Noise commentator, then will be Palin’s VP pick in 2012. Coleman will run for Governor in Minnesota in 2010, even as his Federal lawsuit regarding the ’08 election prevents Minnesota from having a second senator.

If the Supremes rule in favor of Franken, but Pawlenty refused to sign off, can’t the Democratic-controlled Senate seat Franken anyway? It seems there was talk of this months ago, but they chickened out. But once it has become completely clear that Franken won, can they vote to seat him?

I’m asking because I’m not an expert and I’m going from memory.

I have two words for Pawlenty if he decides to screw his constituency: Rudy Guiliani.

Given yesterday’s post over at Huffington touting Pawlenty as the emerging common sense Republican, clearly the presidential bid is underway.

All I can say is, if the American people didn’t learn from the big mistake of GDubya who went from ruining Texas to the ruination of America, then Pawlenty will likely gain some traction.

Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, from one end of the state to the other, nursing homes are facing huge cutbacks, small towns and cities and townships will need ginormous property tax increases to cover the crumbling infrastructure and services, and Pawlenty leaves chaos in his wake.

Yes. Harry Reid has the power to seat Franken now.

Pawlenty will now refuse to sign the certificate. The R’s will pounce on Hapless Harry if and when Harry is browbeaten by D Party leaders (and or D Party consensus) into seating Franken without the governor’s certificate. The media will help the R Party lambaste, chastise, malign and ridicule Hapless Harry and the D Party for skirting the law or some wuch idiocy. We should be prepared for new RNC talking points and labelling such as: An Activist Democrat Senate Run Amok, Drunk with Power, Lawless, Shameful, Conceited, etc.

Senate Democrats will then recognize that the R Party does have some validity to their arguments and a quasi apology will be ordered by the R party and the media will facilitate the whole charade.

All very true.

The Uptake has a byline running saying Pawlenty has agreed to sign immediately if the court so rules, or is that just a comment on their chyron?

Aw, PS, he’s just so gosh darn telegenic. He looks common sensical!

It is some slight consolation that the jerk will be gone in less than two years. Good frickin’ ridance.

They could get rid of him earlier than that with a recall election. Just sayin’…

I got this from CBSnews:

At his press conference today, Pawlenty said he is “going to do whatever the court says” regarding signing an election certificate, though it remains unclear whether he will be directed to do so if Franken wins.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2…..6634.shtml

I thought Pawlenty said the other day that he would do what the MNSC says to do. I don’t think he made the decision not to run overnight. Should he refuse to sign the certificate he’s still got a year and a half as governor and I imagine the legislature can make it a miserable year and a half if they so choose.

I saw a fair chunk of the hearing on CSPAN, and I could only chuckle watching the Coleman attorney. The man had neither facts nor law to argue, and he wound up sounding like some particularly loud, inarticulate Bubba talkin’ ’bout ‘is rights!!! doncha know…very schadenfreudie-delicious, since I just love watching wingnuts try their arguments in the real world…

I hope that does not occur. Here is my dream for what I would like to see:

I’d like to see Tim-a-fee-pawlunty (destroyer of bridges) go ahead and refuse to sign as you suggest. Then I’d like Happless Harry to do nothing–nothing visible in this avenue, anyway. I’d prefer to think he could better spend his energy NOT fighting the media and the collective echo chamber of nonsense; rather, I’d like to think he is actually leader of the Senate for a reason and, as such, would take this opportunity to leverage more moderate Republicans to support the President’s agenda, making the Franken vote a moot point, belabored only by the lizard brains and their talking heads.

Then, I’d love to see Al Franken go on tour as the famously NON-Seated Senator from Minnesota–pulling out all the stops on his backlog of wit and satire; becoming a lightning rod for the “big fat liar” and his ilk–indeed, courting and engaging their ire and attention. Let Al be highly vocal on what his vote WOULD have been in any particular circumstance and let that juxtaposition draw a huge, flaming, red circle around the fact that another Republican gambit is circumventing the law of the land for each and every vote that he misses. Let the Limpbaw, the Gingrinch, whomever…rail against Al in his unassailable position of non-positionness. Then, watch as Al Franken continues on the public circuit, to eviscerate those enemies as only a very gifted satirist can. Satire does not become a sitting Senator, it is true; but, I think it very much becomes an ironically non-sitting Senator. In fact, I think it is very much called for.

Pretty much.

What’s so galling about this soap opera is the utter absence of urgency on the part of Franken and the Senate Dems. They seem completely content to let this matter continue indefinitely, which I don’t understand at all. Franken should have been sworn in as a Senator months ago, but at the rate things are going — and the apparent languid indifference of the Senate Democrats — it could be months more or even years before all the possible complications are ironed out sufficiently for Franken to take his seat in the Senate.

Senate Dems showed a lot more interest in getting Burris seated… but they seem content to let this Franken Thing go on without a resolution for just as long as it wants to.

“What’s so galling about this soap opera is the utter absence of urgency on the part of Franken and the Senate Dems. They seem completely content to let this matter continue indefinitely, which I don’t understand at all.”

Yes it is very slow and deliberate — but that is because every element of the process is written into state Statute Law. I would agree the system could work with slightly more urgency, but the point of it all is to simply count all legal votes, and then make the award to the guy with the most at the end of the process. And the appeal to the State Supreme Court is the end of the process.

And this is why it really isn’t a soap opera. The Republicans would love for it to have been scripted that way, but from Day One, Franken and his legal team have treated it as a serious judicial process. Thus all the more ironic that during oral arguments the most conservative judges on the bench noted that Coleman, after all these months, had no evidence backing up his claims. I don’t think the court will be at all kind to Coleman in their opinion — I think they were insulted by the empty argument.

My sense is the opinion will come down late next week — perhaps even sooner. I don’t think there is much division among the justices, and since they have had two weeks plus three weekends with the briefs before the oral argument, I would even guess they have considerable parts of their opinion in draft form, and what is left to write involves the questions they asked. Franken has already requested in briefs a direct order to the Governor to execute the election certificate — and I would not be surprised at all if they append that to their opinion. Since their first brush with this case last November when Franken asked under public information laws for access to election records, the court has carefully followed existing law and precidents. I think now they want to dispose of it — their patience and that of many here abouts is nearing the end.

Yes.

Unfortunately, an overreliance on “process” here has made it appear that neither the Senate Dems nor Mr. Franken himself is particularly concerned with the matter at issue, that is representing the People of Minnesota. The Senate Dems appear to be completely disinterested in the matter, and Mr. Franken appears to be so caught up in the process, the dispute as it were, that he seems to be content to let it drag on indefinitely. It’s as if his dispute with Mr. Coleman has become an end in itself. Which is why I call it a soap opera.

Of course it may appear very different to Minnesotans. They may be just fine with the way things are going, the slow and plodding pace, the endless rehashing of the same bitter arguments. The dénouement possibly forever put off…

I’ll stop before this becomes a segment of “A Prairie Home Companion….”

…use it didn’t push requiring photo ID (which is an EP violation if ever I’ve heard one as it impacts the poor and elderly…

The level of scrutiny applied in an equal protection analysis of poverty depends on the role of poverty in the discrimination. If we are talking about family relationships or treatment in the criminal justice system, the Supreme Court expects the state to show it has a compelling interest in treating the poor differently. If it is a civil matter, however, plaintiff must show that the state has no rational basis for its treatment, i.e. state wins almost every time. The same rational basis standard applies to age discrimination.

However, the right to vote is a fundamental right, so what I think Christian Sande is saying here is that, taken together, strict scrutiny would apply to a requirement that the voter produce a photo ID to be able to vote. The state would have to overcome the discriminatory effect, say, by providing photo IDs to all at no cost and replacing the expiring driver’s licenses of elderly people automatically with photo IDs. That would leave a very small group of seniors who never held driver’s licenses needing some special arrangement. All that for a crappy card that might help (or not) at the liquor store and getting travel discounts, with a tangential effect on voting. Thinking it through, a special photo ID for voting is a pretty dumb idea. What is a good ID? In Finland, for example, you start with a social security number that includes your date of birth. You can then put that on your scannable and secure polycarbonate national health insurance card.