There’s bipartisan agreement that stalling Franken’s seating helps the GOP

Saying out loud that forestalling Al Franken’s likely seating in the U.S. Senate helps the Republicans? It’s not just for Democrats and Huffington Post reporters anymore. In an article headlined “GOP senators in no hurry for Minn. seat to be filled,” The Hill taps into a rich vein of Republican satisfaction at Franken’s prolonged absence from the halls of power in Washington, D.C.:

“If Franken was going to vote on the stimulus package, they wouldn’t necessarily need one of the Republicans. So yeah, it matters,” said Ron Bonjean, a former top aide to several Senate Republicans … “It’s better for us to have one less member,” said a top GOP leadership aide, though the aide acknowledged of Franken: “He’s got a very good shot at winning.”

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) told The Hill, “The Republicans have clearly, largely speaking, as a body, come to the conclusion that continuing to impede the agenda is their way to be meaningful in some way. If that’s what they’re going to do, then a lot of legislation will be affected by how many votes we have.” An example, he said, is how things might have shaken out differently on the Senate’s economic stimulus bill with Franken seated:

There would have been more negotiating room. There would have been greater opportunity to ensure that, for example, efforts on school construction would have survived. The efforts to ensure that the tax cuts that are geared toward working families, more so, would have been strengthened. Al Franken is, in my mind, the clear victor, and every day that he doesn’t sit in the Senate is a day that Minnesota is denied a voice and a vote.