Discouraging words for Franken and recount from Cornyn and Pawlenty

The only credible means the Republicans have to block Franken is a filibuster which under the alleged Democratic leadership of Harry Reid they can accomplish by merely threatening one. Tripping over one another to avoid looking “partisan”, the Democrats in the Senate have never made the Republicans actually try to filibuster some action. The Republicans neutralized Democratic threats of filibusters to right wing Bush judiciary appointees by threatening to have it declared unconstitutional by a motion to Cheney as VP.

To a certain extent, I can see Democratic willingness to try to negotiate points which Republican say they fell so stringly about that they will threaten a filibuster. You pick your battles. But what issues and principles do these Democratic “leaders” stand for? On the other hand, if the filibuster is unconstitutional, why should one side be able to use it and the other not? It seems the whole idea of IOKIYRAR is enabled by this spineless and pathetic Democratic “leadership” which is unwilling to stand up for its own.

I agree with Pawlenty on this one. Never thought I’d write that sentence. The supreme court’s process is nonsense. I had to make sure I was reading it right when it came out, because it made so little sense. Obviously — if you’re not in the supreme court majority — the campaigns wouldn’t be able to agree on which ballots to count. A challenge process would have been fine, if each campaign could just appeal the decision to reject or not reject a rejected absentee ballot, but the veto power was stupid.

Did U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, support George W. Bush taking office, after the Reugnican Presidential election fraud in Florida?

Eric, what’s ironic is that Alan Page and, if I recall correctly, at least one other justice who wasn’t appointed by a Republican argued against that particular provision — Page did a rather stinging dissent — but Pawlenty didn’t say word one about it at the time.

Everyone knew that the Coleman people were going to be negotiating in bad faith. They’ve been high-handedly abusing the county elections boards in order to disqualify votes from Democratic areas like St. Louis County. (Just compare how differently their operatives worked in Anoka and Sherburne.) Now Alan Page, who dissented against the provision that allowed Coleman’s people to run roughshod over the county elections boards, gets to write the order dealing with the stunts we all knew Coleman’s people would be pulling.

OK. I was focused on the Cornyn comments and whizzed right past the Supreme Court/Pawlenty issues. If it is true that the Supreme court said that “either campaign can veto the counting of votes on any of about 1,350 absentee ballots that election officials have determined should have been counted” that cannot stand. I hate to agree with Pawlenty but if it that is what the Court ruled, it cannot stand. But I cannot believe that they issued such a ruling. If true, I sincerely hope that the Supreme Court reverses itself on that one.

But I will not let go on Coleman’s argument that some ballots were “double counted.’ That is a very bogus and insincere position.

jonerik, here’s what Paul Demko pulled out of the dissenting opinions to that ruling in his Dec. 18 MnIndy post:

Justice Page offered a blistering critique of the majority opinion. After first quoting Joseph Stalin (”I consider it completely unimportant who … will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes and how”), he argued that the court’s ruling will disenfranchise voters. “The court’s order may seek the peaceful way out by asking the campaigns to agree on improperly rejected ballots,” Page wrote. “But the order does not guarantee that the candidates and their political parties will agree on any rejected ballot. Instead the court’s order will arbitrarily disqualify enfranchised voters on the whim of the candidates and the political parties without the benefit of the legislatively authorized procedures” under state law.

Justice Anderson countered with a quote from British playwright Tom Stoppard (”It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting”) and was only slightly more reserved in voicing his disagreement with the ruling opinion. “I conclude that the majority’s opinion is flawed because it misreads Minnesota’s election laws, is internally inconsistent, and has essentially inserted this court into a political thicket based on a premise that lacks a basis under the law,” he wrote.

Here’s a pdf of the full opinion, including dissents.

When all is said and done Al Franken will be Minnesota’s new Senator. Whether this occurs in five days or five weeks, the voters are willing to wait.

PS – thanks, Minnesota Independent, for publishing the Opinion and dissents.

Good for you, Justice Page.